Bumping in Europe?
 

I know that bumping has been in several threads already but I havent seen any bumping in Europe thread. Is there any specific European flight where the offer denied boarding vouchers alot? I would be intrested to know both about domestic Europe and from Europe and Intercontinental.

well i know that if you get bumped off a finnair flight you get hard cash..cant remember how much and you are then rerouted to your destnation on different carriers...

cheers jetboy

There are some European Union directives that have been developed. It's in the form of cash or vouchers for given hours of delay. Not particularly generous.

Well, euhhhh,
Do not laugh, please,$this is a serious information,

I got some times ago , may be six month, a little booklet made by... Air France... (yes, you read AIr France) speaking about bumping;
they welcome vonluntiers and they say (I do not remeber exactly the wordings, I could find them if someone need) they would give money or Air France $ if you are re-routed , and I remember too that there were also miles if you are a frequence Plus member.

I did not have to use it since time..... no, I can hear you slouting... no, the reason is that I did not take ANY Air France flight since this time.

Obviously, the alliance with Delta could probably have made a (little) pressure on Air France to, at least, write their conditions. Obviously, they are still far from being worst in class for the service, aprticularly in the airport or at the boarding pass.
I have a planned flight in 15 days, and will experiment these new conditions, potentially...

For reference: my most recent AF bumping experience was as good as it gets. First, this was an an intercontinental flight. Just for volunteering I was given the Franc equivalent of about $150. Because I was early in the day and the fact that I would have to change terminals at CDG, they just decided to reroute me anyway. That was worth another $150. The net was $300, I arrive 15 minutes earlier in the states, and got the UA miles to boot. I have no experience within Europe, but would like to know.

Morning flights from FRA to Stockholm/Copenhagen/Brussels are usually
good guesses.

This one is the stinger if on a codeshare add-on or some kind of Europe Coupon etc, as the fare paid on a short leg might run to only change, versus the It'l ticket.

Not Europe (!!) but was flying Lan Chile last month from Puntas Arenas to Santiago and they were 7 oversold. Their offer was next flight and TWO round trip tickets anywhere in Chile (inc. Easter Island) and hotel and meals overnight. Darn nice offer. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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~ Glen ~

It is not the fare paid, but the OW fare which is the limit, otherwise you would not get any compensation on a award ticket for instance.

It is the passengers decision, if he chooses
vouchers or the money, but often airlines offer more in voucher (since they are basically free for them), so that most people
go for the vouchers.

In all of the time I have lived and flown in Europe, I have seen one sign requesting volunteers (Continental Airlines in peak season August travel Madrid-Newark)

I was bumped involuntarily on an Iberia flight Frankfurt-Madrid. I was told that my luggage would not reach the plane since it was 45 minutes before take off?!?
When trying to approach the airline later, response was, "we got you back to Madrid, what are you complaining about now?" Flight left 4 hours later and no meal vouchers nor phone cards and God forbid had I asked for compensation! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif

my roommate was flying from cdg to jfk a couple of weeks ago and went to the air france counter to check-in. the agent offered him 2000 francs worth of vouchers not to take the flight that night, and said he would receive another 4000 francs when he returned in the morning to catch the early (830a) flight to new york. he was very excited until he realized he was in the wrong terminal. he was scheduled on aa, not af. aa flight leaves at 1755, while af leaves at 1855. he goofed when he read the board. oh well.

I was at LHR once and when I arrived at the gate for my Varig flight to CPH, they asked me if I'd like to stay behind, since the flight was over-booked.

I asked what they were offering and was told lunch. Lunch at Heathrow!

I was too shocked to tell her exactly where she could stick the lunch and just politely declined the ludicrous offer.

I was offered and accepted 600.-DM in travel voucher (could have choosen DM 300.-) cash,
for taking a flight 3hours later FRA-CPH.

[This message has been edited by peter42 (edited 02-21-2001).]

I received 900 nlg from KL for taking a flight ams-msp-mem instead of the ams-mem. When I got home the 900 was worth about $351 used it to buy a ticket the other day and it was good for $382.

Some retired friends of my parents were offered $1200 in flight compensation for 6 days in a row to take the next day's flight from Rome back to the USA. Such a tough decision - to stay for free another 6 days in Rome, or to return home! They were given hotel and meal vouchers and accumulated $7200 worth of flight vouchers, enough to take their entire family down to Disneyworld later that year. Unfortunately, I don't remember the airline they were flying on.

Rome(FCO) here I come http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Also with Lufthansa, from Frankfurt to Hong Kong I was standing by for a first class seat, but had to give up my c-class seat because they were overbooked (I like living dangerously). My F-class seat didn't come off and I had given up my c-class seat and ended up in Y! They blocked three seats for me, refunded the difference in the fare and gave me DM 1200 in vouchers (I could also have taken half in cash).

Me and my ex-girlfriend were bumped off an early Lufthansa flight from Munich to London Heathrow (LHR) in July last year. We were told at checkin that the flight was overbooked, and at the gate the lady gave us the following options:

1) Take a flight to London Stanstead leaving around the same time, and recieve a free bus transfer to LHR (we were connecting at LHR with AirNZ for a flight to Fiji) - any of you who have taken a bus between STD and LHR in London's morning traffic before can imagine my reply to the agent
2) Wait, and maybe get on our original flight
3) accept DM600 in Lufthansa travel coupons (the return flight cost around DM350, so DM600 is a really good compensation)

After hassling us a bit they eventually gave us the coupons and put us on the next flight to LHR. We waited in the biz lounge, I was upgraded to biz class and my girlfriend sat in the cockpit jumpseat - Lufthansa occasionally does this on hopelessly overbooked flights. The vouchers, by the way, are in DM150 denominations, and each voucher can be individually redeemed either for travel or DM75 in cash. One unpublished perk is that a few rules seemed to be waived when you pay with vouchers - you can pay at the last minute, they will hold your reservation with no cancelling fee etc. I would definately go for the compensation package on LH's overbooked flights.

Cheers, Zac

Really a good compensation.
Reading all the last posts, I am a bit surprised: lot of good deals.
I often flight, ans a third of my time in Europe, I was bumped twice, once by Air France, once by Northwest, and both time I had to write letters and letters, and I got:
1/ a very good compensation with Northwest after 3 months, and a Northwest employee that was fired or moved (800 $ for a transatlantic, plus an invitation for 2 in a good restaurant in Paris),
2/ 5000 miles , and then 2000 miles for Air France (!!!!)
I said, I had really bad time with both, but Northwest really recognized they were bad, but Air France (2 years ago) was far from recognizing their bad service.

So, my conclusion is that I suspect that people with bad experiences do not participate...
<May be also that I am wrong, and european companies have grreatly improved these last months.
In both case, I think it would be good to know.

Best we had was with KLM Uk. We volunteered out two seat on an ATR72 from CDG-STN. We accepted two free tickets each anywhere on the KLM UK system, we were flown to LHR 20 mins later upgraded to C on BD, we were met at the gate walked throught to a cab to take us to STN to collect our car. I was impressed1

I volunteered last week from Estonian Air Copenhagen-Tallinn flight and received 115 USD in cash, confirmed seat to next flight, overnight say at Radisson SAS hotel, two meals, survival kits (my bags flew to Tallinn), free phone call and taxi vouchers to and from hotel.

After arrival to Tallinn I asked (just out of curiosity) why compensation was 115 USD and not 150 EUR as it is supposed to be, and OV paid me difference between 115 USD and 150 EUR.

On a SK flight AMS-OSL, I was offered NLG 250,- cash or double in SK voucher to fly AMS-CPH-OSL instead and arrive some 70 minutes later. I took the voucher as it was in the evening and I wasn't in a hurry to get to the hotel, my meeting wasn't until the following morning.

A discussion from a few months ago ...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum6/HTML/000170.html

As noted here before LH gives DM 1200 in vouchers for longhauls, and DM 600 for intra-european and DM 300 for domestic flights in GER....