How does this "bump/overbooking" process work?
 

I am scheduled to fly to San Diego on March 04, out of Atlanta on flight 1039. It leaves at 8:20 am. I went to check on my seats and is showing that there are no available seats which tells me that they are booked, and/or overbooked. It turns out that I am pretty flexible with my schedule, and would be more than happy to give up my seat if I can get a later flight the same day. How would I go about doing this, and what should I expect in return? Should I mention this at the gate, or at the ticket counter? I am new to all of this, but any help would be great. Thanks.

It doesn't necessarily mean that all the seats are taken. That's happened to me a few times, and when I got to the airport I discovered there were a lot of seats; they had just blocked them online for some reason. (Probably other FT-ers will have more of a clue why they do this.)

Ask at the ticket counter if the flight actually is overbooked. If it is, be first in line when the gate agent arrives. Ask if they are looking for volunteers, and if so, what the compensation is. They may take your name, or maybe your boarding pass, in case your seat is needed. You'll probably have to wait until everyone is boarded, so if they end up not needing your seat, you risk not having any space in the overhead bins; but that's part of the gamble.

If you hit the jackpot, they'll offer you anywhere from a $200 to $400 voucher. You can try to negotiate, but lately they've been kind of in a "take it or leave it" mood. If they offer a choice between the dollar-amount voucher or a free ticket, take the voucher, because there are so many restrictions on when you can use the ticket, and it doesn't accumulate mileage. The vouchers can be used like cash to buy a ticket--and you get SkyMiles for your flight. Not that the SkyMiles are good for much. LOL.

Using a free tool such as www.Seatcounter.com gives you better insight into the actual inventory available. Currently for DL1039 on 4 March, the flight is showing with AT LEAST 9 seats in Coach available for sale. The cheapest fare class of T has 5 seats for sale. Therefore there seems to be plenty of seats and as of now, unlikely for an overbooking situation. To be likely to be oversold, the numbers would be all colored red with 0s across the board.

As to why it may seem that seats are all taken... some seats are reserved for Delta Medallions, partner Elites or those flying on full fare (expensive) tickets. Also, some seats are blocked off, can't be pre-selected and left for assignment at the airport.

Don't forget that you may also request meal vouchers and a possible bump up to F on your rebooked flight.

I can offer one scenario, although it's uncommon. The "overbooked" flight had a FBI/CIA/TSA "person of interest" on it, and the TSA decided to throw several extra FAMs on onboard. The person of interest then missed the flight or for some reason did not end up flying. This would certainly account for a last-minute shift in several seats at once.

Welcome to FT....

While the seat map may show no seats available, some people will be upgraded to first class and that will open up some seats in coach.

Bob H

Delta blocks an outregous number of seats till 3 hours till departure time.

DL1039 on 3/4 is showing F9Y9 (and the only inventory bucket that isn't at 9 is T, which is at 5), which tells me that this flight is pretty wide open still. As NWA012 notes, Delta holds back a good number of seats back until 3 hours before departure, especially on the 757s.

Didn't I say the same thing this morning? :p

I'm in the MSP lounge and just inquired about my DTW-FRA flight later this afternoon. The agent said "oh yeah, it's oversold, by 4 in the front and 6 in the back" when queried.

Thing is, this is a quick turn MR on a T fare. I don't really want to give up my exit row seats for $400 then sit in bad seats for 20 some hours. I'd rather have a BE upgrade, which I'm certain that Dulta would never give on a T fare.

Is it 120 minutes before the scheduled departure that they open a INTL gate?

Never say never.

Bumped from the msp-bos flight this morning... got some good first class re-routing and the almighty travel voucher... definitely helped being the first person there when the ga arrived.... this is the first time in the last 10 or so that they've actually needed me... yeah!!! :D

Any ideas why they do this differently? What is "outrageous"? We already know row 5's on the A319/20...

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry 8830: BlackBerry9630/4.7.1.61 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Well, I can say never this time. Good morning from Germany!

I'm not sure of seatcounter's reliability.
 

Overall, it's pretty good, but I'm watching my flight right now (DL278, leaving in a couple hours)... Seatcounter has been showing it all zeroed in back and all 9's in front, but the seat selection map shows 3 seats open in back (in case I wanted to change to a worse seat for some reason...) so I'm not sure what to make of it.

Of course, it'd be nice if Seatcounter is right, and those three seats belong to people who just haven't been able to select seats for whatever reason. Or better yet, if there are, say, ten people who're booked in back and haven't selected seats... and DL needs to move some plats up on the last day before diamonds take over everything... :D

As of 1:10 before departure time, all seats in coach were assigned according to delta.com. I didn't get an op-up, though, so they must have managed load "just right" - or there were higher-LTV folks on the flight who got it. I did wind up next to the friend of the girl in 21C, who proceeded to trade seats with me. :)

My flight from ATL-DTW yesterday morning was oversold. You will get a message when you check in letting you know the flight is oversold and giving you the option to volunteer for a bump. No need to stand in line, nor even bother the GA. You can handle this at the kiosk now.

Funny how one person's "hit the jackpot" can be another person's annoyance! I'm glad that there are those who would find being bumped to be a good thing.

Also remember that many of us will same-day-confirm to a different flight, so even if the flight appears to be full, there may be DM/PM/GM seats that wind up open that day. (Personally, I SDC 75% or the time.)

Don't know if this has changed but late last year, this message was many time false. You volunteer at the kiosk then at the gate find out that the flight wasn't oversold and VDBs weren't needed.

Re blocked seats
 

In past threads I've read that DL blocks advance selection of bulkhead seats, even from elites.

- Does the three-hour release time apply to bulkhead seats ?

- Can elites select these day of departure but earlier than 3 hrs ?

- Within that 3 hr window, will the kiosk or OLCI grant these bulkhead seats or must you speak to a DL agent ?

Thanks. :-:

I have found the same thing to be true.

Birthday Love?
 

I'm on DL232 SEA-AMS tomorrow.

During the check-in process they asked for volunteers (which I can't do - catching the US vs. Holland soccer match on Wednesday in AMS).

Seatcounter only shows availability in D,J, and S.

Any chance of a BE upgrade for this Plat on a T fare?

It is my birthday after all!!!

I've never seen an option where you can actually volunteer through the kiosk. It will pop up the message that the flight is oversold and to see a gate agent. The message will pop up when the aircraft is at 100% cap instead of 101% as it was orginally rolled out.

>>>>>Don't know if this has changed but late last year, this message was many time false. You volunteer at the kiosk then at the gate find out that the flight wasn't oversold and VDBs weren't needed.


What can happen is that the flight IS oversold at the time you are at the kiosk (everybody booked on the flight might even be checked in, and either in the airport or in the air connecting), but if incoming flights are delayed or if a passenger stands by for an earlier flight, or if someone checked in changes their mind - - the numbers suddenly change (today my MEM-MSN was oversold, but LGA-MEM and PHL-MEM feeder flights were an hour late, and a number of incoming pax misconnected).

Also, a creative gate agent can magically disperse people - - yesterday I watched as a gate agent working both a 2:05pm to CLT and the 2:40pm flight to DTW (leaving from the SAME gate), helped a couple who WERE going to connect to ROA through DTW on an oversold flight instead take the nonstop 2:05pm flight to CLT (prompted to shift in part, because they had no seat assignments on the DTW flight, and thought they may get involuntarily bumped!). The GA called down and made sure that their bag got yanked from the DTW cart and put onto the CLT flight, and they went on the earlier nonstop (to a different destination) from the same gate!

That cleared two oversells on the DTW flight, - - and then the gate agent tried to clear a third, by getting a passenger to fly nonstop to JFK instead of connecting through DTW (on the oversold flight) to HPN, but since there was no compensation for the switch she chose to keep her DTW connection to HPN instead of taking the nonstop to JFK.

I've had this happen in DTW. I was asked if I waned to volunteer, and what level of compensation i was looking for. Granted, this was when NWA was still on PARS (last August) though.

Yes I believe the NWA kiosk allowed this option back in the day. I've never seen DL kiosks have this functionality.

TATL upgrade
 

As a follow up to my previous post, I'm sitting in the SEA Skyclub with a BE boarding pass in hand. Went to drop my bag for my SEA-AMS flight and got a new boarding pass. I had moved from row 10 to row 4.

Happy birthday to me!