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Are Airlines Intentionally Overbooking Their Flights? (popularmechanics.com)
"if you sell one seat to two different people, and only one of them shows up, you get extra money," explains an article in Popular Mechanics shared by schwit1. Citing a recent TED-Ed video, they argue that the airlines' strategy for booking flights "makes perfect sense, just not for you."
The most frustrating part? This math could be tuned to ensure the maximum number of tickets sold with a near zero percent chance too many people show up. Instead, the most profitable solutions often involve a decent chance a few passengers getting screwed, because the extra ticket sales outweigh having to put someone up in a hotel now and then.
Yes, of course they do. I thought this was common knowledge. From what I've seen, airlines typically deal with over-booking by offering passengers free first-class upgrades on a later flight, or other perks to induce people to voluntarily give up their seats.
I wouldn't be surprised if they *don't* overbook flights at the busiest time of the year, since that's almost a guaranteed money-loser for them, but I have no evidence either way. Has anyone ever experienced overbooked flights at busy holidays, etc? I suppose it's also airline-specific.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I had a friend in college who was doing this 30 years ago. He would buy the most expensive ticket from Phoenix to San Diego for Friday afternoon. Every Friday he would go to the airport and give up his ticket in exchange for a refund and a free ticket to anywhere in the country. Since they were all but guaranteed to be at least five people wanting to get on the flight, it was a no brain scam. I remember at one time over Christmas vacation he showed me a stack of 35 tickets that he had gotten. He used a few, but mostly resold them. Life was a lot easier then. It paid for his college.
is it legal to sell one thing to two different people?
My thesis adviser and his wife did much the same thing; book all of their travel at peak times, then take the bump and the free ticket / bonus miles / whatever and the free hotel room and fly out the next day. They flew mostly for free for the entire time I knew him.
That's right.
If they purely overbook a flight and too many people show up, people getting bumped is known as an involuntary deferment. They used to have to cut you a check for the price of your ticket, up to $400. (And still get you there). Now that's been bumped up by the FAA ($800 or something).
If they have an equipment change that reduces seat count, they don't have to pay out cash. They can instead "compensate" you with credit on their airline that A) may not be spent at all and B) may require that you put more cash in later for an actual purchase. All the while, they get to hang onto the cash that you paid in the first place.
So the scam is that they schedule your flight (last of the day, for instance) on a plane that they *know* needs mechanical work. They don't do the work, and they "swap" planes at the last minute (to the plane that was *always* going to make that flight). Boom. Instant loophole.
I actually had these particulars explained to me by a United employee at the gate. She must have been having a shit day.