Victim Of Overbooking By Airline? Understand Your Alternatives

Airlines routinely overbook. And you really can’t blame them. Experience tells them a small percentage of their passengers won’t show up after making a reservation.

The airlines also employ excellent statisticians who can calculate how many no-shows are likely on a particular flight.

But airlines are not perfect. Occasionally, they have more passengers - tickets and confirmed reservations in hand - than there are seats on a particular flight.

It happened to me over the Christmas holidays. Because of my job, I knew the people to call and was able to avoid being left behind. But so can almost anyone, if they learn how to work the rules the airlines must follow.

In my particular case, the airline was caught in a bind. We were traveling on a DC-9 with 97 seats. But 95 of those seats were booked for a high school band going to play at a bowl game. Apparently, the airline’s overbooking formula didn’t account for the likelihood that none of those band members was going to be a no-show.

So my wife and I faced the most dreaded overbooking syndrome: The ticket counter folks refused to assign us a seat, sending us to the gate. The gate agent also refused to assign seats, saying the decision on who got on the plane would not be made until 15 minutes before flight time.

That short 15-minute deadline means if you’re bumped, you are dead meat. There’s really no time to mount a counter offense.

So start early. Ask politely to see the supervisor. If that does no good - or, as in my case, the agent refuses to summon the supervisor - hit the phones. Immediately call your travel agent. He or she will normally know someone at the airline and probably will have more clout with them than you.

Or call the airline’s home office, long-distance if necessary. You want to speak to the airline’s director of passenger services - or whatever they happen to call that worthy person. Explain to him or her your problem and ask politely for help. Yelling is really counter-productive.

But you might also want to be bumped. Before bumping anyone, the airline will ask for volunteers. The bait here is a certificate good for future travel for your cooperation in delaying your trip.

If that’s convenient for you, volunteer. Just remember that what the airline offers is subject to negotiation. If airline officials offer you, for example, a certificate good for $500 worth of future flights, there’s nothing that says you can’t bid for $1,000 worth.

And what kind of restrictions are imposed on those flights? Are they for domestic only, do they have blackout dates or require reservations weeks in advance? All those stipulations are up for negotiation. Also, if the delay caused by bumping stretches overnight, who pays for the hotel, food and a phone call home?

Airlines are often willing to deal on flight certificates, because the alternative is handing you hard cash - up to $400 if your original arrival time is delayed more than two hours. These protections apply only if you have a confirmed reservation and arrive at the airport in the time frame set by the airline. The rules don’t apply if the airline is forced to substitute smaller planes due to equipment failure.

In summary, the way to beat the overbooking game is by convincing the airline people their lives will be easier, or cheaper, if they bump someone else.