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Heavier Bump Day: November 22 or 23?

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Heavier Bump Day: November 22 or 23?

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Old Sep 14, 2011 | 8:44 am
  #1  
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Heavier Bump Day: November 22 or 23?

I'm about to make my reservation for Turkey Day home and I'm going to try and score some bump vouchers out of it. So, what's typically the heavier bump day, Tuesday the 22nd or Wednesday the 23rd?
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Old Sep 14, 2011 | 9:31 am
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Long ago, I always had fantastic success getting bumped on the Wednesday. I remember one year sitting at ORD accepting 3 bumps for over $2,000 in vouchers total. AA would overbook a 727 by 30-40 people and then need 10-15 volunteers at the gate. Collect $750, roll over to the next flight, repeat process. Now it seems like they both overbook to a lesser extent, perhaps due to better data, and are less likely to confirm you onto another flight that is obviously oversold as well.

In recent years, I've read reports that the travel demand that week has become more spread out - starting Friday (in this case, the 18th) as so many people have off the entire week. In fact, I noticed fares a couple weeks ago for MCI-MSP on the 23rd at $59, bookable one-way on DL - perhaps stoked in part by F9. I have never seen that in the past...

But between the Tues and Wed, I'd probably still go for midday Wednesday. I imagine that's still a busy day with the Thanksgiving travelers augmented by any business travelers who are doing a short trip that week...
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Old Sep 15, 2011 | 5:35 pm
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That's what I suspected....

I'm booking on the Wednesday. I know the real choke point and gold standard for bumps is the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving, but I'm not willing to pay the extra $100 or so for that lottery ticket.
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Old Sep 15, 2011 | 8:37 pm
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Neither is really that good anymore. People know the day before is horrible, so they have been spreading their travel out a bit more. Your best bet would be to book on Wednesday and hope for horrible weather.

It really won't matter usually though, chances of any empty seats on later flights to get you to where you want to go are pretty slim, so if you do it, don't do it for someplace you want to be, they may not get you out till Thursday afternoon or something.

I loved the golden days of Thanksgiving travel where you could make a fortune on bumps booking several flights on the same day ( I didn't care about the $100 tickets, I wanted the $400 cash for each bump). Those days are long gone.

There have been many stories about the myth of Thanksgiving being the busiest travel day of the year recently, like this one from Seattle last turkey day

SEA-TAC AIRPORT, Wash. -- The day before Thanksgiving is often called the busiest travel day of the year. But when it comes to air travel, that's a myth.

"This is not our busiest time of the year," said Sea-Tac Airport spokesman Perry Cooper. "In fact, it doesn't even come close to our average day during the summer."
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Old Sep 16, 2011 | 8:07 am
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I can totally see that for Seattle...several airlines add capacity to/from SEA in the summer, including long-haul international.

I guess the real question would be load factor. But I agree with the general premise that it's no longer a gold mine and that there are probably better days to get bumped. The real opportunities are likely regional - certain cities during Spring Break/March Madness, etc.

Originally Posted by cordelli
I wanted the $400 cash for each bump
Only challenge with that is it's totally out of your control...and I'm not sure how an elite-status holder would ever get this to begin with. The two times I have been IDB'd in my life have been precisely because of my lack of elite status. And I just assume that by the time you inform a gate agent that you'd be willing to accept IDB comp, she'd counter that you're actually a VDB and you should get something other than cash. I've VDB'd a lot over the years and no one has ever offered up cash...at least not to me.

That said, in the old days the VDB vouchers I used to get on AA actually had one advantage over cash, assuming you could use them: when you booked an international ticket with them, one of the tax categories wasn't charged.

In short, I wouldn't book a flight on the Wed before Thanksgiving unless I actually needed to get to the destination.
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Old Sep 16, 2011 | 4:16 pm
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I made my living one summer getting bumped and collecting the cash.

You don't have the ability to accept or not accept an involuntary bump, that's why they call them involuntary, so I really don't see what status has to do with it.

If they have people willing to volunteer, they will select those people no matter what their status before going to involuntary bumps. It usually costs them less, they don't have to report them as involuntary bumps to the DOT, etc.
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Old Sep 16, 2011 | 9:08 pm
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Originally Posted by pinniped
I can totally see that for Seattle...several airlines add capacity to/from SEA in the summer, including long-haul international.
The added capacity is true for most airlines throughout the summer - summer season is when you tend to see airlines cut back the most flights, and at many airports such as SEA, they run full. There might be some added flights here and there at Thanksgiving in the context of the (significantly reduced) fall schedule, but it's still often less than summer.

As a point of reference, here are some numbers for Nov. 27 (Sunday after Thanksgiving) for domestic flights only:

- 24,219 domestic departures
- 2,418,380 domestic seats
- 1,979,076,880 available seat miles
- Average departure has 99.7 seats

Compared to Thursday, July 21 (random Summer Thursday, same criteria entered into my database, just changing the date of the schedule pull)

- 26,256 domestic departures
- 2,531,108 domestic seats
- 2,093,019,434 available seat miles
- Average departure has 96.4 seats

Add in the fact that summer season has quite a bit more international travel than November, and a typical weekday nation-wide is busier.

The difference is you have a lower no-show rate, and lines are often longer due to gridlock - on a typical weekday, you have quite a few people that know how to get through security quickly and not clog up lines. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, you have a bunch of infrequent flyers that don't know to take laptops out, shoes off, kippie bags with liquids out, etc. Same at check-in; people are unfamiliar with kiosks, using OLCI, more likely to check bags, etc. Build enough critical mass and these lines at both check-in and security get longer much quicker.
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