Here is my personal story and I give you a real example of a $ 1200 transportation coupon to travel on American Airlines that I earned simply by giving up my seat on an entire flight.
My wife and I have a timeshare in Cancun, Mexico and we travel there in January or February of each year. Yes, it is the peak season in Cancun and after a year of being there on “Spring Break” we try to avoid the hotel and condos full of reservations and the hordes of wild and excited young people. However, the truth is that flights with a lot of traffic are what we want to look for to take advantage of our plan for the airline to give us free tickets.
Last February we had purchased both of our tickets using frequent flyer miles that we had earned with our American Airlines Advantage CitiBank credit card. A free ticket that we had earned just by paying our bills with our credit card. We’re going to spend the money anyway, so why not pay with a credit card to win free airline tickets? We bought our tickets in the fall and made our timeshare and airline reservations several months in advance. We knew, of course, that this was a busy travel time and that the flights would be full.
Today, with almost all flights full and airlines realizing that cancellations are inevitable, many flights are maxed out or sold at capacity, perhaps a bit more sold. That’s when our luck begins. Traveling at peak times, vacations, spring break, school vacations, we can almost always count on sold out flights with more passengers than seats.
Airlines realize that people will volunteer to take a “hit” for money and other compensation. Getting fired from a flight is not the best thing in the world unless you want to take advantage of the situation and accept the airline’s offer. Remember that the offers are negotiable and the airline would rather pay someone to step aside and not have to force the subject of an overbooking fight and kick someone out.
Airlines will offer on domestic flights $ 200-300 in the form of a coupon for future airline tickets or even a free round-trip ticket to use at a later time, usually within a year. In addition to offering you the next available flight to your destination, they will have food vouchers available in the event of two or more hours of waiting. If this is the last flight for the night and you are at a connecting airport, you can also request hotel accommodation.
What you get is a matter of negotiating with the gate agents, in a courteous and reasonable manner. They have limits and maybe other people have put their names on the volunteer list with you. In our situation in February, we had traveled from our home in Tucson and were making an afternoon connection at the Dallas Fort Worth airport on an international flight (Mexico).
The gate agents had made an announcement that the flight we were taking from Dallas Fort Worth to Cancun was full and the airline was looking for volunteers to give up their seats on the flight. In return, volunteers would be guaranteed a seat on the next available flight. The offer was $ 600 per volunteer passenger or in our case $ 1200 for any American Airline flight during the next year.
Since our timeshare was waiting, it was important for us to arrive in Cancun within a reasonable time of our scheduled check-in. They assured me that the next flight had several empty seats and that we would have no problem getting boarded on the next flight and would arrive about two hours later than planned. The gate took our tickets and said that as soon as they boarded and closed the flight, they would receive our coupons and boarding passes for the next flight.
In about half an hour, we were called to the boarding counter at the gate and given our two $ 600 coupons and two boarding passes for the next first class flight. That wasn’t a little perk we weren’t expecting when we gave up our two bus tickets. We arrived less than two hours after our original time to enjoy our week in Cancun with our coupons of $ 1200 for future trips.
How can you plan to receive free rides in the future?
Let me share some tips you can use to “win” your next free flights. Good luck helping the airline with its deterioration. Airline blight is a plane leaving the airport with an empty seat once the plane leaves the gate. Empty seats can never be recovered, they go to waste. Again, this is why airlines practice betting that some passengers will miss their scheduled flight and coupons can be used to purchase necessary seats.
Terms to be explained: What is “hit”?
Bumping is when an airline overbooked a flight and must “crash” or deny that people with paid reservations board the flight. Overbooking, as I mentioned earlier, is a common airline practice to eliminate or limit empty seats or spoilage on any flight. People can get stuck in traffic, have an illness or some other last minute disorder in their travel plans. No airline wants a flight to leave the gate with empty seats, money that will never be recovered. Airlines have started selling a few more seats than are actually on the plane.
What happens when all the confirmed ones appear on the flight? They offer to buy back seats to passengers on a voluntary basis.
First, buy a ticket on a flight that has the best chance of being overbooked or exhausted. Think about the days when tickets are more expensive. On Sunday afternoons and evenings, people have to go back to work or school on Monday. Friday afternoons when business travelers are heading home for the weekend and people who may want to start their long weekend early. If you travel between two cities, what type of flight do you prefer? Non-stop, of course, who wants to change planes and spend time between flights? My little story also told you before and after a vacation or important vacation time for families.
Buy your tickets with those points in mind. You can always call the night before your flight or even go online to your airline’s website and check the seat map or ask the airline agent if the flight has additional seats available. If the flight appears to be full, arrive early at the airport and check in, arrive at the gate and listen to any announcements about the need for volunteers. The gate agents usually indicate that they have a full flight and ask volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for compensation. You can ask the gate agent for a list of volunteers, but don’t act like a vulture waiting to stop the bank.
One last warning. You can negotiate with the gate agent a bit, food vouchers, hotel vouchers for an overnight stay, or even transportation vouchers. The outcome of the negotiation depends on how desperate the airline is for seats, how many people have volunteered, but remember that the airline has set guidelines for its agents on passenger compensation.
* Ask how it looks on the next flights so you can board.
* Ask about restrictions on free tickets or vouchers and how long you have to use them.
* Be careful with the standby mode on another flight as it could be as crowded as the flight you are giving up.