Guide to Being Bumped (or Not) - NYTimes.com

Guide to Being Bumped (or Not) - NYTimes.com: "ONE hundred twenty-two seats. One hundred twenty-eight passengers waiting to board. Someone’s going to be bumped." Airlines are required to ask people who are not in a hurry to give up their seats voluntarily, in exchange for compensation, before passengers who do not want to give up their seats are kicked off. But with capacity cuts, getting customers to volunteer is tricky. Full planes mean that the next flight out with an open seat might not be until the next day or even the next.Still, there are some travelers who see the flight crunch as a lucrative opportunity. Among them is Ben Schlappig. The 20-year-old senior at the University of Florida said he earned “well over $10,000” in flight vouchers in the last three years by strategically booking flights that were likely to be oversold in the hopes of being bumped.“I don’t remember the last time I paid over $100 for a ticket,” he boasted. His latest coup: picking up $800 in United flight vouchers after giving up his seat on two overbooked flights in a row on a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Or as he calls it, “a double bump.”Obviously not your typical traveler, Mr. Schlappig is among a small, but passionate group obsessed with accruing frequent-flier miles. An elite flier on United, American and other carriers, he regularly makes “mileage runs,” crisscrossing the continent in a day with multiple airport stops simply to rack up miles, a pursuit he chronicles (writing under the name Lucky) on the One Mile at a Time blog on BoardingArea.com, which is geared to road warriors. Along the way, he deliberately seeks out flights he thinks will be oversold.“Every time I book a ticket, in the back of my mind is which flight has the best chance of being bumped,” he said. His strategies — which include booking the last flight of the day, telling the check-in clerk or gate agent that he is willing to give up his seat even before an announcement has been made and praying for bad weather — have already earned him more than $2,800 in flight vouchers so far this year. But his experiences also provide some education for travelers looking for ways to avoid being bumped.Below, insider tips to the bumping game. In most cases, do the opposite if you want to keep your seat.