This is how you can get a free airline ticket

There is a fairly easy method to getting a free airline ticket. If you fly fairly frequently and use this technique repeatedly, you will be able to receive a free ticket a fair amount of time (but not always). I have worked for the airlines for the past 12 years, and have seen this system work out repeatedly. It will not cost you anything, but there is a catch. (There is always a catch!) So, what is the secret to getting a free airline ticket?

Airlines try to book their flights completely full. Every seat that is empty is lost revenue. Even though you may think that you are paying too much for your ticket, the fact is that each flight has a very small profit margin, even when it is completely full. And a half empty flight loses money! So as a result, airlines oftentimes overbook their flights: they sell more seats than they actually have on the aircraft. Since there is a proven small percentage of passengers who do not show up for a flight, this technique is implemented to try to keep each flight as full as possible.

If you volunteer to give up your seat on one of these overbooked flights, the airline will give you a confirmed seat on a later flight. They will usually give you a meal voucher (or two), and a hotel if the later flight is the next day. And finally, they will give you a free airline ticket, in the form of a credit voucher (usually for $300 or so) for their airline. The catch I spoke of is that to get a free ticket, you already needed to have purchased a ticket.

Now the tricky part is choosing the flight to purchase a ticket on, in the hopes that the flight will be oversold, and you can volunteer your seat. It simply requires you to look at the big picture, and knowing which types of flights traditionally result in an oversold situation. Sunday evenings are usually quite full (as people are traveling home from a long weekend), Monday mornings fill up with business travelers, as do Fridays as these same passengers travel home. Additionally, Spring Break (March and April) are full of young vacationers flying to warmer destinations. And of course, the entire week before Thanksgiving and Christmas are almost entirely full.

Simply get on the airline's website, and explore which flights for your destination do not have any seats available for purchase. This will give you a good idea for the future, and will help you determine a flight time to select. With a bit of luck, your flight will be oversold, and you can volunteer your seat up to the customer service representative.