Hey all,

I'd like to ask for your experiences with something that's been a fantastic thing for me and my family over the years: giving up your seat for vouchers.

First off, this is possible for me because I never ever have a rigid travel schedule. But it's been so great that "getting bumped" has now become a fixture in my travel planning, in terms of trying to fly at peak times on loaded planes and busy routes.

It started almost 10 years ago, flying DTW - RSW in March (Canadian spring break) on AA. We would depart DTW on a Friday evening, always connecting in RDU and return the next Sunday. Departure from DTW would always be normal, but whenever we got to RDU (AA hub at the time), the leg to RSW was oversold. The first time we heard the offer to give up our seats, we were taken aback. The fact that they were going to give us $200 or $300 for 1 or 2 hours was almost incredulous to us and we jumped at the chance. But then it happened more frequently, on other routes, and the offers went up. Once we earned $750 per person (4 of us) for a *negative* time delay. Yep. AA held a UA plane on the tarmac that had already pulled back, and they drove us out in a van, pulled up stairs and boarded us (first class, nonetheless), thanking us profusely all the way (Uh, no no, thank YOU!) We flew for free for years -- it ended when we started cruising and made the mistake of having the cruise company book our flights the first few times, and we got out of the cycle.

But I've learned the "system" quite well. Coming back from a YYZ-MIA trip, I nabbed $350 on DL for a 20 min delay in ATL. A sale a few months later allowed me to book a trip to Paris that only ended up costing me $166. As a university student, going to Paris would have been totally out of reach without the voucher.

So now all I look for is to get back into the cycle on DL (I didn't manage to be on any oversold flights to CDG in Feb) and keep propagating it. So I'm looking for other people's experiences with this and to get more insight into "working the system."

If what I've read is correct, some 80% of these vouchers given out by the airlines go unused. Not when they're in my hands . And if the FAA's load factor reports I read last week are any indication, things are looking good for "getting bumped" -- I know, I know, it's voluntary, but I call it that anyway -- in the future.

Anybody care to share their experiences/tips/tricks?

Elektrik