Q on US Domestic Flights (Sacramento, Oakland: home, vouchers, price)

[News1234]

This is probably not necessarily the right forum for this however i plan on flying from LAX to Sac airport.

I have heard that with US domestic flights that they overbook passengers to ensure seats are filled when people do not turn up, and that if the flight is full even though you have a booking they will turn you away to next flight.

Is this true? What recommendations do you suggest to avoid being turned away ie: get there early (how early)? etc?

Thanks in advance

[NinaN]

Make sure you have assigned seats (via your booking site or call directly). That helps. If they won't assign you seat, they are likely overbooked. Arrive 2 hours before takeoff to get yourself to the top of the list.

Typically the airlines will offer travel vouchers to volunteers to wait for the next flight. Unless you are travelling pre or post holiday, it's rare that they don't get enough volunteers.

[caligirlz]

Originally Posted by NinaN

Make sure you have assigned seats (via your booking site or call directly). That helps. If they won't assign you seat, they are likely overbooked. Arrive 2 hours before takeoff to get yourself to the top of the list.

Typically the airlines will offer travel vouchers to volunteers to wait for the next flight. Unless you are travelling pre or post holiday, it's rare that they don't get enough volunteers.

I agree. I always arrive 2 hours early, especially due to all the new security check points. Make sure your travel documents are easily accessible and don't freak out over or refuse to go through the body scanners. That will delay getting through security, and you could be subjected to a more invasive body search. For more info on the subject, check here The TSA Blog

[moovin]

I travel all the time on southwest and others. extremely rarely they overbook and then they ask one or two of the 100+ passengers if they'd like to change their flight in return for some incentives. There's always a taker. I would not worry about what you're worrying about. Seriously, move on.

[Hesky]

Its very unusual for an airline to turn away a passenger who doesn't volunteer to take another flight. In fact, I have never seen it.

Its not that uncommon for them to overbook, but when they do, there are always volunteers who are willing to take an incentive to wait for the next flight. I'm usually one of them. In fact I love when they do it and I'm able to get a free flight out of it...I wish I could do it more actually!

But its not always possible if you have a connection to make. As others said, checking in early so you have a seat assignment is key if you want to make sure you are on a particular flight.

[Samoi137]

I've not run into this on a regular basis on any airline, including US Airways, but it can happen (as anyone who flies regularly knows). Did you see actual statistics on this? Not sure why you posted on this particular forum. Not really an airline site, and, besides, your concern, at least to start with, is overbooking (and not even the "Q") at LAX. You might look on the US Airways threads on www.flyertalk.com If you do an Internet search on overbooking statistics, you might find numbers for various airlines. I think they can get find if they do it too often. And lose customers. And sometimes, money, since with overbooking they often have to give customers more in cash and incentives than the cost of the ticket. But, as you note, some people don't show up, so airlines may overbook.

[Dunbar42]

Make sure you're at the gate 30 minutes before departure and don't worry about it. It's extremely rare that they deny somebody boarding who was at the gate on time (even if the flight is overbooked.)

[DMenscha]

Since you don't seem to have a seat assignment , I'm going to assume you're flying Southwest. If so, just check in as early as you can and get a seat assignment at the counter.

[onyxflame1]

A few years ago I was flying from LAX to SAC during memorial day weekend. It seems like they overbooked many of the flights.
As it was such a popular traveling weekend, the overbooks kind of stacked up. So one plane would be full, and anyone unable to get on that flight was rebooked for the next flight, which was also overbooked, etc.
Even though we got there way early, they said we could not board our plane as it was full, so we were given these options:

-we could take a flight to Arizona, then wait for 6 hours and take a flight from there to Sacramento

-we could try to fly out the next day (we had to get home same day so couldn't do this one, would have been nice to have another day on vacation!)

-Or we could fly to Oakland airport (this is what we did)

So it does happen, you may want to be careful if it is a busy flight weekend.

They did compensate us for full price of airfare and $100.00 per bag (which actually flew on the original plane, so we had to go pick them up after getting picked up from Oakland)

[scorpio516]

Originally Posted by Hesky

Its very unusual for an airline to turn away a passenger who doesn't volunteer to take another flight. In fact, I have never seen it.

Its not that uncommon for them to overbook, but when they do, there are always volunteers who are willing to take an incentive to wait for the next flight. I'm usually one of them. In fact I love when they do it and I'm able to get a free flight out of it...I wish I could do it more actually!

But its not always possible if you have a connection to make. As others said, checking in early so you have a seat assignment is key if you want to make sure you are on a particular flight.

And they almost always make it worth your while to volunteer. Upgrade to 1st class, free flights, etc.

I would more often, but I'm usually either traveling with the family, have to catch a connector (which is almost everywhere out of SMF ) or on too tight of a schedule at a conference or something