An Oversold Flight . How to Avoid Being Bumped
January 9, 2010 by Jason58 · 4 Comments
Today’s airline culture makes it such that getting bumped is becoming almost an everyday occurrence. Of course, not everyone is getting bumped every day, but somebody is getting bumped every day and every day someone’s getting bumped. There are two sure-fire ways to avoid this happening to you. First of all, remember that if you have a ticket for a flight, you are not obligated to give in to the queries for volunteers to give up their seats. For those of you out there who are apt to want to help others, resist the urge if it’s not something you want to do today. You have no obligation to do it, and all those people sitting around you don’t feel obligated to do it, and you don’t have to either. If you have a ticket and you want to use it, here are some ways to avoid getting inadvertently bumped.
Once you have a reserved seat, you cannot be bumped off the plane unless you go up to the counter and volunteer to be one of the people waiting for the next available flight. There are a couple of ways to go about reserving a seat on the plane so that you won’t have to risk getting bumped. The first thing that you can try is reserving a seat as you make your ticket reservation. If you are reserving through a website there is usually a link that you can click on to choose the seats that you would like to have for that flight. Of course, it’s not just about getting a coveted aisle or window seat; in this case we’re talking about reserving a seat so that you’re sure that you have one. Even if there are no ‘good’ seats left and you have to take a seat in the middle of a row of five chairs in second class, you should still reserve it and then ask, on the day of the flight, if there’s any possibility of changing it. Check-in agents are usually very good about this; if there’s another seat available, they will switch you to it.
If you’re booking through a travel agency, sometimes the airline has given the agencies restrictions about the number of seats that they can reserve. Somewhere around 70 or 75% is where the airlines usually ask agents to stop reserving seats for customers buying tickets. What this means is that if your travel agent ‘can’t’ book a seat for you, maybe he or she really can’t; it is possible that the airline has blocked it. If your travel agent tells you that it is impossible to reserve a seat, try calling the airline directly after you’ve finished booking your flight. Representatives from the airline itself can sometimes get around these restrictions. Try all of these ways to make sure that you have a seat reserved; once you have a seat reserved, you are no longer a candidate for inadvertent bumping.
In addition, get to the airport and check in for your flight as early as possible (well, as early as recommended). While it’s true that on very rare occasions someone who checks in late will get to go through security faster because they don’t have to wait in line, and in even rarer instances they get a seat in first class because there was one unsold, in most situations, you are just opening yourself up to getting bumped if you arrive at the airport after the scheduled check-in time has ended. If you want your seat to be held, get to it on time.
About the Author: Josh Hayes is the webmaster of several websites. His newest site is www.engagementringstyles.org. If you are interested in learning tips on buying an engagement ring or engagement ring styles you should check out this website.
Starting a New Business
October 2, 2009 by Jason58 · 5 Comments
I don’t believe I should tell anybody this economy is tricky and many folks have been having a fairly hard time. I lost my work about 4 months ago when the facility where I was employed closed down two of their production lines and my brother in law, Barney got his final notice last month when his office commented that they were closing the doors forever.
Both of us spent a fair amount of time and energyon the lookout for new jobs but with absolutely no success. However, we were clear on the fact that we still needed income to pay our bills and support our families so Barney and i decided to go into business on our own.
We had no clear idea on what this operation would be as my only real skill and experience was in manufacturing washing machines and Barney had worked as a quality controls inspector at a candy factory. However, my young neighbor convinced us that rap music, rappers and that hip hop approach to life was the hottest growth trend in our culture today. Now I must admit that both Barney and I agree the entire’rapper scene’ is just plain dumb but if it makes money then who are we to argue.
Somehow we made a decision to go after the jewellery segment of the hip hop market with the plan that we could start off rather small and just offer our merchandise for sale at flea markets until we could afford to open a regular store. So, our next task was to find a wholesale hip hop jewelry outlet.
We quickly discovered we had a serious problem in that we were a new business with no track record and no credit score which implied that nobody would sell us any inventory excepting money. They were all very mannered to assure us that credit purchases would be available after we were established but it was all going to be cash on delivery at the start. We started scrambling then to find a guaranteed fast cash loan.
Well, we finally got our funding together. Not especially as much as we wanted but enough to at least buy some starter inventory and get the project rolling and we had also found some promising wholesale outlets that we thought we could deal nicely with. However, none of these wholesale sellers was in out town so we were going to require to go which meant making airline and hotel reservations.
Getting the airline reservations was very easy and most of the hotels now subscribe to an integrated hotel website design with online booking that made dealing with them also pretty simple.