How much does CO overbook by?
 

Seatcounter is showing my DCA-IAH flight as O across the board, and the connection from IAH to LIR with 4 seats only in C. We are talking about Spring Break. All day looks very full.

Heard you could volunteer at the kiosk, but is that true for International also?
How much is offered these days?


Would love to get family of 4 bumped provided they put us on another airline (US looks open, other codeshare airlines do not) Will they do that? Don't want to volunteer at kiosk and find out we have to go the next day.

Thank you for any advice.

Yes you can volunteer at the kiosk. Then you proceed to the gate area and speak with the GA to find out what your options are. If you do not like the plans for rebooking advise the GA that you no longer wish to be a volunteer. CO prefers to rebook you on the next available CO flight. If that flight is for the next day you should also receive a voucher to pay for your hotel and meals.

The amount of the bump varies depending on the rerouting and times of arrival.

Also keep in mind that zeros across the board doesn't necessarily mean that a flight is overbooked; it only means that they are no longer selling seats on it.

Yes, thank you, I understand that about the zeros. Any experience with how much they overbook by or does that pretty much mean just full? I don't usually fly on CO.

It varies, and there's no simple answer to this.

They could overbook a mainline by 0, by 2 by 10, who knows. It depends on the market, historical factors, and operational conditions.

How much a flight is overbooked by will depend on historical data on that flight. Some will be overbooked more than others & there is a good chance some flights will not be overbooked at all.

They can even zero out a flight that is not booked to capacity, effectively under-selling the plane, if they think that there will be operational reasons to need those seats for some reason. That usually only happens when there are major weather issues or something, but it does happen.

In general, flight time is a decent indicator.

E.g. friday afternoon some routes are full of ppl who book multiple flights for their weekend or standby as soon as they can get out of office, therefore, you'll have a number of noshows on later flights and overbook more.

Does vary highly by route and time of day though, as mentioned above.

I found for Domestic flights that 4 is usually the magic # of being oversold by, keep in mind that I had a few flights already in '09 that were at the 4 mark and each flight still went out with taking Stand-bys = alot of no-shows

For an Intl flight once you have submitted your bags (if any) you can no longer Vol. So for an Intl you will simply have to hang out by the check-in counter till the flight is gonna be closed to anyone else to check-in. At that time if they dont need you they will tell you to check-in if they need you You Scored teh VDB

For domestic flights its all done at the Gate, the negative about this is they will wait till T-15, at T-15 if they see they wont need you they will tell you to board but if the flight is full, you may have to gate check your carry-ons if the bins are already full, and they usually are. I usually will ask by T-20 how it looks if I dont get 'we will need your seat' then I tell them to take me off the list Im boarding. So far any time I took myself off the list and got on board, no vols were used.

My last trip out of PHL it was oversold by 4, by the time we got to the gate we were #s 2&3 @ T-20 I asked and was told its over by 1, so I said BPs please we are getting on, the GA said we wont take you off if we need you, I said being over by 1 and us being #s 2&3 you wont need us. I saw #1 board next to last w/o her carry-on :eek: yep no more room in the bins.

So as nice as it is to get the VDB if you dont fine tune it , you can find yourself not only w/o a VDB but w/o your carry-on/s as well.

I haven't gotten a VDB in almost 2 years....only heard of one on New Years on a flight next to mine going to LAS....

Craz-we won't be checking bags, thank you very much for the fine tuning/timing info. From everyone's advice, I won't be counting on the bump as much as I was before.

Call and ask
 

marlin:

You can call CO and ask if the flight is overbooked.
They will tell you (but not the number of overbooked seats).

If you indicate your willingness to volunteer at the kiosk, be sure to still identify yourself to the gate agent. Let him/her open the flight (pull the data they need), normally 1 hr. before departure.

Good Luck.

There are numerous factors that come into play with respect to overbooking authorizations that no one can proffer an accurate guideline or rule of thumb. It's entirely possible that your flights may not allow overbooking at all if they're expected to have a low no-show factor. Not to mention, of course, that CO is getting increasingly aggressive on swapping around a/c types on short notice to lessen the need for bumps.

IME, the best way to score VDBs are to take flights that are going to cities with major scheduled events, where there will be very few no-shows and fewer stil willing to be bumped off the flight. A few years back, I scored a $500 voucher on EWR-MCI because of the NCAA Final Four -- most everyone was going to the game, I was on a mileage run and didn't care about basketball much, so it was a slam dunk. ;)

Thanks everyone, nice score Heathrowguy. I called and they said they are sold out but not oversold. We shall see.

Let us know if you "score".