Getting Bumped From Your Flight to Get a Lot More Lucrative
Filed in archive Travel on April 17, 2008
© fdecomite
It's always seemed a little unfair that you can buy a ticket for a flight and be bumped off when it's oversold, even if you really, really need to be on that plane. Starting in May, it's going to become a lot more expensive for the airlines to bump you off:
Passengers who get bumped involuntarily from oversold flights can expect double the compensation, under a new Department of Transportation rule to take effect in May.
Fliers who are involuntarily bumped would get up to $400 if they are rescheduled to reach their destination within two hours of their original arrival time or four hours for international flights, and up to $800 if they are delayed longer.
I'm sure the airlines, which can't seem to stop going bankrupt these days, aren't happy about this. But as travelers it's not only annoying to get bumped, it's annoying even if you make the flight but it gets held up while the airline tries to woo people off of the flight with vouchers for free travel. I once had a flight get off the ground 45 minutes late simply because the airline couldn't get enough people to budge from their seats.
I'm sure there are plenty of people that would take $400 for a couple hours of inconvenience, though.
© fdecomite
Fliers who are involuntarily bumped would get up to $400 if they are rescheduled to reach their destination within two hours of their original arrival time or four hours for international flights, and up to $800 if they are delayed longer.
Tags: travel
Vote for Getting Bumped From Your Flight to Get a Lot More Lucrative:
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Rating: 9.25 out of 4 vote(s) cast.
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Response from:
RichSlick
(04/17/08 4:56pm)
Response from:
Roman
(04/18/08 12:10pm)
I think that this is a great idea but i have take a similar offer like this before and there is a lot of red tape on the tickets they give you, i don't know how the money will be.
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a. Some enterprising kid(s) will develop an application that will determine which flights are the ones you are most likely to get bumped from and sell or arbitrage that information.
b. A new website will offer cash/rewards for you to book your flight on a particular date/time in an effort to force you to get bumped and receive the $800.
c. The "bumping" problem will grow worse as more and more try to game the system - think Housing arbitrage, credit card arbitrage and now airline arbitrage.
Finally, the whole system will collapse under the weight of schemes and scams beneath it.
I can hardly wait!