THE BUMP AND GRIND OF FLIGHT OVERBOOKING: How to take advantage of airlines overzealousness and fly for free

I love the bump--the flight bump, that is. The voluntary “bump” happens when one volunteers to get “bumped” off a flight because the airline is short seats…the INvoluntary bump sucks…but that’s not what we’re discussing here. No, this article is all about YOU saying to the airline, “Yes, I will give up my seat on that plane…and for doing so, you’re going to kiss my butt.” When airlines seem to be taking advantage of us passengers more and more, switching the playing field on them is a rare and rewarding thing indeed.

How do you do it? Well, here’s a few insider tips to maneuvering your way into being a lucky “bumpee.”

First, you have to start thinking about the bump at the beginning: when you book your flight. You want to book to fly at peak travel times: popular business travel times (early Mondays, late Fridays) and weekends around holidays (Fridays before and Sundays after a holiday, at 4 or 5 pm). I especially like the late-in-the day flights because if flights start getting messed up in the a.m. due to weather (a high likelihood around Christmas-time), chances are they’ll be even more screwed up by the end of the day, and your chances of getting bumped go way up. Just don’t book your original flight so late in the day that it’ll be impossible to still get to your destination at a decent hour if you do get bumped.

When the time finally arrives for your trip, call the airline the night before, ask if your flight’s overbooked, and BY HOW MUCH. If it’s heavily overbooked, the higher the likelihood of bumping. But you NEED to arrive at the airport early to beat your competition, most of whom will probably head to the gate to volunteer. However, since the gate usually doesn’t open until an hour before departure, if you arrive 2 hours before your flight, and go straight to a check-in counter person when you arrive, you’re more likely to be on the top of the secret “volunteer” list.

Secret “volunteer” list? Indeed. If airline personnel only need one or two seats on a flight, they prefer to not make a public announcement asking for volunteers--instead, they hope that they already have a couple names of passengers who’ve come to them beforehand--that’s what you will do. If you’re the first one to say you’d be willing to give up your seat, you’ll be thus the first one chosen for bumping, if necessary.

So, give your name to the person who checks you in, then head to the gate and double-check that your name’s there. If it is, grab a seat within eyeshot of the counter, and start gauging the crowd, watch the stand-by list--if both are growing, keep your fingers crossed--you might indeed get bumped from the flight after all. If that happens, it will be last-minute: well after most of the other passengers have already boarded. If your name is called, and you are told that they do need your seat, you can usually request either the next flight out (even if on another airline), or a flight the next day, if you want to spend another night in your locale. They will usually also give you a roundtrip voucher on par with the ticket you purchased, good for one year. But feel free to ask for something more: a $300-$400 voucher is ideal; anywhere the airline flies in the domestic U.S. is tops; anywhere they fly in the world is the holy grail, and near impossible to ever get. But the more desperate the airline is, the more leverage you have to negotiate.

If they can’t get you onto a flight for anther couple hours, they have to give you vouchers for food in the terminal. You can ask for (but won’t always get) access to their VIP lounge. If they can’t get you out until the next morning, they have to give you a hotel room (usually at the airport)--but only for that night, so if you’d rather spend the night at a friend’s place, you’re SOL on any free hotel whatsoever.

With times becoming tougher and tougher for airlines, there seem to be less and less free flights given away to passengers than there used to. So, if you are able to maneuver your way into even one free flight from these tips, consider yourself lucky--you will have still arrived at your destination at a proper hour, and, hopefully, you’ll have free food, lodging, and future flight in hand, as well--that’s one bump for which all the grind is worth it!