Bumpings - working the Oversold system
 

Hey all,

I'd like to ask for your experiences with something that's been a fantastic thing for me and my family over the years: giving up your seat for vouchers.

First off, this is possible for me because I never ever have a rigid travel schedule. But it's been so great that "getting bumped" has now become a fixture in my travel planning, in terms of trying to fly at peak times on loaded planes and busy routes.

It started almost 10 years ago, flying DTW - RSW in March (Canadian spring break) on AA. We would depart DTW on a Friday evening, always connecting in RDU and return the next Sunday. Departure from DTW would always be normal, but whenever we got to RDU (AA hub at the time), the leg to RSW was oversold. The first time we heard the offer to give up our seats, we were taken aback. The fact that they were going to give us $200 or $300 for 1 or 2 hours was almost incredulous to us and we jumped at the chance. But then it happened more frequently, on other routes, and the offers went up. Once we earned $750 per person (4 of us) for a *negative* time delay. Yep. AA held a UA plane on the tarmac that had already pulled back, and they drove us out in a van, pulled up stairs and boarded us (first class, nonetheless), thanking us profusely all the way (Uh, no no, thank YOU!) We flew for free for years -- it ended when we started cruising and made the mistake of having the cruise company book our flights the first few times, and we got out of the cycle.

But I've learned the "system" quite well. Coming back from a YYZ-MIA trip, I nabbed $350 on DL for a 20 min delay in ATL. A sale a few months later allowed me to book a trip to Paris that only ended up costing me $166. As a university student, going to Paris would have been totally out of reach without the voucher.

So now all I look for is to get back into the cycle on DL (I didn't manage to be on any oversold flights to CDG in Feb) and keep propagating it. So I'm looking for other people's experiences with this and to get more insight into "working the system."

If what I've read is correct, some 80% of these vouchers given out by the airlines go unused. Not when they're in my hands http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif. And if the FAA's load factor reports I read last week are any indication, things are looking good for "getting bumped" -- I know, I know, it's voluntary, but I call it that anyway -- in the future.

Anybody care to share their experiences/tips/tricks?

Elektrik

Welcome to your first post and good luck to you. Under the "search" facility there has been a number of postings about "bumped" tales and strategeies lately. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Ooops, I missed the whole Search thing. Glad I typed up that whole message...

Heh....at least your first post wasn't "Buying Paint from an Airline" like mine was.

Ah, so now I know who to blame! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Actually, that was a funny one!

One job they used to give first day apprentices in a place I worked was to send them out with 20 bucks and ask them to a hardware store and ordered them to "come back with a can of red and white striped paint". Poor nervous 15 year old kids never picked it was a gag!

I had a great deal of "luck" this weekend in Vegas, playing the voucher game.

America West was very oversold on LAS-JFK.
I volunteered 3 times, and picked up $2100
in vouchers, all in one day.

The first flight they was a red-eye friday night, they offered me $1000 and rebooked me on a monday flight, that flight was oversold and they gave $600 and rebooked me on an afternoon flight, that flight had a weight restriction so I pocketed another $500 and ended up taking the red-eye that night.

Sadly, the weight restriction on the saturday night red-eye was lifted just before takeoff and they didnt need my seat.
I would have gladly taken another $500 voucher off their hands http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

On the outbound portion of the flight, I volunteered twice and pickup up another pair of $300 in vouchers. This for about a
4 1/2 hour delay.

No need to even go near the casino tables when I was doing so well with the airlines.

I should fly HP more.... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[This message has been edited by Viajero Joven (edited 07-17-2000).]

I just heard a story about a family of 5 (four tickets plus one lap child) who recently spent a Saturday night, all day Sunday, and Monday morning taking 5 bumps and collecting $7,800.00 in vouchers.

Well if somebody wants to point me to a route on Delta where I can pull something like that off in a weekend, I'll try and beat it http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You probably won't make $7k on it, but Delta's Atlanta routes to the Florida Panhandle (Pensacola, Ft. Walton Beach, etc.)tend to be very full on a regular basis. Hit it right, and it's easy $300 or so if you've got the time.

Spring and Fall are interesting times for those routes because of dawn/dusk fog. Outbound to Atlanta is good because if they cancel one flight, they tend to be significantly overbooked the rest of the day. However, inbound from Atlanta is more problematic. Instead of cancelling and bumping, they will reroute your flight to someplace like Dothan, AL and bus you across the state line from there.

Big D:

On Saturday while I was collecting vouchers from America West, there was a family of 14 that volunteered. They received $600 each
plus meals. Or over $8500. They were delayed about 4 hrs.

Delta has the cheap internet sale to Minneapolis (have to book it through the Delta website). I just got back from a Minnesota vacation. In each direction, (ATL-MSP, then MSP-ATL) they were overbooked and offered vouchers.

Heres's the cool thing, the tickets were $160, but they were offering $300 in vouchers. So, they were paying you to fly. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I just returned from a BOS-LAX trip. I had paid $109 roundtrip on Delta. On the return I was bumped for a $500 voucher and an upgrade to first class on the next direct flight (four hour delay). I was almost bumped on that flight also.
I was happy enough with the $109 fare (and the miles). The voucher and upgrade were great bonuses!

Boston - LAX for $109 RT. How did you manage that!!

The $109 fare was a special deal to get people on Delta's new direct BOS-LAX flights. It was only good for the 7/13-14 on the outbound and good for a 7 day stay, I think.
I read about it here on this forum. I was surprised how easy it was to get the fare--especially since the flights ended up being so full.

I had a similar thing happen on the JFK-LAX Delta flight 3 weeks ago - $400 voucher and bumped to Business Elite. This was on a $209 webfare ticket. I was doing this as a mileage run for the transcontinental bonus, I accumulated almost 22,000 miles just for that trip!
Delta has been heavily promoting their BE transcon service from JFK & BOS to the west coast. For at least the last 6 weeks, JFK-LAX has been available for webfares over the weekend. Naturally, since I was able to go this weekend, they aren't offering iy. I think their promotion has paid off for them!

Jeff

Jeff,
How did you get 22,000 points for this trip? I got 13,400 including the transcon bonus, online booking bonus, Silver medallion bonus and class of service bonus. Just curious if I'm missing something.
Stephen

Don't forget, if you're bumped you don't HAVE to fly to get the miles.

My story: I was in Tampa going to Toronto. I booked last minute and booked AC nonstop late evening.

Unexpectedly a coworker was assigned to go along, who was a loyal AA customer. He booked TPA-MIA-YYZ.

I decided to join him last minute, so bought a tkt at the AA counter (it would have gotten in around 8 pm, rather than my nonstop arriving at 11 pm). AA counter wouldn't take my AC tkt (due to time constraints).

I head out to the gate, to find my co-worker waiting. Turns out they are 2 flights behind and he's sitting until they call his flight.

They call that flight a few mins later and after a little confusion, end up saying "we need volunteers for...." They didn't even have to get the rest out before I was in line.

I got $300 and walked promptly back to the ticket counter where my ticket was voided. Never even hit my credit card.

Bill, my coworker, always enjoys telling the story.

JL

When playing the bump game, which of the following flights during the day would you think you have the best chance of getting bumped, the first flight out on a given morning (i.e. 6:30 a.m.), or the 2nd one (7:45 a.m.)?

I fly LAX-SJC monday mornings at 6:30 a.m. which is pretty heavily frequented by business commuters and so I would imagine that the 6:30 flight has a better chance of being oversold b/c the 7:45 would get business travelers into SJC at too late of a time (~8:45 a.m.) to start their mornings after having to rent a car and then driving from the airport to thier offices or meetings. Does this reasoning hold true in other business commuter areas?

Anybody know how they determine the voucher amount they give? I ask because we were in LaGuardia picking up somebody at Delta (the Saturday of Memorial day at 7 am) and they were looking for volunteers to bump off the New York - Atlanta Flight. They would get you there at 2 instead of in the morning, and were offering $1,000 in vouchers.

Never heard that much before, and I wanted to pick up the cell phone, purchase a ticket, and then give it up for the money, but the wife wouldn't let me (and if I had you know they would have had their 10th volunteer just as I was reading the expiration date on the credit card).

The other surprizing thing, besides the $1,000 per person, is they couldn't get the people they needed.

cordelli:

They aren't going to sell you a ticket if the flight is so-oversold they are looking for volunteers, nice try.

JFK-LAX:
- 2475 flight miles
- 10000 BE transcon bonus
- 618 25% of fm bonus

LAX-JFK
- 2475 flight miles
- 6000 transcom bonus

delta-air.com
- 1000 online ticket purchase

My calculator says 22568 DL miles (plus another 313 AMEX MR points for each ticket).

Jeff

-

This may seem like an odd question, but do FFs with elite status get priotity bumping when they volunteer??

I can't speak for all airlines, but on CO, it answer is:

Sometimes http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

boomer, don't be too sure about that...I'm not sure if they cut off flights like that, plus imagine when a carrier xld an earlier flight and didn't get the res system updated. I've done it--as mentioned earlier here bought tkt (B-fare, if I recall) TPA-MIA-YYZ, went out to the satellite and not 10 minutes later was on the shuttle back to the main building $300 to the good.
jl

I have volunteered many a time for free vouchers but on a recent AA flight from SFO-JFK, I had upgraded using my electronic upgrade stickers when they announced a smaller plane would be substituted for the original one due to mechanical problems. I was called to the front desk and told that they didn't have as many seats in First Class and Business Class and needed to put me back in Coach but would give me $500 vouchers. I told them this was fine but should I have negotiated this?

I am a firm believer in the "volunteer/bump" system. My best results were earlier this year going from JFK to Brussels on DL. Coach was oversold, I volunteered and received the following: voucher for $1,000; upgrade on a Sabena flight to Business Class which left only 4 hours later; and upgrade to Business Class on my return flight from Brussels back to the US.

Is this a great country or what?

My experience is that Elite status generally helps keep you from being bumped when you don't want to be and especially on a FREE ticket obtained using miles and that it also helps you to get bump priority when you want to be - but there are clearly NO gaurantees! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif