Years ago when I lived in South Miami Beach, Florida, I took a week long Christmas trip to my birth home in Minnesota. Christmas day had a high temperature of -6F. The evening that I was returning to Florida, the airline said that they were overbooked and looking for volunteers to be bumped. They were offering a free round trip ticket anywhere in the USA. My decision process was comparing a free round trip ticket to being on the beach at 10 the next morning. I picked the beach at 10 the next morning.
A family member took a fake sick day in order to fly to another city for a job interview. She made it to the job interview but on the way back she got onto an overbooked flight, where the travelers already on the plane were essentially told, “We are going to sit here at the gate until we get 4 (or however many) volunteers to take another fight.” My family member sat there in terror that she was going to have to get off, but they did get enough “volunteers.” However, this action delayed the takeoff time such that she missed her connecting flight, and she did have to 'fess up that she hadn’t really been sick.
Fortunately, she got the job.
Back when I was flying, I frequently took this one flight that was always overbooked, according to one of my seatmates who also frequently took it. After the first time I planned for it, although I only once took the bump, in exchange for an upgrade on the next available fight. (Which was four hours later and put me home about 3am, which was okay with me.) There are times when it works, but for the most part once I’ve made the for me extraordinary effort to get there on time with all my shit, it’s worth more than they want to pay for me to do it all again.
I would let them give me whatever was allowed by their rules…while crying about missing “poor, poor Davey’s” funeral.
If they want to assume that Davey was a dear relative instead of a goldfish, who am I to deprive them of this chance to feel better about themselves?
I had a similar nice experience going from DAL to BJX one time. I got there before the flight I was bumped from, with a smallish voucher in my account.
I once accepted $700 to get bumped.
But the money wasn’t the factor - I was flying from Columbus, OH, to Memphis, to Atlanta, and they offered to put me on a direct flight to Atlanta that would end up arriving 1 hour sooner than my original itinerary. I would have taken that for free, the $700 was just a bonus.
It was just a vouched, I ended up using it on a vacation with my then fiancee to NYC for a weekend.
I helped my wife move Elko NV a couple of years back. We drove out and then I was supposed to fly home. They asked for volunteers to get bumped from the return flight in exchange for $1,300. I took it and booked my return flight a week later. I worked from her corporate apartment for a week since I’d brought my laptop with me and then we got a free vacation once her tour there was up.
Generally I don’t have a lot of flexibility in my travel plans so I wouldn’t take the offer unless it was extrodinary $1,000 cash per day would be my minimum but my current company likes lots of flexible time in trips so I had a free day on either side of my last work trip and it wouldn’t have taken much to bump me on the way out and i probably would have take just a couple of hundered on the way back. Of course i wouldnt have done anything for a voucher.
For what my experience is worth I was a player of the bumping game back in my younger days.
When I went to college there was a weird scheduling thing on the way back home, where the connecting flight at 8:00PM was pretty much always overbooked by 1 person. As a college kid flying alone I was usually asked if I was willing to be bumped for 300 bucks. And since my entire ticket cost $260 it was pretty sweet. And the great thing was half the time I didn’t even want the connecting flight. But because of docking fees at DIA when it was new, it was cheaper to add on the 80 mile connecting flight than to end at Denver. Out of 8 total trips,5 were paid by the coupon from the previous flight. One it wasn’t overbooked, once some other kid got asked first,and once my arriving flight landed after 8. The two times I took the bump flight I was all alone in an 13 or 17 seat Beechcraft. The other three times I just called friends in Denver and skipped the flight home after getting the voucher.
The bumping thing was also a big game with Southwest. (They only flew from Colorado Springs,not Denver back then)Since 9/11 I hate flying at all so i don’t know if they still have the same kind of culture. But back in the day they overbooked like hell, and there were people like me who flew Southwest largely for the hope of getting bumped for a free/cheap flight the next time. People hung around the desk like vultures sniffing out if it is overbooked and hoping to be first to volunteer. In consequence sometimes the Airline started out with a really low-ball offer like 25 buck coupon. I never saw a case where they had to go real high to get enough volunteers,and never anything close to a forced bump. Once I got $650 for a Flight to Miami because it was full of oldsters who weren’t competing to get bumped so I sat on my cards for awhile,but 250-300 was average.
Do they ever give cash these days? Or just vouchers?
I was offered a voucher, but then the woman kind of looked around, leaned toward me, and quietly told me that if I insisted on cash they’d give me cash. I said I insisted on cash. Boom. She radioed a dude who came over and wrote me a check.
ETA: I once overheard a guy being offered a voucher. He laughed and said he wanted cash, because he’d “never fly this piece of shit airline again”. He said that very loudly.
Will it make up for what I’m losing? A day’s pay? An extra day’s vacation plus a day’s pay? The cost of any expenses I’ve already made? The cost of rescheduling anything?
And if I’m traveling for work, it’s likely that a full day’s delay will make the entire trip pointless. So it would have to be a fuckload of cash
Most of my flying is for business and I’m expected to be somewhere somewhen so I couldn’t really accept a voluntary bump.
Even then I’d hold out for being an involuntary bump because depending on the situation, the airline may be required to compensate me 4x the cost of the ticket up to $1350.
Quite honestly, I think they should refund the ticket price, or provide another flight for the exact same fee. A “voucher” is fucking ridiculous.
(And surely they don’t kick someone off who’s flying to see a dying relative, or something like that. Please, please tell me that’s never been the case!)
I mean, that’s the only way I’d agree to be bumped.
In THAT particular case, no fucking way – they’d have to drag me off the way they did that guy. And you better believe I’d fucking sue.
Depends. If I have the flexibility, sure $1000 would work.
My wife and daughter have been caught up in the Delta mess. They are sitting on the plane at the gate at JFK even as we speak. The flight was 3 hours delayed, which was nice because it gave them an extra dinner in NYC. But once they boarded, the power went off and it’s been over two hours on the plane while “repairs are underway.”
I asked my wife to check on the over booking 'cause it would be good for them to spend another day in NY on Delta’s dime, but I’m guessing the flight is full and not over booked. Not sure how it will end up tonight…
When they flew out on Friday, then got stuck in Detroit. My daughter had university tours planned at the Rhode Island School of Design. The connecting flight was cancelled and the line to the help desk was huge. When they finally got help, it took a lot of arguing and impatient passengers behind them to finally get booked on the first flight to Boston so they were able to train it and still make the RISD tour in the afternoon. Delta wouldn’t spring for the hotel (I thinking they should have and we will complain when everyone is home) but they made the tour! (Missed Brown, but that was a nice to have).
True story from circa 1980. I think it was United. Back then the pilot offer cold hard cash to bump people to a later flight. He offered $100 and no takers. Pilot offered again. No takers. The waitlisted guy whipped out his wallet, pulled out some cash and shouted “I’ll add $100.” The pilot said “you can’t do that.” Stand by guy said “the hell I can’t, I gotta be on this flight.” Someone took the $200 and re booking.
Usually when I fly, changes to my schedule would be a great big PITA. In that case, there is no plausible sum of money that I would accept in lieu of being bumped.
But if I could afford a schedule change, I’d take $1000 cash (or maybe $1500 in non-expiring travel vouchers) and I’d expect the airline to book my alternative flight(s) and added accommodations, if any, at no additional cost to me.
Slight hijack: If your daughter was already accepted at Brown and RISD and is now trying to decide, never mind the following paragraphs, they are not relevant to her. But if she is touring in anticipation of applying this fall, do consider this:
You may be aware of this already, but if your daughter thinks she could be seriously interested in Brown, make sure the school knows she missed the tour through no fault of her own. Schools keep track of who attends their tours. I am told that they take the demonstrated level of interest into account when the make admissions decisions, since keeping yield high has become a big thing these days. A student who clearly can’t visit is one thing, but a student who schedules a tour and doesn’t show up could find her chances diminished if the school doesn’t know why she was a no-show.
(I just wrote, and deleted as too detailed and boring, a story confirming that the above is good advice. Bottom line is - the college admissions process is so nutty these days that you don’t want to leave anything to chance. Best of luck to your daughter - and if the joys of the college application process still await you, best of luck to you too! Brown and RISD are great schools; may she find happiness at either of them or at any other place that is a good fit for her.)
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Happened to me twice.
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Was on holiday going back home. An extra night in London; a 500 pounds and a hotel room? Hell yes. As it was, someone else was bumped but would have taken it.
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Last year flying for business. In this case, hell no. And someone else was bumped.
So like everyone else has mentioned, context is everything.
The last time I was on a flight that they were bumping people it was a short turnaround to BOS, like 4-5 hrs. If I took the next flight I wouldn’t be able to step outside & make my return because it got in about 1/2 hour before my return flight time. Since I had better things to do than pointlessly fly around, I declined.
In general, others can be bought cheaper than me as bidding has never gotten to the # that I’d want.
Me too! (Flying from Scotland for the eclipse, that is).
I was going to use my upcoming trip as the perfect example of “it depends”. I’m flying Edinburgh to New York, and have a ticket for Roger Waters in Philly the next day. No price would compensate for missng that. A couple of days later, I’m flying down to New Orleans. Could I go a day later? Sure. Give me an extra night in a hotel in NYC, put me on the flight the next day, and $200 for my trouble. I’m then doing a road trip from New Orleans to Nashville for the eclipse, joining an organised trip to Hopkinsville for the event itself. After that, my flight from Nashville to New York? Nope, got a ticket for Groundhog Day on Broadway that night and I really, really don’t want to miss that flight. Next day’s return trip to Edinburgh? Don’t care. I’ll have an extra day’s vacation if you like.
So… “it depends”.
I’m happy to be bumped if the offer is commensurate with the inconvenience. I’ll sometimes volunteer to take a later flight if it doesn’t screw with my connections or a required arrival time.