Love to fly? Who doesn't? Sure, I enjoy long car drives as well, but there are some times when flying is just far more practical.
These days, airlines are cramming more and more people in to each airline. Used to be, back in the day, that planes would leave the terminal half empty. Fuel was cheap. Airlines didn't seem to mind too much that their plane was taking off half empty, so off the planes would go, with the seats half empty.
Times have certainly changed. Now a packed plane seems to be the rule rather than the exception. And that can be beneficial to you, if you know how to use it to your advantage!
I would often try to book my flights as far in advance as I could, to save me some money on advanced reservations. But, I would do more than just that. I would also try to book flights that I knew, or at least thought, had a good chance of being over-booked.
Yes, over-booked. Airlines will typically over-book a flight. If a jet has 200 available seats, for example, they might potentially sell 215 tickets. Now, why on earth would they do this knowing full well that not every ticket holder was going to get a seat?
Typical human nature ensures that a certain percentage of ticket holders simply will not make it to the plane. Some will be held up in traffic. Others will get speeding tickets on the way to the airport. Others will simply oversleep in bed before waking up too late. There are a million reasons why people will never make it to a flight. Hence, airlines will often take this fact in to consideration when booking a flight. This seems to especially be true around spring break, holidays, and typical seasonal busy times such as Thanksgiving and Christmas.
What on earth to do if ALL 215 people show up to a flight gate where the jet only has 200 seats? Well, this is where an airline has a small problem on its hands.
And this is where I would get excited.
Because, I would hope and pray that the flight IS overbooked. I would factor in to my flight plans that the flight was bound to be overbooked. If I knew I had to be in Las Vegas on a Friday, I'd plan for a flight leaving on a Wednesday, for example.
On flight day, here's what I'd typically do: I'd arrive to the airport well ahead of schedule. It nowadays takes forever just to get through security anyways, so you pretty much have no other choice. But, once I made it through security, I'd make my way to the gate. Usually I was one of the first ones to arrive. Upon my arrival, I'd walk up to the counter and casually ask if the flight was over-booked, or if it appeared in any way that it might be.
My eyes would light up if the agent replied that the chances of over-booking were good! The next thing I would do would be to ask to be placed on a list of passengers who would gladly be placed on a list of those willing to give up their seats in lieu of the next flight out to Vegas, or wherever.
The agent would duly take my name down, and I would sit and wait. And wait. And wait. The gate lobby would slowly fill with other passengers who also were awaiting the same flight as I was destined for. Then, at about 15 minutes until boarding, I'd ask the same agent if it appeared that the flight was still over-booked. By that point, enough ticket-holders had shown up where the agent could make a determination by a quick glance at her monitor.
If all was well, I was to be placed on the next flight out to Vegas.
Now, that might be fours hours later. Six. Twelve. It might have been the following day, exactly 24 hours later. I didn't care. I had already built this delay in to my travel plans. I could STILL fly out the following day and still make my engagements in Vegas.
For my willingness to help the airline out, they are compelled to reward me with something. It was always a free airline ticket to anywhere the airline flew. I managed to accrue so many free airline tickets by this method!
But it gets even better. If I had to wait more than four hours for the next flight, the airline had to provide me with a airport meal voucher. If the next flight out was something on the order of 24 hours later, the airline had to put me up in a hotel PLUS a few meal vouchers.
I had my laptop, a MP3 player, some movies, some books and plenty of other activities to keep me occupied during my downtime, so I wasn't too concerned.
I pulled the same trick on my return-from-Vegas flight as well. Often times I'd earn a free flight both ways, plus a few free meals!
Now, there were sometimes cases where the flight was NOT totally over-booked. No great loss. But, I still had a card to play here as well. There would be times when only half the first class seats were sold, but coach was over-booked. In cases such as this, I would still manage to get out on that flight, but, as I would always confer with the ticket agent beforehand, I could easily bump my coach seat up to first class and no additional cost to me, and the airline would sell some other passenger my coach seat!
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