Can This Trip Be Saved? Getting Bumped During the Holiday Season
by John Hawks

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Answer: Being "bumped" from a flight means that your airline is denying you a seat on its plane when you are holding a confirmed reservation for that seat. If you don't fly often, you may find it hard to understand how you could possibly be denied a seat on the plane -- after all, didn't you pay for the seat in advance to make sure it would be there for you? What happens is that most airlines practice the art of "overbooking" -- literally, selling more tickets on a flight than the planes have actual seats. They do this to make up potentially lost revenue from seats not occupied by passengers who miss a flight or who made reservations without paying for them in advance.

Federal law allows airlines to oversell their flights -- but it also requires commercial carriers operating flights carrying more than 60 passengers (originating in the United States) to seek volunteers first before involuntarily pulling anyone from an oversold flight. Many times, passengers will volunteer to take the next available flight, giving up their seats to resolve the oversold situation. In return, those passengers may receive coupons for future flights or other compensation.

If you find yourself unwillingly pulled from a flight on which you're holding a confirmed reservation, U.S. Transportation Department regulations allow the airline to arrange substitute transportation that gets you to your final destination within one hour of your originally scheduled arrival time to avoid paying you any compensation (though many carriers will offer a meal voucher or other amenity in the name of good customer service). If the substitute flight will get you there from one to two hours late on a domestic route (one to four hours internationally), the airline must pay you at least the equivalent of your one-way fare, up to $200 maximum. If the new flight arrives more than two hours late (more than four hours internationally), or if the airline can't get you on a new flight, then you're due a maximum of $400.

Beyond these bare rules, many airlines will go further -- offering you an overnight hotel stay if your new flight leaves the next day, for example -- especially if you belong to the carrier's frequent flyer program.

Want to know the specific policies of your favorite airline? Go to the carrier's Web site and, in the search box, type "bumping" to find the rules. (You can also type in "contract of carriage" and search the contract's table of contents or index for "bumping.")

Remember that these U.S. rules do not apply to charter flights (e.g., many package trips to the Caribbean or Mexico) or planes with 60 or fewer seats.

Thankfully, involuntary bumping doesn't happen often. In the first quarter of 2005, Transportation Department figures show that only 1.1 of every 10,000 airline passengers were bumped against their will. However, many U.S. airlines will fly very full schedules during the 2005 year-end holiday season -- and, since 9/11, they've cut flights regularly, making it tougher to find alternate flights if you're taken off your original schedule. That's why it pays to know these rules -- and to check your airline's own policies -- before you head out for the holidays!

(For further reference, here's an excellent summary of the dos and don'ts of airline bumping.)