An excellent updated (7-10-99) guide to airline bumping can be seen at Bestfares:
http://www.bestfares.com/travel_cent.../10012559L.asp

thank you - very good summary update (for US travel).

and if you don't want to get bumped on a risky flight (with a very discounted ticket), make sure you have ordered a special meal (my best bet would be: kosher). The airline will in most cases not "dare" to bump you and risk not to be able to serve you on the next flight. Make your point clear (in a very friendly way) about your non-tolerance of another meal, when you check-in - and again at the gate.

Good overview article. I�ve managed to score $300 twice from United due to giving up my seat; but both times happened without me intentionally aiming to get bumped.

Anybody have had success planning for it intentionally? I sat next to a guy once who said based on strategically booking a couple of flights during the xmas holidays (which he would take anyway), and aiming for ones which will be full, he flies free the rest of the year. Yes, I know, I shouldn't believe EVERYTHING my seatmate tells me. But that's why I'm asking here.

p.s. Once was offered $600 to give up a seat on a LH FRA-EWR flight, and actually had the flexibility in my schedule to take the flight the next day. (They were even going to pay for the night in the hotel!) But I was on the final leg of a ZRH-TLV-ZRH-FRA-EWR trip, and was coming down with a severe case of, um, the stomach flu, and couldn�t stomach (no pun intended) the thought of hanging out myself for a night in a FRA hotel. But I still question that decision...

p.p.s. Rudi - thanks for yet another valuable tip.

The most important thing in these situations is to be positioned to take advantage of them. If you want to be bumped, don't book the last flight that gets to your final destination on time.

Also, book on airlines with lots of service between your travel points, this gives you more options for rebooking on later flights.

Take advantage of the heat. Hot air is less dense than cold air. Planes get less lift in
less dense air, so they must be lighter, thus leave some people on the ground.
So, in the summer, book mid afternoon flights, the hottest time of the day. The hotter the air, the more empty seats they need.

How do the airlines treat free ticket passengers (that have used ff miles).

regarding planning for getting bumped intentionally:

there were a bunch of people a few years ago (including my brother) who would travel back and forth on southwest between phoenix & san diego on the weekend knowing that they could get bumped at least once.

to san diego on friday night and back to phoenix on sunday were always ridiculously overbooked. it was often possible to take a $49 or less "chicken feed" fare and parlay it into two or three free trips.


as for how airlines treat passengers using free tickets:

as long as you have checked in, have a booarding pass, and are at the gate, you have the same opportunity to volunteer as everyone else. so, if you're looking to get bumped, you're OK.

if you're looking to not get bumped, the news isn't so good. using a "non-rev" ticket, you have very little priority over other passengers, possibly only airline employees not traveling on business. one exception to this may be if you're an elite on the airline ...they may actually bump other paying passengers before you under the right circumstances.

Confirming the low priority of FF ticket holders, I have been on two FF trips where earlier flights were cancelled, so the flight was overbooked, and the FA's have tried to put us off of the plane and let other passengers (WHO THEY HAD ALREADY REBOOKED WITH OUR SEATS ON THEIR BOARDING PASSES) take our seats. In both instances, I had my wife and 2 kids (who were small at the time) with us, so we had boarded early (when the airlines still let you do that with kids. I refused to give up our seats, since we were already in them, and had made the reservations 9 months in advance. In both cases the passengers they tried to put in our seats made the FAs back off, and agreed to go elsewhere, but it just confirms that you are the lowest priority if you are flying on FF tickets.

Djlawman

My husband, daughter and I were flying to Antigua through San Juan on the Saturday which was the first day of spring break in Chicago. American airlines was very booked. We were flying on frequent flyer tickets. We were scheduled at 6:30 am, the first flight out. We volunteered and got $700 each and a free breakfast (I had order a diabetic meal). We were scheduled on the next flight. We were prepared to volunteer again, which we did - this time for $1000 each. Also had our tickets converted to the code that would give us miles for that leg of the trip. We also got lunch. It was the best part of the trip. I have already booked my trip to St. Maarten with ff tickets for the first Saturday of Spring break, 2000, and I'm hoping it will happen again.
I'll let you know. $5100 in total is not bad - and most of the tax is waived so it is in fact worth more. Each time a voucher is used, it gets reissued for the balance and good for a year from the new date. I keep rotating the tickets. The airline kept thanking me volunteering. There are all those people needing to catch cruises and they CAN"T be bumped. My pleasure indeed.

------------------
DtG

I got offered $1000 JUST TO TRADE SEATS with a couple while sitting in first class on a DC-10 from LAX to DFW (the equipment was to continue on to Madrid after DFW)

Whoever the people were, they must have been very important, b/c the gate agent was walking around first class bending over in a hushed voice soliciting volunteers not to get off the plane, not to go back to coach, but simply take their middle seats in the 2-2-2 across seating so these people could have their window seats.

Give me a break (Give me a $1000)

The airline was AA! It was about 1989 or 1990...

Geez, Grice, now I fell like an idiot. On a recent UA IAD-LHR flight in int'l first, I traded my seat with a gent who wanted to sit next to his wife (whose seat was next to mine) just out of the kindness of my heart. Boy am I a SUCKER!

[This message has been edited by Matt Wald (edited 07-16-1999).]

When I'm in first, I certainly never have a problem moving if someone asks to another first class seat (though I do prefer the window, I can easily live without).

On my Fourth of July trip my girlfriend and I had the aisle and middle seat in coach (on Delta of course ) and a man came back with his two sons and they were not sitting together.

First the flight attendant asked one lady if she would mind moving to another aisle seat. She starts huffing and puffing asking them to move her up front to First and so on, finally the F/A just moves her up a couple of rows in coach to another aisle seat and she seemed none too happy about it.

I then offered to move from the aisle to the window (actually I moved from the aisle to middle and my girlfriend from the middle to the window) so this guy would be sitting directly across the aisle from his sons, instead of a row in front of them. No problem for me, I didn't mind at all, but the F/A came back a few minutes later and thanked me and gave me two courtesy coupons (free drink/headset), which I thought was a very nice gesture that I in no way expected for my small act of courtesy!

It's priceless to be nice. It costs nothing.

I will move to keep the couples together "I say 'I hope I get the same courtesy when I am a couple again!'"

And your case Beckles you got a free drink. Not bad.

OK! I'll move for a Heinekkin!

... Heineken? ...CAtman, look at BECKles name, please.

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 07-16-1999).]

Rudi ~ *LOL* ... why don't you tell your friends at Becks I took this name in honor of them, and maybe they should reward me with some free samples of their product

Besides, I'm not that picky when it comes to beer (I do have favorites of course) ... don't get much of a choice on DL anyway, for regular beer it usually Michelob or Killian's Red in First and Budweiser in Coach ... as long as it's cold, it's usually pretty good, especially after a long day on the flight home!

On a trans-Pacific United flight some years ago in Business Class, I has the aisle seat and the young lady who had the window was obviously with a gentleman who was seated in the middle section some rows up. She mentioned they were on their honeymoon, and had changed to the flight at the last minute and couldn't get seats together. Of course I traded with him.