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 . 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.

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! 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

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....

[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

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.

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!!