Unless you’ve been on a digital detox for the last 48 hours, you’ve seen the horrible images of a United Airlines passenger being brutally removed from a flight after refusing to be bumped. It should be shocking that a major air carrier would treat a paying customer in this manner, but these days it seems par for the course.

In all of my many years flying, I’ve only been bumped once and that was voluntarily with a substantial bribe for relinquishing my seat. But Federal regulations and U.S. airlines’ policies on bumping can be confusing at best. It’s easy to make a rookie mistake when dealing with airline gate agents in a pressured bumping situation. The infographic below explains some of this complicated process: