I still wonder sometimes why I put myself through such torture, but it always seems to work out in the end…
Instead of flying non-stop from Los Angeles to Philadelphia to get back in time for my 2pm class yesterday, I took my usual Sunday evening return on United from Burbank to Philadelphia via San Francisco and Washington Dulles. Having cleared every domestic redeye upgrade for as long as I can remember, I didn’t give the SFO-IAD flight a second thought, even with more than a dozen CR-1s sitting in my account, some expiring next month. That was a mistake, as first class filled up and I found myself in economy class, at least with a window seat in Economy Plus.
The flight was fine, actually–I had a snack and promptly fell asleep, sleeping all the way to final descent. I knew my flight to Philadelphia was zeroed out, but it seems it is always zeroed out Monday mornings and I’ve never been bumped off before, so I took my time chatting with a friend in the Red Carpet Club.
I finally made my way over to the A-Concourse just as boarding was scheduled to begin and heard the gate agent soliciting volunteers! Thankfully, I was not too late and volunteered my seat in exchange for a $400 United voucher and a seat on the noon US Airways flight from Washington National to Philadelphia.
After completing a bit of schoolwork in the gate area (I thought about going to the Lufthansa Lounge, which opens at 8:30a, but found the gate area a quiet place to work once the morning bank of flights cleared out) I hopped in a cab to make the trek to Reagan/National. United had given me a $100 cab voucher with the bump and it took $60 to get to the airport.
At DCA, I had a too-close-for-comfort patdown after opting-out of a full body scanner, then proceeded upstairs to the US Airways Club to get some work done before the flight out.
The flight was on time and only had 20 people on it, so we each had our own rows on the 50-seat CRJ. Takeoff over DCA is always fun and the flight time was only 23 minutes.
I arrived into Philadelphia just in time to catch the 1:09p train into town and make it to my 2:00p class.
Just another day of travel.
Totally worth it! 🙂
I bumped off PDX-ORD, and was rerouted on PDX-SFO-MCI. SFO-MCI was delayed by four hours, so it was past 2:30am by the time I returned to Lawrence. Although I was exhausted, I went to bed with an additional $400 in my pocket 😎
That sounds pretty brutal. I’ve done the same thing, myself, before, but I have a general rule of “no connecting after redeyes” just to make sure I can make it through the workday without falling over.
Congrats on the $400!
where do you go to school dude?
Hi,
Good for you! I read somewhere that one should never take a voucher but to get the cash instead. Have you had difficulties with vouchers in the past? Would you mind sharing tips on getting bumped?
Thanks!
@DealsSeeker: I fly so much that the vouchers are just like cash to me. Typically in Voluntary Denied Boarding situations, cash is never an option. Cash is reserved for Involuntary Denied Boarding, when a passenger is removed from a flight against his/her will. In that situation, the government mandates a cash payment, and the amount depends on length of delay and ticket price.
In Europe, VDB is cash-based, as I shared about here:
http://upgrd.com/matthew/my-first-bump-on-lufthansa.html
@FriendlySkies: Congrats!