What to do if you are bumped from a flight

Here is a helpful article written by George Hobica: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/04/travel/flight-bumping-tips/index.html?hpt=tr_c2

A few highlights:

Passengers can now collect up to $1,300 for being bumped from a domestic flight if they arrive at their destination more than two hours later than scheduled, under Department of Transportation rules revised earlier this year. (The previous maximum was $800.) Passengers can also get as much as $650 (up from $400) if they get to their destination within one to two hours of the scheduled time according to the new rule.

Elite tier members of an airline's frequent flier program are typically less likely to be bumped. You should also know that the folks in the cheap seats have lower priority on some airlines than the ones who paid full fare. So if you're a very frequent flier at the highest tier of your airline's program and/or paid a full fare (or are a business or first class passenger) you're more likely to get on board than the poor chap who paid next to nothing for his coach ticket.

If the airline won't issue you a seat assignment when you buy your ticket, that's a red flag and you might want to choose another flight or carrier.

Passengers should insist on a check instead of a travel voucher (a free round-trip flight, for example), which many airlines typically offer, because vouchers come with restrictions and can be difficult to redeem (you sometimes can only cash them in at the airport).

If your ticket does not show a fare (for example, a frequent-flier award ticket or a ticket issued by a consolidator), your denied boarding compensation is based on the lowest cash, check or credit card payment charged for a ticket in the same class of service (e.g., coach, first class) on that flight.

If you're bumped but arrive at your destination within an hour of the original time, there's no compensation owed.

Often, a seat may open up at the last minute if someone does not board. Also, it's usually only the gate agent at the airport who can handle the booking for the next flight and issue compensation. Calling the airline's toll-free number will not get you anywhere. If the gate agent instructs you to go to a customer service counter to be rebooked and/or receive compensation, then you can try calling the 1-800 number for assistance, but compensation is almost always issued at the airport by the agent who handled the flight.

Avoid peak travel days (Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday are best) and seasons (the day before Thanksgiving and the Christmas holiday periods are notorious for being bump-prone) when planes tend to be jammed full.

Of course, the easiest thing you can do is book way ahead and arrive early. Way early. Don't buy a ticket if there are no assigned seats available. And be loyal: attain some status in your airline's frequent flier program and you're less likely to be ill-treated.

Bumped fliers could see higher compensation

By Dan Reed, USA TODAY
UPDATE: DOT proposes airlines pay bumped passengers up to $1,300

The compensation for getting bumped from your airline seat could be going up soon.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood plans to announce today a proposed "inflation adjustment" for passengers who are bumped off flights, along with other proposals aimed at protecting airline consumers.

Currently, most bumped passengers who reach their destination less than two hours later than originally planned get $400 in cash. Those who are delayed longer get $800.

The Transportation Department wouldn't discuss details of LaHood's proposals pending his announcement. But over the years, some travel consumer advocates have suggested that the compensation limits be pushed to $800 and $1,200, respectively. After inflation, that's roughly equal to the $200 and $400 compensation levels set in 1978, when the government first began regulating the practice of "overbooking."

Thirty years ago, when most airline tickets were fully refundable, no-shows were a big problem for airlines. Today, however, a majority of tickets are deeply discounted and are non-refundable, so the problem of no-shows is greatly diminished.

Still, a small percentage of travelers — mostly business people whose higher-priced tickets are fully refundable — don't show up for their flights. As a result, most airlines continue to sell a few more tickets for a flight than there are seats on a plane.

Airlines use computer programs to predict how many no-shows there'll be for a given flight. And they've gotten good at it. Last year, there were only 13 passengers bumped out of every 10,000 domestic passenger boardings. Historically, that number had been more than 20 per 10,000.

"It's getting to be a smaller and smaller problem all the time, thanks to the more sophisticated revenue-management systems," says Bill Swelbar, research engineer at MIT's International Center for Air Transportation.

Still, 762,422 passengers were bumped from domestic flights in 2009. Of that number, 69,234 involuntarily gave up their seats, according to the Transportation Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Statistically, those are very small numbers. But for passengers who are bumped involuntarily, the experience often means great disruption to personal or professional lives.

And it's getting harder to get seats on later flights. In response to the recession, high oil prices and $60 billion in losses since 2000, airlines have trimmed the seats they make available on domestic routes by about 10.5% from 2008