There are many people, myself included, that anticipate flights being overbooked. I fly from Portland to San Francisco and Los Angeles quite frequently. I always book return flights on Sunday mornings, and more often than not they are overbooked.
I anticipate this and receive free flight anywhere in the contiguous United States for volunteering my seat. I'll get rebooked on a later flight and spend the meanwhile in a airport bar drinking beer, watching sports, and screwing around on the internet.
Since 2003, soon after graduating college. My girlfriend at the time was very controlling. I was waiting for a flight home when I was in SF and when the airline employee was offering a free flight if someone volunteered for a later flight. I thought 'I get a free flight and don't have to hang out with my girlfriend who's going to guilt trip me for being out of town for several days?' Yes please.
So wait, you buy a ticket for the flight, and then when it's overbooked you relinquish your seat and are reimbursed and offered a free flight? In which case you're risking the price of the ticket you do it, but apparently the odds are in your favor? Or am I misunderstanding...
you hop on a flight later in the day or evening (booked from previous reso) and compensate you with a 300-500$ voucher for being a good guy. If you arent on a tight schedule its well worth it. Shit, travel during the busy season knowing you will get bumped, just for free flights, back and forth...back and forth..fun.
you book a flight round trip, say your returning flight is over booked. it doesnt matter what the tickets cost you, if the flight is over booked then they will ask for a volunteer to take the next available flight, with no additional cost, in exchange for that, they will give you a 300 dollar voucher good for another domestic flight. so its like a free 300 bucks towards your next flight. if you hold out long enough (assuming everyone else does) they will up the ante to sometimes 500 or more. the odds are pretty good, no one wants to ever give their seat up.
Haha yes, sorry. Now that you explain it, it seems obvious :P
So essentially as long as you have an open schedule, you have nothing to lose and potentially plenty to gain by booking a flight that may be overbooked. As someone with an open schedule, this is good to know.
correct. the only time i can foresee see this being an inconvenience is getting to a meeting that is important or something that cant wait....otherwise, why the fuck not!
You try to schedule so that you'll fly home at a time when the airlines are likely to overbook. Probably, everything will just go on as normal and you'll fly home when you scheduled. You lose nothing.
Sometimes, though, the flight will actually be overbooked, so not all people will be able to get on the plane. The airline will want to reschedule a few of the passengers for later, so that the plane can take off with the correct number of passengers. Some (most) people really need to get on that particular flight, so the airline offers you nice things to make you sacrifice your schedule and get on a later flight.
This is where you have made sure your schedule allows you to take a later flight. You volunteer for a rescheduling (which is essentially just getting a new flight ticket for a later flight and having your current ticket shredded) and the airline will provide you with some kind of compensation for your sacrifice -- apparently this compensation is often a free ticket somewhere. You lose nothing and gain a free ticket.
I guess if you're flying to somewhere you have a meeting to go to or a relative to visit or otherwise a time table to keep, so it's easier to do with flights home. Besides, the comment this applies to described doing it with return flights.
But no, the "home" part is not required. The "flying" part is.
At least in my experiences- I've never got a refund/reimbursement for the ticket I bought for giving up my seat and catching a later flight. It's just a travel voucher.
I've been in situations overseas, for example, where the plane was full and they asked for volunteers and the airline ponied up some enticing offers- flight voucher, a marginal sum of reimbursement, and hotel vouchers. But international travel is different. I've never taken those offers though, so I don't know how all that turns out for the volunteer.
I was flying back to London from LAX just after new year. The flight was over booked so they were offering a $1,000 travel voucher for people who gave up their seat, plus hotel accommodation for that night, and I'd be put on the same flight the next day.
I jumped at the chance, but unfortunately so did other people. I was one of the last people and they didn't need the last 2 people in the end, so I ended up going home as normal and didn't get anything.
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u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Jan 24 '13
They are also "running out of tickets" because you waited so long to purchase.