overbooked

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,346 of 15,258leans spoken

Overbooked means sold to more passengers than there are seats. An overbooked flight, overbooked hotel, overbooked by four.

Airlines do it deliberately because a predictable share of passengers never turn up, and the practice is legal and compensated when it goes wrong. Compensation for being denied boarding is set by regulation in Europe. Note that the over- means excessively, as in overcooked.

Definitions of overbooked

1adjectiveoverbookedSold to more passengers than there are seats.B2+
“The flight was overbooked, so the airline offered us money to take a later one.”

overbooked is a state of oversale.

Where it comes from

overbook comes from over- + book.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Airport & Flying

Practise this word

overbooked in the wild

If a flight is overbooked, an airline may designate all passengers without a seat assignment as "standby" prior to boarding.
Standby (air travel)
The high alpine base with 119 beds is often overbooked during the peak season.
Refuge des Écrins
Refund.me, stylized as refund.me is a technology-driven company that provides legal services for air passengers whose flight has been cancelled, significantly delayed or overbooked and for missed connections.
Refund.me
TRS Travelright Services AB is a Swedish consumer rights bureau specialized in assisting air passengers claiming compensation from airlines when their flight has been delayed, cancelled or overbooked.
Travelright
Skycop's business model is based on free claim management and a fixed fee if a compensation for delayed, canceled or overbooked flight is successful.
Skycop

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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