Hey, I'm Scott,
founder of Scott's Cheap Flights.
You know it's true, I'm obsessed
with cheap flights, and I've learned
a thing or two over the years
about how to find them.
One of the hot button topics in recent years
has been the policy of airlines overselling flights.
This is when an airline sells more seats
than they actually have available on a plane.
And I want to tell you why that's actually
not a bad thing, and how it can quietly benefit you.
Let's say you've got a flight
on a plane that holds 100 people.
The airline can actually look at past data
and predict that as many as 8 of those people
aren't going to show up for that flight.
Maybe they missed an alarm or a connection
or maybe they just decided they didn't want
that flight any more.
So rather than sell 100 tickets for that flight,
the airline will often try to sell 108 tickets,
in the hopes that only 100 people
ultimately show up to fly.
This way the airlines can actually ensure
that the planes fly as close to capacity
as possible, and this allows them
to maximize profit.
Every empty seat that could have been filled
is lost potential revenue.
So airlines really want to make sure,
if there's demand for a seat,
that they fill it.
Usually they're pretty good at this,
but sometimes their prediction is wrong
and they end up in a situation
where they've got more passengers than seats.
In these situations, they'll start
by offering vouchers to volunteers
who can take a different flight,
but every once in a while,
if they don't get enough volunteers,
they actually have to choose a passenger
to bump to another flight.
You might remember in 2017,
when an overbooked United flight made headlines
after the passenger who was selected
to be bumped, he refused to leave
and had to be forcibly removed from the aircraft.
Obviously the airline did not handle
that situation particularly well,
but that doesn't mean that the policy
of overselling flights is itself inherently bad.
Overselling can really be a good thing,
because it helps keep prices low for everyone.
If airlines were to routinely
send out flights half full,
they'd either have to charge a lot more for airfare,
or they'd have to cut back on the frequency
of flights, which ends up meaning fewer options
for travelers and higher prices.
By making sure that each flight carries
as many people as possible, airlines can afford
to offer lower fares to everybody.
If you've got a flexible travel schedule,
an overbooked flight can actually be a real gift
from the travel overlords.
You know, before an airline involuntarily
bumps anybody, they start by asking for volunteers.
Typically they're going to offer a voucher
for future travel, maybe $100 or $200 to start.
Of course, they'll put you on the next available flight,
and if needed, put you up in a hotel
or give you food vouchers.
If they don't get enough volunteers though,
they start increasing the offer.
They ratchet it up, often to $500 or more.
Some lucky fliers have gotten vouchers,
sometimes even straight cash,
for more than $1,000.
Statistically, it's very unlikely
you'll be bumped involuntarily from a flight.
The good news is that if it does happen,
the airline owes you a lot of money.
Under federal law, if you get bumped
and it delays you by more than an hour,
the airline owes you up to $1,350.
How do they choose who to bump?
Every airline has different rules
about choosing which passengers to bump.
Among the deciding factors are status
with the airline, fare class,
who checked in in what order,
even the price of your ticket.
So that means if you're a frequent flier
in a premium class, you might end up being
less likely to be bumped, while somebody
who bought a basic economy ticket
and checked in last is going to be
more likely to be bumped.
Again, though, remember the odds are slim.
The statistics from the Department of Transportation
puts your chances of being bumped involuntarily
at one in 67,000.
So given that overselling helps keep fares low,
I'll take those odds.
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Thanks for watching!
Safe travels.