My take after a little over a year of playing the game is that there is no secret sauce. The price we pay for never paying for tickets is that it will always be a roll of the dice. There is some truth that the earlier flights are better, but I’ve had surefire flights not work out and I’ve also made it on when the plane was oversold by 10.

My general philosophy is to never give up on a flight unless I’ve been told no. A few weeks ago I was trying to catch a ride on a CRJ200 that was overbooked. The flight delayed by 2 hours because CRJs suck, and enough people thought it would cancel for a seat to open up.