Right Place, Wrong Time to Benefit from Flight Bump Vouchers

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A few years ago, I wrote a post about scoring flight vouchers through Voluntary Denied Boarding (VDB, i.e. getting bumped to a later flight). Several readers shared their experiences reaping the rewards from an oversold flight.

My family never seems to be in the right place at the right time to get these flight vouchers. And just recently, we missed out on an opportunity that would have been a total boon for future travel.

Oversold on Spring Break

My family visited North Captiva Island in Southwest Florida last week (more to come in a future post). Our flight to Fort Myers was oversold. When I checked in online, a message popped up asking for volunteers to move to a later flight for a $300 flight voucher.

Then, at the airport while waiting for our flight, the offers started to increase. Apparently nobody was volunteering to be bumped to a later flight. As my family boarded, the gate attendant was still looking for volunteers. The price was now $950 to move to a later flight!

Why We Turned Down $4750

Nobody was budging. I guess everyone wanted to get the heck outta Dallas and head to spring break bliss.

But hearing that the offer was up to $950 per person (almost $5000 for my family of five!) was killing me. My husband even looked at me quizzically and asked if there was any way we could take it.

If we had been heading to a resort near Fort Myers (like Hyatt Regency Coconut Point), we totally would have taken the flight bump. Sure, we would have missed half of a day at the resort, but that’s a small price to pay for a voucher that large.

But the problem was that we were heading to an island only accessible by boat or plane, and the logistics weren’t quite so simple. To get to our rental house, we had to ride in a shuttle for an hour to a marina. Then from the marina, we had to sail 30-60 minutes to get to the island.

AA had already cancelled our early morning flight a few weeks prior, so we had to change our shuttle and boat reservations to a later time. Since it was a spring break week, almost all of the houses on the island were sold out. Getting transportation there was challenging. We just couldn’t risk the chance of not finding another boat ride late at night to the island.

So, we had to walk away from VDB. It sounded like people would be involuntarily bumped instead, but it wasn’t us. We went on to arrive on time and made it to the island without any issues.

Maybe Next Time?

I still keep an open mind any time VDB is offered. If the price is high enough, we will adjust our plans. Maybe one of these days, we will be in the right place at the right time.

We have some flexibility on our next flight this summer to Orlando. We are actually flying in the night before our reservation begins. Of course, Murphy’s law dictates that this flight won’t be oversold. Ha!

Have you jumped on an oversold flight voucher lately? Are you ever tempted by the offers?

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Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.