I don’t know about you, but the last few vacations that my husband and I have been on, our flights home have always been overbooked. Has this happened to you?
The airlines always offer compensation in the form of some type of credit, a free hotel room for the night, a different flight home (at a later time of course), as well as a reimbursement of your original airfare. It’s a great deal if you have the flexibility in your schedule.
When my husband and I flew home from Orlando we were faced with this dilemma. Do we stay and take the deal, or do we go home as planned? We had been at the airport all day, I’m not kidding; we checked in at ten-thirty that morning and our flight wasn’t until six pm. We had our computers, phones, and tablets so we were entertained, but we wished that the airlines would have told us about the possibility of overbooking earlier than 20 minutes prior to departure. We would have jumped at the opportunity for a later flight. (A free night in Orlando? Sounds great to me!)
The travel tip today is the main reason we decided to continue on our journey home: we didn’t have extra clothes in our carry-on bags, and we didn’t want to spend another day in the same clothes. We typically pack a few extra items of clothing in the carry-on on our way to our destination but I always pack up everything in the checked bag on the way home. If our bags got lost on our journey home, we wouldn’t have as big of an issue because we have more clothes at home.
Photo credit here
If you pack an extra set of clothing on your journey home you may have an easier decision when you are presented with this opportunity on your next flight. I’ll be packing extra clothes next time so I don’t have to walk away from such a great deal. 🙂
Pictures and Plane Tickets 