Bumped and Dumped - WashingtonPost
It was a rare flight for Ruth Littell, 87, who was traveling on Northwest Airlines from White Plains, N.Y., to Minneapolis to attend her granddaughter's wedding. But when she tried to board, Littell was told the flight was overbooked and she'd been bumped. She was handed a $300 voucher for a future flight and was told the airline could put her on a later flight that day from New York's LaGuardia airport.
"Fortunately, another bounced passenger helped her arrange transportation to LaGuardia, which Northwest paid for, and she arrived many hours after she was expected," granddaughter Joyce Smith of the District wrote CoGo.
Littell travels so infrequently that the voucher wasn't useful. Northwest initially declined the family's request that the voucher be transferred to a family member who could use it to visit Littell, perhaps to help her move into an assisted-living facility this summer. After being contacted by CoGo, spokeswoman Jennifer Bagdade agreed to make "a one-time exception."
What can we learn from this incident?
* Getting seat assignments in advance can help protect you from being bumped. According to Northwest, involuntary bumping is rare. But when people do need to be bumped, the airline chooses them "in reverse order of the time of check-in for passengers who were not holding a seat assignment."
* If you want a voucher, fine. But you are entitled to cash if you ask for it when bumped. Because Littell was delayed more than two hours, she could have asked for double the price of her one-way ticket, up to $400.
* Consider volunteering to give up your seat to infirm seniors and minors traveling alone.
Oh, and airlines? When you must bump someone, add another criterion to your selection process: Tell agents to pick on someone closer to their own age.
It was a rare flight for Ruth Littell, 87, who was traveling on Northwest Airlines from White Plains, N.Y., to Minneapolis to attend her granddaughter's wedding. But when she tried to board, Littell was told the flight was overbooked and she'd been bumped. She was handed a $300 voucher for a future flight and was told the airline could put her on a later flight that day from New York's LaGuardia airport.
"Fortunately, another bounced passenger helped her arrange transportation to LaGuardia, which Northwest paid for, and she arrived many hours after she was expected," granddaughter Joyce Smith of the District wrote CoGo.
Littell travels so infrequently that the voucher wasn't useful. Northwest initially declined the family's request that the voucher be transferred to a family member who could use it to visit Littell, perhaps to help her move into an assisted-living facility this summer. After being contacted by CoGo, spokeswoman Jennifer Bagdade agreed to make "a one-time exception."
What can we learn from this incident?
* Getting seat assignments in advance can help protect you from being bumped. According to Northwest, involuntary bumping is rare. But when people do need to be bumped, the airline chooses them "in reverse order of the time of check-in for passengers who were not holding a seat assignment."
* If you want a voucher, fine. But you are entitled to cash if you ask for it when bumped. Because Littell was delayed more than two hours, she could have asked for double the price of her one-way ticket, up to $400.
* Consider volunteering to give up your seat to infirm seniors and minors traveling alone.
Oh, and airlines? When you must bump someone, add another criterion to your selection process: Tell agents to pick on someone closer to their own age.