I read with envy. Many, many times I have jumped for the chance, even been the first in line at the call for volunteers. Yet, of the ten times that I have been willing to give up my seat, none have been successful: sorry Mr. Lewis we won't be needing your seat. I am hoping that over labor day I can get a major bump--alas--flying late Monday night from PVD to LAX on NW. Please, please, just once.

It is also important to remember that $400 cash fine would be a direct hit to the airline's bottom line. Since the $1200 voucher is being used to fill a seat (or seats) that might have been otherwise empty, I can easily see the airlines preferring that option.

This is a long-ago involuntary bumping story..from 1982 and I can't recall the name of the airline (Pacific something perhaps..used Dash 8 planes and flew interisland out of the main terminal at Honolulu rather than the inter-sland terminal and went out of business a year or two later). Anyway, my first wife & I were on our honeymoon headed for Maui. There were no seat assignments and these guys took tickets from standbys before figuring out if they had space on the plane. The last 5 or 6 of us who boarded were told to get off the plane (there were no seats left). They were planning to offer absolutely nothing & their next flight was several hours later. After yelling at their agents they finally got seats on either Aloha or Hawaiian and drove us over to the other terminal in a company station wagon for the next flight to Maui. I don't know if the others received anything, but I eventually got a refund of the roundtrip Honolulu-Maui fare from the airline..

GeorgeJ--

Sounds like "Mid-Pacific Air". They went out of business in the 90's sometime. Horrible customer service but cheap airfares!

Born and raised in Honolulu and I've flown them quite a few times because they used to have "Kama'aina" fares. Show a HI driver's license, and the fares were dirt cheap.

--Ryan

Bad decision bump story follows. Was in Hartford for training and leaving on DL on Friday afternoon which happened to be Presidents Day weekend. Did not appreciate the zeal paid to that holiday. DL offered to put me on other airlinles--no dice. Put me into a cold unattended Crown Room, where I proceeded to try to warm up the wrong way. Five hopurs later the gate agent found me a DL flight 3 segments and being a nice person, put me in first. Bad Move! Had a couple more drinks and got home at 0300 in a totally wasted condition. Got my bag from baggage storage- launched my car on the interstate middle lane at 55 MPH and began to pray that if I got home alive I would never, ever do that again. Must have made it as here I am. Cured me of taking too much advantage of free booze. Did use the voucher later.

American Airlines. First day of spring break this past march flying on frequent flyer tickets to Antigua through San Juan from Chicago booked at 6;30 AM. Volunteered and got $700 x 3 and $30 of meal vouchers since I would lose my diabetic meal. Put on next flight - also overbooked and prepared to voluntter - got $1000 x 3. Tried again but did not get bumped. Vouchers for lunch. (delay 5 hours for $5100 which has a greater value since taxes are waived). Also asked to have classification changed and got miles on our free ticket. So far, I have flown to NY, have 3 tickets to Palm Springs in August, and 3 tickets to San Diego in October and have lots more to spare. Each use, extends balance of voucher for a year from re-issue, so I keep rotating the vouchers - using highest value and earliest date. I reserve on line and "hold" the tickets, go to an office with a certificate and use my vouchers which waive the tax. My tickets to San Diego from Chicago are costing $220 each. I did the companion sale for Palm Springs and it cost a total of $690 for 3 tickets. I plan to "stretch" those vouchers as far as I can and I am holding ff tickets to St. Maarten through San Juan for spring break 2000. Here's hoping.


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DtG

Two years ago my wife, daughter and I got a cheap $78 RT SDF-ORD on DL for an Easter weekend. We volunteered and all 3 were bumped
and received 3 RT anywhere DL flys in the lower 48 plus were moved to First class on the next flight just a couple of hours later.
That Summer we used the free tickets to fly to Seattle for a great cruise to Alaska. On our flights back we had to change planes in Atlanta due to a spill in the Cargo Hold of our original plane. When we returned home we each received a $50 flight credit because of the delay! So for $78 we got First Class SDF-ORD, Round trip SDF-SEA and $50 off our next flight! I only regret not buying a lottery ticket that day!

great stories so far. thanks for sharing.

well i've had the luck? of being bumped (always voluntarily) off of a lot of flights between the US and Europe and India.

mainly received vouchers for $300 - 1000 and an upgrade on the next flight out + the usual hotel / phone call / food. on occasion a future trip is offered. but the best two have ironically happened this year.

in jan 3 from LHR - PIT on UA. there was a big storm in teh midwest / northeast and most of ua's flights were either cancelled or severely delayed for two days or so. arrived at LHR a good 3 hours before the filght and check in for my flight to ORD (in paid first) and received a letter at security informing of teh overbooked situation and asking for volunteers. i didn't really have to back in PIT for a couple of days so i volunteered and received
a free RT 1st tix between PIT-LHR + confirmed seat on the next days flight(of course) + $1000 voucher and hotel / food in london. not bad for one day's delay.

second was between AMS - BOM on KL. booked in econ with a miles upgrade to Biz. at the gate volunteers are being recruited and since a lot of people were with families or elderly they were having a hard time convincing people. i wasn't really interested either but was curios to see the offer. they were offering @ $750 cash + a confirmed seat on a NW flight to DEL w/ a domestic connex to BOM. this wasn't very appealing a NW uses there ancient DC 10 and there are no flights between DEL - BOM after midnight (the @ arrival tiem of teh NW flight) but they really need volunteers so i decided to negotiate and finally managed to get - a confirmed Biz class seat on a KL flight to DXB ( about two hours later)and then a EK flight to BOM + $ 1000 voucher + refund of my miles for the original upgrade. and since I was going to DXB from BOM anyways later that week I rescheduled my work and connected three days laetr to BOM and saved an additional $800.

good luck to everyone.

regards
indogulf

I am back from Las Vegas and I got bumped for the first time.

Bumped going from Dallas to Las Vegas. Ended up with $300 Delta Dollars, a meal voucher in exchange for flying 2 hours later on Delta with a connection in Salt Lake City. The Dalls to Salt Lake was in first class.

My bags were waiting for me in Vegas and a security guard was nearby checking baggage claim stubs.

Great stories everyone.

My Buddy Wanderlust has a bumping story which I hope he posts soon!

As I said, never been bumped YET.

As for security checking bags in VEGAS, I think that S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure) there, becuase they alwasy check my bags before I leave the airport.

I guess because so many come there with similar bags in the race to get out of the airport, to the taxi/shuttle bus/to the hotel to lose their money and so many bags look alike now that, for example, someone man could accidently take a rollerbag full of women's clothes.

So my newest luggage will have THREE Luggage Tags, my Red Green Possum Lodge badge and something of the feline variety so NO ONE can mistake my bag! (a few stands of cat hair for that personal touch!)

1. College son called from Ontario, CA on a $59 RT ticket, should he volunteer? I said "FOOL! Run back!" Got free ticket to Alaska on UA. Went fly fishing for 2 weeks.

2. Got $1500 London to JFK on AA, put me up deluxe hotel, etc. I took great double decker tour of London - hadn't been in a while. Went out the next day. Had a blast. Could have done it again but needed to get home. Haven't spent it yet.

3. One lazy afternoon in San Diego, we volunteered all afternoon and racked up $600 each before we were finally forced to fly - on a $59 fare with AA. Went to Caribbean on the vouchers.

I love volunteering - except when you are not selected and end up in a middle seat somewhere separated from family. We have 2 vouchers for anywhere Reno flies and are still trying to figure out what to do with them. First class upgrades too.

Ah, bumping stories make the heart warm, don't they?

My favorite was on a trip from STL-BKK on a Northwest frequent flyer award. I was connecting in Tokyo after the long flight from Minneapolis when they asked for volunteers. I jumped across the throngs waiting for the flight and threw my ticket at them. They took about 6 of us and offered the usual $400 cash and overnight hotel and meals in Narita town and the first flight out the next day on JAL.

I was in no hurry and because I was on a FF ticket they offered me a flight on the NW flight the next evening. No problem I thought (secretly hoping I would get bumped again and again into infinity).

The NW flights to BKK and SIN that connect through NRT all arrive around midnight, a pretty lousy time to get there after a long flight, so spending the night in a comfy hotel appealed to me. I also jumped on the train the next day into Tokyo to visit some friends and visit old stomping grounds. This is very ironic because when I arranged my FF ticket I tried to get a stopover in Japan but couldn't because the ticket was an open-jaw return from Manila, no stopover allowed. So I got my stopover anyway.

The next evening I showed up for my flight hoping against hope for those magic words: "volunteers please". Ah well, that didn't happen, so I had to settle for the upgrade to business class, seat 1G. (Which I think I got because when the gate agent showed up at the gate before the flight I went up and discreetly mentioned that I'd be more than happy to volunteer in case the need arose. She actually took my ticket then and said she'd let me know. She boarded most of the flight before she called me up and handed me my ticket and my boarding pass.)

There is nothing like getting paid to fly.

My best bump story....I was flying with two others from Orlando to Chicago (ord) with a connecting flight in Atlanta. The connecting flight was over booked. We got bumped (a free ticket each) & put on a flight about an hour & a half later. The second flight was also over booked so again we got bumped (another free ticket each) & put on a flight about two hours later. The third flight again was over booked & again we got bumped & again given a free ticket each. By this time it was getting late & we were tired so the wonderful airline (Delta) put us up for the night, gave us meal vouchers for breakfast, lunch & dinner the next day & then flew us home the next evening.

But the best part is that all three of us were flying on free tickets that we had gotten from being bumped about six months earlier.

[This message has been edited by MilesNut (edited 10-27-1999).]

The brother of one our customer's does his vacationing via bumps. (By the way, I can't vouch for the authenticity of this - I'm just going by what he claims).

He buys 2 seats on 3 different RDU-LAX for Thanksgiving Eve (all on different airlines). On Thanksgiving Eve, he volunteers again and again. Sometimes the timing is tough, so his wife volunteers at one gate while he volunteers at another.

Their best was 12 vouchers, a bunch of cash, plus FC trip to LAX.



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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Earlier this month my sister was flying on a NWA Mileage ticket with a connection through Detroit (on her way home to Peoria). They first offered $300 per seat which she declined. Later, they offered $750, free cab to and from hotel, hotel and dinner. She is retired so she took it.

When she got there the next morning, they were still buying seats for $400. So she sold it again and waited two hours for the next plane.

In my wildest imagine, I can't figure out how NWA found two planeloads of people who wanted to go to Peoria during the same 24 hour period. Must have been a CAT convention.

[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 10-28-1999).]