China Eastern Airlines has added an “oversale seat surrender” option to booking pages on selected flights in its app, website and mini program from August 25, offering a 50 yuan discount on domestic tickets and 100 yuan on international and regional tickets, according to Jiemian News. If the flight is not actually oversold, passengers can still travel normally and do not need to return the discount.

China Eastern also raised the compensation caps in its latest oversale service plan. For domestic economy and premium economy passengers rebooked onto later flights, compensation is capped at 1,000 yuan if arrival is delayed by up to four hours and 1,500 yuan if the delay exceeds four hours; first-class and business-class caps are 1,500 yuan and 2,000 yuan. For international and regional flights, economy-class compensation can reach 5,000 yuan on long-haul routes such as Europe, the Middle East and North America, while first-class and business-class caps are 6,000 yuan. In March, the corresponding domestic caps were 400 yuan for a 0-4 hour rebooking delay and 500 yuan for delays beyond four hours.

The airline said passengers who opt in will be given priority for later rebooking if overselling occurs, while still retaining compensation rights under China Eastern's oversale service plan. Jiemian News reported that the move follows a joint regulatory interview with 10 airlines and five online travel agencies, which were told to complete self-inspections and rectification by August 31 after Beijing market regulators said the industry’s usual oversale ratio is about 3% and only 0.14% of surveyed passengers could accurately identify oversale situations. Beijing market regulators also said 32.88% of passengers opposed the oversale model and 44.85% accepted it only if disclosure and compensation were improved.