Originally Posted by pitcarin
I have been bumped a number of times but it is always when I have only carryon luggage. Now, I am on a flight where I will be checking luggage but I think the opportunity for a bump is pretty good. Assuming you are at the gate when they ask for volunteers, my question is:
1. when you check luggage do you become a less attractive bump candidate for the gate agent because of the difficulty of trying to find your bag in the luggage compartment?
2. Do they have a pretty easy way to find your bag in the luggage compartment if they select you for the bump or is it just a sea of bags underneath?
3. any other suggestions to make it easy for the GA to keep me as the volunteer even if I have checked luggage?
1. Yes
2. No and Yes, respectively
3. Sabotage the other passengers w/o checked bags by telling another AAgent that you're that person and that you no longer wish to volunteer, or frighten the other volunteers with chincy compensation stories + tales of reaccommodation on Southwest on a standby basis only. Perhaps they will de-volunteer themselves if sufficiently "motivated".
When you check bags, your attractiveness as a volunteer decreases significantly unless you are a very easy reroute compared to the other pax and you don't mind being separated from your bags for possibly a day or even more, as reuniting bumped pax with checked bags is often done poorly.