#getting bumped

How we made $3,000 at the airport

It was a Sunday evening, one week into the new year. We had just boarded United flight #1566 to Mexico City in the second boarding group. After we got seated, we noticed no one else was boarding. Earlier they made an announcement about the plane being overweight and were looking for volunteers to agree to be bumped to another flight for $500 credit. We didn’t pay too much attention, since we…

How to get--or not get--bumped from an overbooked flight.

With the recent United Airlines debacle, overbooking of flights has suddenly become newsworthy. Some people are crying that overbooking should be illegal, while the airlines are saying that they can’t keep fares as low as they are without overbooking flights.

However you feel about overbooking, it looks like that practice is going to be here to stay. So what do you do if you want to avoid getting…