Free Airline Tickets by Getting Bumped

This is a follow-up to a blog post I wrote the other day. It was about getting my flight to Paris, France and Dusseldorf, Germany for under $200. I used airline vouchers I got for getting bumped off of flights.

Today I did a search on Google to see if there is a list of commonly overbooked flights. I found this article with tips on getting bumped and extra perks you may be able to get as a result. There is also a link to a page about flights that may be overbooked.

Click here to read the article.

Happy travels!

Dennis

After Thanksgiving Day Sales

Here's a link to sales that will happen after Thanksgiving. What's funny is that some of them have already started. Many of the stores will even be open on Thanksgiving day! Crazy!!! Click here to go to the web page.

OC Register Article About My Niece's Foster Mom

The OC Register ran an article about my niece's foster mom. I thought this was pretty cool. They put a blurb about the article on the front page of the November 25th edition about the article. They also dedicated a lot of copy space in the Life section to the article.

Click here to see the article.

Here's an excerpt:

A foster mom takes a big next step
TRUE LIFE: Lauri Burns grew up in struggle. She's launching a nonprofit to help the toughest, loneliest kids.
By LAURI BURNS
Special to the Register
Comments 0 | Recommend 1

I was born in New York and grew up in a middle class Jewish home in Long Island. Although my family looked normal on the outside, there was abuse from as far back as I could remember. My understanding of God as a small child was that he was punishing me for something I did in a past life.

Germany and France for under $200

This story starts with an Alaskan cruise with friends in August of 2006. I met my friends in Seattle the night before the cruise departed and stayed a couple of days in Seattle after the cruise was over. Because I'm my own boss, I wasn't in a hurry going or coming. When the Delta agents asked for volunteers to get bumped off the flight, I jumped at the change... a total of 3 times at $400 each.

I've used most of the money already. Now I'm at the point of having a little over $500 in flight vouchers that will expire if I don't use them. Today I booked a flight to see friends in Germany. I only had to cough up $200 for the difference between the voucher amount and the cost of the flight plus trip insurance. I figured why not spend $40 on trip insurance since the trip itself was so cheap.

I chose a flight that has a 5-hour layover in Paris. I've never been there so I decided to stretch my legs by seeing what I could in that small amount of time. While selecting my seats on the flight, I noticed that all of the seats from Paris to Germany were taken. I'm hoping that means I'll get bumped off that flight and have some money toward a future flight.

I paid $1200 for the cruise, got $1200 in flight vouchers by getting bumped. The greed setting in has me wondering how many times I can get bumped on this next trip. Who knows, maybe I'll get to go to Australia next. Either way, I'm happy with what I have. It's made a great story. Thanks Delta for overbooking your flights!