Here’s how to get the best compensation for it!
You’ve bought a ticket for your flight. If you show up at the gate on time, that means you’re guaranteed a seat, right?
Wrong.
Airlines (legally) oversell flights—although some, like JetBlue, say they don’t—on the assumption some people won’t show up. Overbooking can also occur when bad weather or a mechanical breakdown causes flights to be canceled, or the airline has to switch a flight to a smaller plane with fewer seats. Occasionally, a seat is needed for an air marshal or airline employees. And airlines may cancel flights or limit seating on smaller planes in hot weather because thinner air makes it harder to generate enough lift for takeoff.
When there aren’t enough seats for people holding confirmed reservations, the airline has two courses of action: call for volunteers and bumping. Here’s how both processes works, and how you can best take advantage of each.
1. Call for Volunteers
If a flight is overbooked, the airline will first ask for volunteers to take a later flight in exchange for some type of compensation. This compensation is usually a travel voucher; an airline is not legally required to pay cash to volunteers. (I suspect airlines prefer vouchers partly because although they don’t disclose redemption rates, it stands to reason a percentage of them never get used.)
As soon as an airline has reason to know a flight is overbooked, staff start asking for volunteers at ticket counters, kiosks, and gate areas. The starting voucher offer is always low, and is raised until the needed number of takers is found, essentially pitting passengers against each other in a kind of reverse auction.
My advice is to start high. If you’re going to be delayed for several hours, don’t take the quick and easy $200 voucher! Four hundred dollars for giving up your seat on a domestic flight, $800 for an international one would be my starting point.
Before you accept a voucher, I also recommend you do the following:
-Insist on a confirmed seat, not standby, on the next available flight in addition to the voucher for future travel.
-If you will be delayed for an extended time, ask for meal and/or hotel vouchers, too.
-Ask when the travel voucher expires—typically they are good for one year—and whether it can be combined with other discounts.
-Find out if the voucher can be used on other airlines; American and Delta vouchers can be used on some partner airlines, United and Southwest certificates cannot.
Things to keep in mind if you accept a voucher:
-Most airlines won’t replace a lost voucher.
-Vouchers can’t be sold, although some airlines allows them to be transferred to someone flying on the same reservation as the person who took the voucher.
-Vouchers usually can only be applied to airfare (some airlines allow them to cover taxes and fees). You can’t use them to purchase extra legroom or an in-flight meal.
2. Bumping
If not enough people volunteer when an airline asks for passengers to give up their seats and fly on a different flight, the airline will select passengers (usually working back from the latest-booked, lowest-price ticket holder) to give up their seats. This is called “involuntary denied boarding” or “bumping.”
If you are bumped, the airline has to put you on a replacement flight; you are also entitled to cash compensation, based on a scale mandated by federal law. (Note: To be eligible for compensation, you must have a confirmed reservation and be checked into your flight on time as well as be at the departure gate on time.)
According to Department of Transportation rules, if you arrive at your intended destination on a different flight within an hour (two hours for international flights) of your original arrival time, you are owed nothing. If the airline gets you there between 1-2 hours (2-4 for international flights) late, you are owed 200% the one-way ticket price or $675, whichever is less. If you arrive more than two hours after your original booking (more than four for international trips), you are entitled to 400% of the one-way ticket price or $1350, whichever is less.
While the cash amount is set, you’re also free to negotiate a higher-value voucher instead. That’s what one United passenger did a few years ago. Because of a broken seat, United bumped her from a flight from Dulles Airport (Washington, D.C.) to Austin, Texas. The passenger calculated based on the price of her ticket, she was entitled to about $650 in cash (plus the seat on the later flight, of course). She asked the airline what it would offer by way of a voucher; an agent told her $2,000. The passenger turned down the offer and was about to accept the cash when another United agent admitted she could go as high as $10,000 on the voucher and the passenger accepted it. (Note: As vouchers are usually valid for just one year, unless you know you’ll be flying the airline again within twelve months, you may prefer to opt for the statutory cash amount.)
Twist’s Take: Whether you volunteer or are bumped, use these strategies to maximize your payout for giving up your airline seat.
