The other day we were voluntarily bumped on our flight home to Portland from Fort Lauderdale. We were the only two passengers who got the bump, and here is how I did it. Exactly one hour before departure, the gate agent made an announcement to all passengers who did not yet have seat assignments. He said that he was aware of all those who still needed seats and he would call them up to the podium as soon as he had seats for them. That was the entire announcement, nothing was said about the flight being overbooked.
After all these years I know that when there are more passengers than seats, that the flight is overbooked. After that announcement I went up to the podium and asked if he thought they would need volunteers, and if yes, could we be rerouted without spending an additional night away. The agent right away told me that yes, he could use volunteers, and found us a routing home that would actually get us home at the same time that we were scheduled for. I told him that we would volunteer, and he took our boarding passes and said that he would call us either way, if he needed our seats or not.
About 15 minutes later, the gate agent then announced he was looking for volunteers to be bumped, and I saw a couple of people go up and offer to volunteer. Another call was made about 10 minutes after that, so I thought it was looking good for us to get the bump. Boarding started, and I noticed that there were quite a few passengers around the gate that had Priority Verification cards (which are blank boarding passes that are good for getting through security) and they looked nervous. That includes a group of six crew members that had just come off of the ship that we were just on (Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam) that were trying to get home to Indonesia. Five minutes before departure, it was just the crew members left without seats, and soon they were called up; first three of them in a row. At that point the gate agent called up all of the other volunteers besides us and told them to board the flight, that they didn’t need their seats after all. Then two more of the HAL crew got boarding passes and finally the last crew member got his seat and the agents closed the boarding door as soon as he was through.
I gave it a few minutes before approaching the podium and smiling at the agent Isaid, “I guess you used our seats.” The agent said, yes, I’m just working on your re-booking now. She then handed me two vouchers, one for each of us, good for $300 for future transportation, and then gave us boarding passes for the next Fort Lauderdale-Dallas/Ft. Worth flight. We would end up leaving two hours later, but still connecting to the same flight in Dallas.
So, if you want to volunteer to be bumped from a flight, don’t wait until you hear a call for volunteers. If you hear an announcement about passengers still waiting for seats, go see the gate agent! Most of the time they would prefer to start organizing an over sale situation earlier rather than later.
