I've had many "good" bumps and often times will purposely select routes and travel times that I know will be busy. One of my better ones happened last summer from MSP to a small town in MI on NW Airlink. I was traveling with a group of four and could see that our gate was crazy so I asked the agent to put my name and one of my travel partners (who I talked into it) on the volunteer list since the flight was overbooked. We did get bumped. Over an hour after the original flight had departed the gate, the agent was just finishing up with our $400 travel vouchers, meal vouchers and hotel reservations when our other two travel partners arrived back. Our original flight had waited on a sweltering runway for nearly an hour before taking off and then one of the engines overheated on takeoff and they had to return. The agent was able to rebook us along with the rest of the passengers from our original flight on a larger aircraft and let us keep the vouchers "for our trouble" (I didn't think waiting inside the air-conditioned airport was much trouble in comparison to those who had to sit in that small plane on a 100 degree runway for an hour) . I was even able to use the meal vouchers a few days later when I came back through MSP. Talk about a good deal! Another time a few months ago, a friend and I each got $50 vouchers from United just for volunteering. That was a first.

[This message has been edited by MauiGirl (edited 07-05-2000).]