My travel hack gets you paid for getting bumped off a flight

Next time you get bumped off an oversold flight don’t freak out — cool your jets and cash in.
Personal finance expert Casper Opala shared, in a recent Instagram video, a little-known hack that could get you “bumped flight compensation” if you’re removed from one airplane and placed on another one.
“Do not leave the airport if you get bumped,” Casper says in his video, which has received 34,000 views since being posted late last month.
The first thing you should do is Google “Bumped flight compensation,” Opala says.
He then tells viewers to go to the Department of Transportation website — the first link that should pop up on the Google search — and find the table showing the compensation they’re entitled to, based on how long they’ve been delayed.
Earlier in the video he role-plays a conversation with an airline employee informing him he’d been put on a flight leaving three hours later than his original one. Opala uses this scenario as an example of how to calculate your compensation.
“Since I was bumped from my flight and the next flight they can put me on is in three hours, they owe me 400% of my one-way fare,” he says.
He continues, “Since I paid $300 for my one-way flight, they now owe me $1,200 in cash compensation.”
He stresses the importance of not leaving the airport, because “the airline is required to pay your compensation the same day the bumping incident happened.”
A bumped flight can have a big payoff. Casper Opala/Instagram
He also informs his followers that passengers bumped from flights aren’t required to pay anything additional for the newly booked flight.
Commenters on the video thanked Opala for the pro tip.
“Wow that’s a good one to know Thankyou 👌,” one wrote.
“Good to know ! Wished I had known in July … lol,” lamented another.
A table on the Department of Transportation website shows how much compensation delayed passengers are entitled to based on the length of the delay. Casper Opala/Instagram
Instagram and TikTok have become hubs for travelers looking for hacks to make their lives easier as well as those looking to save some dough.
TikToker Erika Kullberg shared that Delta will pay travelers up to $3,800 for baggage delays.
The musicians in Californian-based band Bed Sweater shared their hack for skirting fees on extra-heavy bags — one of them uses their foot to prop up the luggage scale.