Just book GRR-FRA. When using NWA seat assignor no seats were available to be assigned for my DTW-FRA leg. My question: assuming that this flight is over-booked, can you negotiate bumping compensation in advance, or does it all have to shake down as you are sitting in the airport that day?

Airport, usually at the gate for the given flight. The staff usually is there an hour before domestic flights and about an hour and fifteen before international flights.

If you want to bump, you can call NW on the day of departure to see if they're overbooked.

- Pat

Ironically, the WSJ just did an interesting bumping article.

Apparently, there are many people today playing the bumping game and winning.

(Registration required)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Family flyer:
[B]Ironically, the WSJ just did an interesting bumping article.

That site requires a password - - would love to read the article.

Bumping is done same day only at the gate. Why would an airline want to buy you off the flight beforehand when they don't know how many will show for the flight? I have seen a few instances where an aircraft was downgraded (ie: 757 to A320) which caused a flight to be overbooked a large enough number that reservations agents would call passengers on the flight and offer other flights for a voucher.

Remember, overbooking is done for a reason and I must say, the "experts" in MSP are doing a pretty good job compared to a few years ago... in LAS (one of the highest load-factor cities in the system) we probably have to bump less than 10 people on an average week... I can remember when a good day was only 10.

The article is posted at In the News: Miles and Points Forum

[This message has been edited by magic111 (edited 03-24-2002).]

Thanks to all for your responses. As an F.Y.I. I was just reading the AA F.F. section and a couple people responded that AA did call a couple of them in advance to offer to bump them off their overbooked flights. Pro-active management, or VERY overbooked?

Remember too that the lack of a seat assignment does not NECESSARILY mean the flight is oversold. I believe they only pre-assign 75% of the seats.

Loomis, sorry to dissapoint you, but I see no way that an DTW-FRA flight in April is overbooked, the easter hoildays are over the weekend before, that means that NW 52 should be pretty full on April 5-8, but it will be around 60-80% full in the following weeks....

Beside that no convention or fair going on in Frankfurt at that time, expect a light load on that flight !!

I�ve heard about this happening in the past on Mesaba/NW Airlink at one of the local airports. If you are a �regular� passenger and take bumps now and then, you might get a call before the flight and be offered a bump.

If you take the bump over the phone, you get whatever they offer during the call. Of course, you can decline and take your chances at the airport �- you might get more money or other people might volunteer ahead of you and then you get nothing! If you take the bump over the phone and they offer more compensation to the volunteers at the airport, you don't get any more than you were offered over the phone.

This seems like a good strategy on Mesaba�s part -- if they are absolutely certain that they will need volunteers. By offering the bump the night before, they will probably pay less compensation to the passenger and reduce the lines at the airport. It is also a nice way to reward a frequent traveler.

I don�t know if they still do this �- a co-worker got called a few years ago, but I haven�t heard of anybody getting called recently.

Saturdays in April look pretty busy. Sometimes NW will call people at home to offload early (such as equipment substitution where seats are lost making the flight heavily overbooked).

Also, the system will prompt the agent to solicit volunteering at check-in, if they're paying attention to the pop-ups!

If an oversale occurs because of an equipment substitution, no Denied Boarding Compensation is due as per DOT rules.

Delta uses this clause to their advantage all the time when they substitute a 157-seat 757 for a 158-seat 757 and then bump 10 passengers.