Tag Archives for department of transportation.
DOT should certainly enforce refunds for services charged but not provided. But they shouldn’t lock airlines and airfare search sites into displaying specific charges in a standardized way, the same everywhere. We should be encouraging competition in meeting consumer needs, not making airline sites and Expedia displays the same forever. It’s not only seat and bag fees that matter – and even those don’t always matter!
With the whole world talking about the President’s debate performance Thursday night, whether he should still be running, and whether he’ll be replaced at the top of the ticket the campaign would very much like a return to normal discourse. So they’re back to talking about middle class pocket book issues. And nobody ever loses points beating up on airlines.
The Biden administration broke up the JetBlue-American Airlines partnership because they were concerned with competition in New York, and didn’t want competitors colluding. Or maybe they just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a third viable competitor to take on Delta?
Because it sure seems that the administration is more interested in keeping competition out of New York than ensuring it.
Under new DOT requirements, airlines and ticket agents will have to fully disclose all fees for baggage, changes, and cancellations upfront at first instance of displaying itineraries and fares. Airlines will also have to automatically and promptly refund passengers in cash or their original payment method when services like checked baggage and Wi-Fi are not delivered as promised.
I personally don’t see a problem with leaving it up to the customer to request a refund. That’s how every other product in the world works – if you want a refund, you ask for one. I’m not sure why we should be treating airline passengers differently, especially given the complexity, and writing this into law. But people get frustrated with airlines, and politicians don’t like siding with them in an election year.
It does seem highly misleading to suggest that this language is ‘buried’ in the ‘new bill’ when it’s there in order to guarantee refund rights, as requested by the administration, and has been there in the Senate language for at least two and a half months.
The House and Senate both passed FAA reauthorization bills. That left a committee from both chambers to decide what actually went into the bill that heads back for a vote. What’s in the final bill coming out of conference is probably what gets passed and signed by the President. This is what’s really inside.
When bad weather rolls in, or your flight gets cancelled due to lack of crew or a mechanical problem, it can be tough to get rebooked. Planes are full these days. Everyone on your flight needs another seat, and there may not be enough to go around. Airlines will frequently tell you that nothing is available. But what does that even mean?
Last month a Chase Ultimate Rewards member transferred their points to United, in order to book an award that showed as available at United.com, but wasn’t really available. United wouldn’t send his points back to Chase, and he complained to the Department of Transportation that this was an unfair and deceptive practice. They needed 193,000 more miles than they had in their account. United’s website suggested they buy the miles. They transferred the points in from Chase Ultimate Rewards instead. The award space for business class travel on EVA Air from Chicago to Singapore via Taipei turned out to be phantom and unbookable. The website errored out after they transferred the points. While the space still showed up online, a phone agent said the space wasn’t available and also that they couldn’t send their points…
The federal government has issued a final rule for how airlines disclose their fees, and requiring prompt refund of fees when they don’t provide the promised service.
It largely will not change how most passengers experience airlines most of the time. Airlines already disclose their fees, and generally provide refunds for services they don’t provide. There will be a stronger requirement, though, to refund checked bag fees for long-delayed and lost bags.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
