I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts.
Plus they're outright wrong that it constitutes "fraud," if for no other reason than the person skipping additional legs didn't profit from it, instead they simply limited UA's ability to further profit off of their travel.
If this was "fraud" then any other airline discount or saving would be too. Shop around for the cheapest price? That's "fraud" since UA didn't make as much. Didn't check bags for $50+ and instead overload your carry on? That's "fraud" since UA lost the checked bag fee. Fly to a smaller airport instead of a larger one, then take the bus? That's "fraud" too, UA deserves that money.
UA's creative use of the law here is nothing more than an intimidation tactic. They've run out of ideas so instead are just trying to muddy the waters enough to stop this becoming overly popular. I guess that's easier than re-examining how you ticket/what your business model is.
The elements of common law civil fraud are as follows:
1. Somebody intentionally misrepresents a material fact in order to obtain action or forbearance by another person ("I am traveling to ILM from SFO" but in fact is going to IAD);
2. The other person relies upon the misrepresentation (United prices the fare as though the passenger were going to ILM instead of IAD); and
3. The other person suffers injury as a result of the act or forbearance taken in reliance upon the misrepresentation (United gets less fare).
Note that profit is not an element of fraud, although here, one could argue that the potential fraudster did profit in terms of the difference in fare.
So United has a fair argument that, given the facts at hand, intentionally misrepresenting one's travel plans in order to obtain a better fare probably constitutes fraud.
Purchasing a good or service with multiple components is not, in and of itself, a representation to the seller of intent to use all the components.
Now, there could be something United has inserted in the purchase flow of all multileg tickets which assures that the purchaser makes a representation of intent to use every leg, though I've never seen anything like that when purchasing tickets (and a contract of adhesion that United writes that most purchasers will not read, while it may succeed as a contract, probably won't be seen as such a representation for fraud purposes, AFAICT.)
> Purchasing a good or service with multiple components is not, in and of itself, a representation to the seller of intent to use all the components.
Do you have a legal citation for this? I'm unaware of any law that supports this assertion.
In any event, the representation in question is "I want to fly from city A to city B." It's pretty reasonable for an airline to conclude that when a passenger makes this request, that is in fact their intent, not to fly to city C.
As far as I am aware, no one has actually attempted to make a fraud claim on the grounds that mere purchase (and/or the statement of intent to purchase) a composite good or service was a representation by the buyer to the seller of intent to use every portion of the good or service so sold and had the case survive to a published decision on that question.
But, you know, if you can find a case supporting your claim that this intent would clearly be inferred from such an aggregate purchase, I'd love to hear it.
So when you agree to use the ticket to travel all the way to the final destination, I think that qualifies as a "representation... of intent to use every portion of the good".
I addressed that (assuming that the contract likely covered this) in my first post in this thread: “Even if the contract of carriage has language to that effect, which might give you a breach of contract claim, I don't think you’ll find much support for the use of language in a contract of adhesion as a representation by the non-drafting party for fraud claim.”
The declaration of intent is made before the stopover city is revealed to the prospective buyer. You don’t get to specify a stopover city when you select your origin and destination; only after those are entered is the routing revealed to the customer.
I hope you can take a step back and see the absurdity of your argument. Using a search engine in one particular way doesn’t imply intent, nor does buying something that’s not exactly what you need.
Airlines can’t have it both ways: if they wanted to, they could make customers pony up a “trajectory abandonment” deposit, or force customers through an interstitial in which they explicitly agree to extra charges, or something similar, but they want the financial/competitive advantage that comes with the customer not having any worries (i.e. being clueless) about being charged for missing or not taking a connection.
We’re talking about a situation in which the customer already knows they want to go to city B. If they’re being truthful up front, city B is the destination they’ll be putting in the destination box when searching for tickets, and they will get a routing to that destination without any additional segments when they do so (assuming, of course, that the route is possible).
Your argument seems absurd to me. The price break exists because it's a good deal for airline and long distance flier. Abusing this system only ends in two ways: airlines punish short-stoppers, or raise prices on everyone.
> Do you have a legal citation for this? I'm unaware of any law that supports this assertion.
One could argue the same about every post you've made on this topic thus far. You're arguing that simply the act of buying something is a representation, which can then result in misrespections ala fraud, but you've provided no legal citations and the one citation you have provided was about contractual agreements which aren't in scope here.
The reason I'm not citing anything is because there's nothing to cite. The (mis)representation in this case is crystal clear: "I want to fly to city B."
How does buying something indicate your intent, wants, or wishes? If I buy a can of spray-paint, the store has no idea if I am using it to paint my child's bicycle, tag graffiti, use it as a weapon and hit someone on the head, or as part of a wonderful "Rube Goldberg" device which at the end an implement hits the sprayhead which sprays through a bright white light as part of performance art.
Another example, a true story: yesterday I visited an ice cream store with my friend. She wanted a scoop with chocolate sauce, and I wanted just a scoop. 1 scoop was 4.29+tax. A 3 scoop sundae with chocolate, nuts, and strawberry-sauce was 7.98+tax. Even though we only wanted 2 scoops we got the sundae because it was cheaper and scooped the strawberry-sauce off and into the trash (crazy I know, we don't like it). Did we defraud the ice cream store?
People buy "more than they need" all the time, and purchasing a good provides no intent as to what one wants or how they wish to use it.
Facts and circumstances matter; not every case is comparable. In the specific case of buying airplane tickets, it’s reasonable for a carrier to infer intent to travel to a particular destination from the user’s input.
Note that this contract is not a law: i would be surprised if it stood in court. According to it, if I feel sick and terminate my flight at the stopover, of if I learn of a business emergency and I have to go back, I am still in breach of this ridiculous contract?
And what makes it most ridiculous is this: "Any practice that United believes, in its sole discretion, is exploitative, abusive or that manipulates/bypasses/overrides United’s fare and ticket rules."
Can they ban me from United- yes. Can they try to collect money and threaten me with a credit dent? They can, until they ran into a lawyer or into a motivated person with time and resources on their hands.
Contracts have to be argued in court, but you're going to have a tough time arguing that case on a contract whose terms you intended to breach even as you agreed to them.
Impossibility is a defense to a breach of contract. And let’s not be silly; United’s not going to go after you for unintentional breach due to illness. Come on, use some common sense.
Are you arguing that buying a return ticket even though you need a (much more expensive) one way ticket and then not using the return segment is fraud?
Apart from proving that you intentionally bought a return flight best of luck defining this as fraud in front of a judge.
I booked two flights to Paris for my girlfriend and me. Before we left she found out that she has to return a day ealier. Instead of rebooking the flight (which would have been insanely expensive) she chose to return by train.
Arriving at the airport for the return segment I proceeded to the gate and informed the airline employee that my girlfriend will not make the flight and that I would like to check her out.
Instead of busting me and denying boarding (which would be the logical conclusion of your asessment) she thanked me profusely and I went on my merry ways (waiting for and eventually boarding the flight).
Now, you can certainly argue that we didn't know about her earlier return when booking the ticket. But we sure knew about it when boarding for the first segment. Nevertheless and despite the tickets running under the same record locator I did not have any problems boarding the return flight nor was I approached by the airline later.
Of course it could be that European airlines are generally not as hard nosed as United (they generally also don't rough up their passengers, but I digress). But I think it's more to the point that it's impossible to prove that I never intended to take the return flight. It certainly would be more obvious for hidden city / nested bookings strategies that I intended to save money (I would be very reluctant to call that fraud).
Moreover, fraud is a criminal concept. Violating the contract of carriage is certainly not.
The law doesn’t care about your subjective intent; it will be interpreted objectively, according to the facts and circumstances that can be observed externally of the interaction between you and the carrier. This is a basic tenet of contract law.
If I order a meal at McDonald's and don't eat the fries, is that fraud, because the cost of a burger plus soda separately maybe more than the meal with a burger, soda and the fries?
Correcting myself here: this particular example isn’t fraudulent. You asked for something that was being offered, you paid the asking price, and you got it. They’d sell it to you whether you intend to eat the fries or not. They don’t care. So there’s no misrepresentation and no reliance. Those elements aren’t met, so no fraud occurs.
Services can be different than goods in this regard. In the airline example, the seller prices flights differently for different destinations. When you indicate an intent to fly to city B by requesting a ticket with that destination, and the airline offers you a ticket whose destination is the one you asked for, their offer is made in reliance on your stated intent. So if you intentionally abandon your trip sooner, you reveal your true intent: to fly to city C. And if the price for flying to city C was higher, then you deprived the seller of a benefit they’d otherwise have had because they wouldn’t have sold you the ticket for the same price had you revealed your true intent at the start of the transaction.
I am sorry but I am seeing an exact analogy, other than your statement that services are somehow different from purchases. I am also depriving McDonald's from the added profit of selling me a coke and a burger separately for more than a meal, and I do have the premeditated true intent of not eating the fries, that I reveal by tossing them repeatedly every time I order a meal. Maybe it's harder to prove that I toss the fries every time, but according to your logic McDonald's in theory can collect the difference and threaten my credit too.
Again, nested depth limit but: I could have told the cashier "I only want a coke and a burger please" revealing my true intent. In that case, the cashier would have sold me what I wanted, for more money. Since I concealed my true intent from the cashier and said "I want a combo meal please" I deprived McDonalds of this profit.
Now if you tell me that I violated some written United contract, that I had to explicitly agree to when purchasing a multi-leg ticket, that's another matter. But I will still argue that that contract is not enforceable. And to my knowledge, they do not have a clearly visible contract with an opt in in this specific case.
My point is that the burden is on the airline to prevent such loopholes by revisiting their pricing schemes, rather than attempting to bully its passengers (also for Streisand effect reasons).
In this hypothetical, McDonald’s does not care what you do with the fries they sold you. Even if you told them that you were just going to throw them in the garbage, they’d still sell you the combo at the cheaper price.
United, however, does care how you use the ticket they issue. How can you tell? Because they would not have sold you the ticket at the discounted price had you told them your true intent (to fly to a city other than your ticketed destination). They offered you a particular fare because they relied on what you claimed. That’s the difference.
The key to analyzing these questions is, what would the other person have done had they known your true intent? If they’d have done something different, then reliance can be shown and that element can be satisfied.
I'm not agreeing with the upthread poster’s characterization of that transaction, either (for similar reasons); see my response to their post further upthread.
Not at all, eating is not part of the contract, only receipt. If you buy a meal at McDonald's and throw all of it in the trash, that's not fraud. It's yours to do with how you please.
What if I repeatedly buy non-stop tickets and don't show up? I have done it a lot. According to you, I breached my promise to fly to the final destination?
The question is, would United sell you a ticket knowing you have no actual intent to fly? If they answer is yes, there’s no problem. If the answer is no, then there’s a problem.
Technically yes? Here's why techincally I law system fucking sucks and favors large corporations, because how in the world would the small guy be expected to find against someone suing us for this?
What is the point of this debate? Only the fictional McDonald's in your fictional scenario knows. It's an unlikely situation to begin with, so let's stick to the facts at hand.
We bought a Juniper router on sale for $120,000 and did not use some of its functionality. A base model without this functionality was offered at $150,000 by the same salesperson. I can get the quotes and the invoice. Can Juniper force us to pay the difference and report to D&B?
Can't respond due to nesting depth. But I fail to see the difference between my company buying a more expensive model for less and not using the advanced functionality, and them ditching the last leg.
We're talking about whether the actions here constitute fraud. Take your example and test your actions against the elements I posted above, and see whether a plausible case can be made. I don't think they fit, so that's why I said no.
Your argument fails hard at point #1. A ticket buyer, through merely the act of purchasing a ticket, isn't making a material representation.
You should have argued contract law. That's perhaps a winning argument. Civil Fraud isn't because you'd have to argue that the simple act of clicking a "buy" button on a web-site is akin to a representation, and by extension a misrepresenting, an argument which you'd never win.
The fact your example ("I am traveling to ILM from SFO") literally never would be spoken or written, just inferred, should have been a clue. You've constructed that example-misrepresentation from nothing more than making a purchase, it doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny.
> Civil Fraud isn't because you'd have to argue that the simple act of clicking a "buy" button on a web-site is akin to misrepresenting, which you'll never win.
Are you an attorney?
Putting an origin and a destination in a form and asking for the price is a clear representation of intent, not to mention buying said ticket. Intent need not be verbally communicated; any conduct that is recognized as a representation is sufficient. This is basic civil law; your strict definition is hogwash.
It absolutely holds up, in the same way that clicking an "I agree" button in an online transaction is a representation of agreement, which courts have already held to be valid. See, e.g., the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), and Feldman v. Google, E.D. Penn, Civ. 06-2540 (2007).
> Putting an origin and a destination in a form and asking for the price is a clear representation of intent, not to mention buying said ticket.
It's a clear representation of intent to purchase the ticket.
Whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel included as part of that ticket is...at best, a point on which you have provided no supporting evidence, reasoning, or case law.
I think its pretty obvious that in the general case purchase of a composite (or bulk) good or service is not a representation of intent to use all the components, do if you think there is something special about either multileg airline tickets in general or United’s tickets in particular that warrants different treatment, please, feel free to enlighten us.
> It absolutely holds up, in the same way that clicking an "I agree" button in an online transaction is a representation of agreement, which courts have already held to be valid
No, it doesn't, and the cases are readily distinguished, because the representation you wish to infer is (unlike the “I agree” case for contract formation) of a different intent than what is expressly stated by the UI element being interacted with. We aren't arguing over whether a “buy” button indicates intent to buy tickets, but whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel covered by the purchased tickets. Even if the contract of carriage has language to that effect, which might give you a breach of contract claim, I don't think you’ll find much support for the use of language in a contract of adhesion as a representation by the non-drafting party for fraud claim.
> Whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel included as part of that ticket is...at best, a point on which you have provided no supporting evidence, reasoning, or case law.
You're trying to find a loophole that, as a former Federal court intern, I find extremely unlikely to persuade any reasonable judge. When you declare your destination to be ILM in the search field, one can reasonably infer that your intent is, in fact, to travel to ILM. I concede that there's no case law yet on this subject, but I would be surprised if it made it out of the "laughed out of court" stage if you argued otherwise.
I'm trying to find an actual false representation, and seeing only a false inference of intent to use every leg of travel from a representation of intent to purchase a ticket; testing this as fraud is something which you seem to admit would see every purchase of an aggregate good or service (the example you specifically addressed elsewhere in the thread being fast food value meals) priced below the price of some proper subset of their components as actionably fraudulent (if not always worth the effort) if the intent was not to use every purchased component but only to save money compared to individually purchasing the components.
The false representation is "I intend to fly to city B." That's it. Nothing else. It's not "I intend to use all components of a series of segments that would get me to city B" as you suggest.
You're making the analysis more complicated than it is, and that's why you would fail to persuade a court.
Courts apply a “reasonable person” standard when inferring intent from an action. It’s unlikely they’re going to interpret a ticket purchase as an option purchase, particularly since United doesn’t describe their flights as “options” anywhere in their business AFAICT.
> Intent need not be verbally communicated; any conduct that is recognized as a representation is sufficient.
Indeed. You're arguing that the mere act of buying is and of itself a representation, which is erroneous. The whole rest of your arguments fall apart because that one core detail is wrong.
> It absolutely holds up, in the same way that clicking an "I agree" button in an online transaction is a representation of agreement
Clicking "I agree" binds both parties to a contract, but we are talking elements of civil fraud not contract law. You were arguing that consumers were committing civil fraud by pressing a buy button due to some supposed representations you're insisting they're making. Let's stay on topic here.
> Indeed. You're arguing that the mere act of buying is and of itself a representation, which is erroneous.
It's not the purchase that is the representation. It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent.
I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs; take it to a judge and try it yourself. I'll bring the popcorn.
> It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent.
By that logic even searching for tickets without purchasing them could be argued as "fraud." Since even putting something in the destination field is, according to your argument, a material representation of intent. None of this holds up.
> By that logic even searching for tickets without purchasing them could be argued as "fraud." Since even putting something in the destination field is, according to your argument, a material representation of intent.
If you search for tickets with no intent to purchase, it's plausibly an element of fraud, but it's not fraud. The additional elements (reliance and detriment) aren't met yet. Once the purchase is complete and the rest of the events occur (i.e. intentionally abandoning travel), then all the remaining elements are fulfilled and a plausible fraud claim can commence.
Out of curiosity, how do you see the element of detriment being argued? The passenger paid for a seat. The airline will absolutely assign that seat to a standby passenger when they miss boarding. Even if they don't, the seat is paid and less passengers means less feel burn. In both cases the airline makes out better. Is the argument going to be that the airline would have charged you more had you told them you only needed the first leg and by extension you robbed them of a chance to squeeze you harder?
> I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs; take it to a judge and try it yourself. I'll bring the popcorn.
I've upvoted your comments in this thread because they're interesting, but you don't seem to be providing many references yourself so I'm not so sure why you are demanding references of others. (You did reference the "I agree" button below, but I don't see how that implies fraud in this case.)
The question of fraud aside, my main question is what the actual financial harm is to United. It's not like they can say here's the price you would have gotten by going A -> B -> C and here's the price for A -> B, therefore you owe us the difference because there is no single price to refer to in the first place. All the different prices vary across the board at different times for different people for the same service. Also is there any real harm? Is taking the A -> B -> C route and hopping off at B causing them a financial loss?
The main point of contention here is what representation is being made when a customer tells United what origin and destination airport they want a ticket for, and whether the customer is intentionally misrepresenting their true intent by specifying a different destination airport than the one they actually intend to fly to. The fact that there’s even an argument here that no misrepresentation is being made, in light of my legal training and experience, I find pretty ludicrous.
It’s well known in contract law that the terms of a contract are determined objectively, as a hypothetical reasonable person would interpret them, not subjectively. Courts are understandably loath to try to divine the actual intent of the parties. See, e.g., Winograd v. Am. Broad. Co., 68 Cal. App. 4th 624, 632 (1998)).
I’m sure United can figure out what the price difference would have been under the particular circumstances of the case. If not, a court will make a determination of damages based on the facts provided by the parties.
It might actually be? That's a curious question. In reality I doubt any business would bring it up as their discrimination would get them in much bigger trouble with the law, but the law does allow for multiple parties to be incorrect.
Are there any lawyers here who know if there is case law showing someone getting prosecuted for fraud when the fraud in question was to avoid already illegal activity?
The answer is what you’d expect it to be if you simply applied common sense, namely, that you can’t prevail on a fraud theory if you’re committing unlawful discrimination and the false representation being relied upon can’t lawfully be relied upon in a decisionmaking process.
> This is insane on a whole other level, because United profits when you don't get on that 2nd leg.
Not necessarily. If you use use hidden-city ticketing, they lost out on extracting the extra money they wanted to charge you for going to your intended destination AND the extra money they may have been able to charge someone else for the leg you didn't take.
That said, I think it's the airline's fault for using an over-complicated pricing model with odd behaviors that customers can take advantage of like this. There'd be no issue if they just charged the same per leg regardless of your final destination. That'd make everything transparent and totally remove the need for hidden-city ticketing.
It depends how you look at it. Once you've booked your ticket, United is better off if you don't take the last leg of the flight than if you do. Prior to booking, they would of course prefer you book the more expensive ticket. Forcing you to take the last leg is about encouraging you to book that more expensive ticket; it's not because they actually lost something when you chose to skip the final leg of the journey rather than take it.
> they lost out on the extra money they may have been able to charge someone else
Not necessarily. Airlines have sophisticated yield management programs that should give them a good estimate on how many passengers are likely to skip the final leg of any particular route -- the airline can oversell the final leg by exactly the number of passengers who aren't likely to show up.
I think they will just carry less fuel. Hauling around fuel - that has weight - you don’t use will just result in you burning more fuel than necessary.
I wonder if they could structure this as a real debt, by making some legs cost negative money, e.g. on a trip from A->B->C, A->B costs $100, B->C costs -$10, for a total cost of $90. If you book A->B->C and prepay the $90, but get off at B, then you owe the airline $10 because you didn't receive the $10 credit from flying B->C
> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts.
I wonder if they've snuck in a mandatory binding arbitration clause into their contract, and if that would cover disputes about false debts. Even if the false debts were totally illegal, arbitration could make it impractical to challenge them.
> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts.
Ahh yes, the "known false debts act of 1789". </s> The fact is corporations have throngs of willing stooges who are happy to perjure themselves in trial and assert that the debts weren't false at all. Who's a judge and jury going to believe? The scammer who cheated the poor impoverished airline out of its money, or the well-dressed stooge with front-row access to United's records?
Lying to the courts to get what you want is in practice a fully sanctioned strategy for corporations who desire to intimidate their customers by "making an example" of their least favorite customers by throwing criminal charges against them.
> Ahh yes, the "known false debts act of 1789". </s>
Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970:
> Your creditor must not supply information to a CRA that it knows (or should know) is inaccurate. That includes:
> - reporting a debt as charged off when you settled it or paid it in full
> - misstating the balance due
> - reporting late payments when you paid timely
> - listing you as a debtor on an account when you were only the authorized user, or
> - supplying credit information on an account where identity theft was previously reported (or failing to maintain a reasonable procedure for you to report identity theft).
If United Airlines decided to assess what they later define as the fair market price of the tickets thrown away, none of these bullet points would apply.
If you rent a car or motel room and you smoke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. Keep your rental truck an extra day, they can charge you a fee. If you rent a Uber or Lyft and puke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee.
The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it.
I wish this forum would allow people the option to disagree with an argument without censoring it. I respect (and even eagerly await) that others might disagree with my opinions, but that deserves a downvote less than an off-topic or rude post.
> The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it.
Nobody said they were violating it. The topic was that they would be violating it if they submitted their fictional debts to a credit rating agency or to a collections agent. Therefore they're never going to make good on their threats, because UA knows this.
Plus you're using bad examples, since in all the examples those companies can show financial harm, and are recouping costs. In UA's case their only "harm" is that they made less profit than they would have liked.
Those "debts" uncollected are just as much real to a credit agency or a bill collector as a late truck rental or motel overstay. I'm pretty sure there's some forced arbitration language in their contract of carriage, so the recourse you're counting on in practice just isn't there.
If you keep a rental truck an extra day, it may or may not disadvantage the rental company. You might be saving them storage costs because their small lot is already full, or you may be scaring off a customer because they are out of stock of the truck size wanted on the extra day. Or it may make no difference at all.
United's point (which I disagree with in its entirety) is that reserving the seat then abandoning it deprives United of the ability to get a good price for it from a customer who instead books with say, Delta, because Delta has room enough to sell at a lower price point. Yes, that's less profit than they would've liked, but McDonald's can say the same ("less profit than we would've liked) after an armed robbery cleans out their cash registers; doesn't mean it's legal.
A slightly less inane argument is that United, finding its thrown-away flight prematurely full, will now fly a more expensive 737 instead of a CRJ to accommodate more passengers. Then, finding the plane full of no-shows, United suffers damages in the form of higher leasing, fuel, insurance, and labor costs, because of a false representation on the person(s) booking the extra ticket.
This argument only exists because airlines make private resale of tickets impossible. Fix that and both sides will have less reason to kvetch about this.
Your slightly less inane argument is a good example for why they would deny last minute refunds, because some of those expenses cannot be undone at the last minute. But if the paid passengers take the flight, their ticket costs cover all those expenses you list. By failing to take the flight and not requesting a refund, a passenger does not add to those expenses, and even reduces the fuel expense slightly. So where are the damages?
Sometimes I go to a fast food restaurant and discover that while I don't want fries, it's cheaper to buy the whole combo meal than it is to just buy a burger and drink a la carte.
If I buy the combo and throw away the fries, nobody's going to argue that I've cheated Wendy's and owe them for the difference in price.
But I'd agree they're still free to refuse me service in the future on grounds of wasting food.
Isn't it pretty late to re-sell the ticket if you don't show up? It helps them with overbooking, standby customers, fuel costs and increased comfort to other passengers though.
In most cases, they technically already resold your ticket due to overbooking; it makes their lives easier since they don't have to boot someone from the flight, you voluntarily booted yourself. In fact, not only did you boot yourself, you forefeited however much the segment cost you, and any future segments on the ticket. That's why it's so absolutely preposterous that United is threatening to do this. They likely are making money off each person who skips segments, they just don't like it happening because it messes up their ticketing and flight operations models if this starts happening widespread.
Not really - the vast majority of people who engage in this behavior do not notify the airline that they aren't showing up. The pool of standbys for the average flight is typically tiny or non-existent, and it's practically impossible to find a buyer for a ticket within the 15 minutes that airlines might be allowed to invalidate a paid customer's reservation and resell it.
Wasted seats on flights is a much bigger environmental problem than wasted fries.
They do however, have a pretty sturdy belief, that despite being paid for it, you won't be showing up for the return leg (in fact, they tell you that you will be forfeiting that return leg), so they can resell it.
In fact, they also threaten the right to cancel your entire return trip, not just the segment in question.
I want a Big Mac, 2 cheeseburgers, a soft drink and fries.
Using prices from https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ , I have two options:
a) Big Mac meal ($5.99) + 2 cheeseburgers ($2.00) = $7.99
or b) 2 cheeseburger meal ($4.89) + Big Mac ($3.99) = $8.88
If I order option a, McDonalds "loses" $0.89. Am I committing fraud?
Fuck United, and any other company that wants to abuse the credit reporting system for this. How would they even prove you have a debt? I paid for a ticket, and the airline provided said ticket. Whether I choose to use the ticket or not should be entirely up to me, and choosing not to fly doesn't magically incur them extra debt that I'd be liable for.
This is especially ridiculous with how exorbitant ticket change fees are. I was in San Jose a few weeks ago and decided last minute to stay a few days longer in SF. It would have cost me 125 dollars to cancel or change my already booked SJC-SEA flight, and it would have netted me <90 dollars in credit so I was essentially paying 35 dollars for the privilege of telling Alaska that I wasn't going to fly with them. Of course I instead just skipped the leg and booked a new flight separately.
I disagree, abuse of the credit reporting system will make it useless which is good thing because in it's current implementation it really shouldn't be trusted.
One very interesting thing here is how they're using the credit score system to blackmail people. If this continues, any company can hold you hostage by threatening to ruin your score, without any recourse from you.
Nah, this isn't a legal debt that they can forward to a collection agency, as pointed out in the article. They can't legally ding your credit for this (you've paid all your actual outstanding obligations to them), and if they do, I imagine the counterclaims could be significant (reputational damage, monetary losses due to higher interest rates or ineligible loans, etc.).
Now, if this were the "social credit" system of a certain country, well, then maybe they really could blackmail you (because you violated a "social order" by playing ticketing games...).
> Nah, this isn't a legal debt that they can forward to a collection agency, as pointed out in the article.
My understanding is that many collection agencies aren't very scrupulous about they debts they try to collect. Many of them are false, already paid, or lacking necessary documentation.
What United is threatening to do is forward a clearly uncollectable debt to a collection agency. This is pretty much fraud at its finest - they know it's not supposed to be collectable. It doesn't matter if the collection agency comes after you - United is on the hook for having forwarded that debt in the first place.
Yes, in an ideal world, collection agencies would properly verify the debts they collect on, but they definitely can't be arsed to do that voluntarily without gov't regulation saying so (and this administration is unlikely to provide said regulation).
I doubt United will prevail in there efforts. It's "Contract of Carriage"[1] rule 6, sub-section J is where they put in all the verbiage about how they think they should be able to penalize you for avoiding their fare structures. It is pretty bogus and I'd love to see it litigated, to do that you really would have to do this stuff enough to get them to take action against you citing that rule, and then (now that you have standing to sue) you would need to sue them. I would recommend setting this up early because their lawyers haven't yeat put in a mandatory mediation clause to this contract. When they do it will be harder.
Either way, I think they will lose. And when it becomes clear that they can't extract value this way from passengers it will cause ticket prices to change to more accurately reflect actual costs.
I agree that the Contract of Carriage is probably not the strongest basis by which United can demand recompense for abandoning a segment. Instead, I think they have a better chance of prevailing on a common-law fraud theory; see my explanation above.
Fraud is a criminal matter isn't it? Can United directly sue the passenger in civil court, or must they file a complaint with law enforcement and let a prosecutor handle it?
There’s civil fraud and criminal fraud, just like there’s wrongful death (civil) and murder (criminal). The difference is that there’s no imprisonment or other societal penalties for being liable under civil law - only money is involved.
So I guess United is going to fairly compensate me for the night I spent sleeping in the Philly airport because they canceled my final segment? I'll take cash, no united points for me.
Their definition of `fraud` is insane, but if they want to open the door for more recourse when things don't happen as scheduled I'm okay with that. I think United owes the majority of their customers quite a bit more than hidden city fare users owe them.
One point in defense of the airlines that people often forget. There are certain taxes and fees the airlines must pay when a passenger flies from A to B. However, the government of location B waives fees for connections flying from A to B to C. That makes sense; the passenger never actually visited B.
Passengers can find a cheaper ticket flying JFK->TPE->HKG and ditching the final leg (carry-on only). However, if an airline "knows" a passenger will skip the final leg, then they are helping the individual evade a legitimate tax.
But they have plausible deniability since the customer indicated they were taking the last leg of the flight. The possible tax issues should be on the customer here, right?
I'm surprised we haven't seen more companies abuse the credit reporting system like this. Recourse is painful for the customer, and I imagine a non-trivial number of them will just pay off the debt. I'm guessing with the gutting of agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau we'll see a rise in these type of practices.
There is no debt, though. You can't charge people extra for not showing up at a flight. A non-flying passenger demonstrably makes a resource available: they can sell the seat to someone else. Even if they don't, it's less weight: less fuel burned.
The idea that the passenger should have paid more to get off at that intermediate airport is purely a fabricated entitlement.
If they underlying hypothesis behind this entitlement is that "all people should pay the same for the same flight", it is pure hypocrisy, because the airline industry is responsible for, and profits from the whole situation that people in adjacent seats may have paid wildly different prices.
If they want people not to game the system, they have to remove the game from the system. But that game largely benefits them, so they don't. You can't have it both ways: create a game-like system, and not have people some people play it some of the time.
No-one's disputing that. The parent post is supposing that because taking this to court and proving that United violated the law is expensive (in both money and more importantly effort), a large enough percentage of people will not do it.
It's yet another example of the mere involvement of the legal system being used as a deterrent against individuals, regardless of who's in the right.
Falsely damaging someone's reputation in writing is libel. I think if more companies abused the credit rating system, they and the credit bureaus would see a lot more libel claims.
It would even make sense to mechanize these libel claims via a bunch of templates, sort of like how airhelp.com works.
I am genuinely entirely fucking sick of the awful experience of booking air travel. The thought of doing it fills me with dread now.
Here is a recent example: a return flight booked with my partner from the UK to the US. His company later wants to send him to a conference in a place nearby a couple of days prior, and of course will happily pay for travel there, and on to our actual destination. “That’s okay”, I think; “I can cancel the outgoing leg of his flight, even if I don’t get a refund”.
Not. Possible. The price British Airways wants to charge me for cancelling one leg of a return flight for one passenger is more than the entire cost for two return tickets. Of course, he can’t just skip that flight, since the inbound will be cancelled.
Literally nobody gains from this. It reinforces the point that consumer cost is now entirely decoupled from the cost of service. On top of this, the process of buying tickets is utterly baffling. Multiple aggregators linking to multiple external agents who in turn are selling tickets cheaper than the airline directly. Codeshares charged at multiples of the cost for being on the exact same flight. And the obvious hidden city stuff.
Surely I’m not the only one who just wants to exchange money for a flight, based roughly on the actual cost? Even accepting that I might pay more for better cabins, or hold baggage, or advance seat selection? Is the current mess genuinely more profitable? Is there any way to fix it besides some kind of regulation of fares? Is there a disruptor?
Small consolation, but we can think of airline shenanigans like this as just another hassle that makes flying less convenient / enjoyable, and so people will take fewer flights. Air travel (especially intercontinental flights) are a large fraction of a western individuals contribution to global warming. So the earth thanks you.
>Surely I’m not the only one who just wants to exchange money for a flight, based roughly on the actual cost?
Cost per seat per mile flown depends on fuel prices, labor prices, business/leisure demand, origin and destination, weather, etc. If it was easy then we would see the options present themselves, there's not that high of a barrier to entry to become an airline. Many have tried and many have failed, so there must be some reason that it's in the state that it's in.
All of the price discrimination actually helps poorer people fly, as the people who are able and willing to pay more can help pay for a greater share of the costs of operating the airline.
If you haven't read the Contract of Carriage before, I'd suggest you do. It's actually pretty fascinating and could come in handy when you want to set an airline employee straight.
I had no idea the lay out what is acceptable luggage including trophy antlers:
Antlers - Subject to the conditions and charges specified below, one set of antlers retained as hunting trophies per ticketed Passenger will be accepted as Checked Baggage, if aircraft size and load conditions permit.
If you go on hajj, you can bring back 10 L (!) of ZAMZAM water free of charge:
ZAM ZAM Water - Subject to the conditions below, one container or jerkin containing up to 10 liters (2.64 gallons) of ZAMZAM water will be accepted as checked baggage by UA at no extra charge in addition to the Baggage Allowance.
I did this earlier this year flying to Europe. My plans had changed a little so I realized that it would be easier to get off in Amsterdam instead of taking the next flight. It never occurred to me that this could be a problem but the agent gave us a really hard time when I asked to get our bags checked only to Amsterdam.
I honestly thought they would be happy to be able to give our seats to someone else.
They are offering more service for less money? Their pricing scheme is broken. Consumers should continue taking advantage of it until it become so cost prohibitive that they correct their pricing incentives.
It's not clear why exactly the airlines are so upset about this. If the passenger isn't present they can just shoehorn a standby onto the flight, or at least save on fuel costs.
They're scared that it might become popular and cost them too much.
The airline's business model is to try to charge people from point to point, this scheme takes advantage of that fact to find savings.
The airlines could, instead, change how they charge (e.g. per land mile/per minute in the air) but then it becomes harder to justify why direct flights that are cheaper for the airline to run cost consumers more, not less. And why inefficient indirect flights cost consumers less in spite of being more expensive for the airlines.
Airlines need to keep their current business model to prop up their hubs, but they need hubs due to their current business model. If you invented airlines today (particularly with the new Airbus and Boeing aircraft coming on-tap with greater range) you'd see far fewer hubs, and more direct point to point flights.
This is airlines trying to slow the inevitable, which is that they need to evolve.
Because the person was supposed to pay more for the privilege of skipping that flight leg and just staying at that intermediate destination. That customer is robbing the airline of their god-given entitlement to extra revenue.
As already pointed out, the airlines lose no actual money, but you are right in that they lose the theoretical difference between the discriminated price and the one they paid. That's not a legal debt, though.
Because a ticket from x->y->z sometimes costs less than a ticket from x->y. Presumably this has something to do with how much the markets in x, y, and z are able to bear. As in, people in X and Y will pay more for tickets than people in Z, so tickets terminating in Z are cheaper.
It's usually simpler than that - price competition is a major factor in most of these cheaper tickets. Airlines don't think in terms of segments, they think in terms of routes (because that's ultimately what a consumer bases shopping decisions on). If a competitor has a cheap and popular X-Z flight, then you will want to make X-Z cheaper even if you don't have a direct flight. But, if your competitors don't fly X-Y, or they charge more (because they have to go X-W-Y), then you have zero incentive to make X-Y cheaper.
Airlines generally also avoid empty seats, because it almost always means lost revenue. They'd rather overbook and risk having to compensate bumped passengers than have no-shows. Combine these factors, and you can see why they're really unhappy about people skipping the Y-Z flights.
Of course, in most situations, consumers are not penalized for using or consuming only part of a purchased good or service, even if they deliberately discard part in order to save money. United is in the wrong here, and I doubt a court would agree with them.
Credit isn't a measure of financial savvy. It's a measure of likelihood to repay debts. It may be financially savvy to strategically default, putting the two in conflict.
Precisely. In many ways it is better to steadily use a card (while being mindful of utilization ratios) and pay it than it is to carry a zero balance.
The credit system might have been initially about debt repayment, but there are several measures in store regarding "how valuable / revenue-generating is a customer".
And at times, these two principles may be in harmony, and at others, not so much.
So if I buy a regular ticket and don't make the flight, by this reasoning that's fraud too? Are they going to send me to collections to get paid twice for missing my flight? Seems pretty ridiculous to me as I see literally no difference between the two scenarios.
The only way to settle this is if they sue someone. They already tried to shutter Skiplagged and failed so their position may not be as solid as they claim.
I never understood how they found out if a passenger was skipping one leg of a flight. If it's the same plane, just get off, and if it's not the same plane, just check in to the next flight and don't board. Is someone counting heads or something while I'm not looking?
The flights are nearly always separate planes, and even if they're not they do count heads on the plane and if you walk up, hand in your boarding pass, and then walk away they're going to note that down because now they have to go into the computer and verify whether you have bags onboard that they have to offload because you aren't taking the flight.
There's no scenario where they don't know exactly who is sitting in what seat for every seat on every plane when it takes off, it's all just data in the computer they can reference.
>>There's no scenario where they don't know exactly who is sitting in what seat for every seat on every plane when it takes off, it's all just data in the computer they can reference.
I would amend that slightly. They know exactly how many people have boarded the plane and presumably who they are. People move seats to allow families to sit together or trade a window for an aisle on many flights. The airlines aren't modifying their seat assignments after you walk down the jetway.
Actually they track that now. The flight attendants are absolutely brutal about enforcing and knowing exactly who sits in what seat to the point that if you get up and move without asking they will come up to you and tell you to go back to your seat. I'm sure people do occasionally get away with moving without being noticed, but that's not the norm anymore.
The article covers this. The short answer though is price discrimination. Airlines want to sell tickets for the most total money they can. There is more demand for A-to-B tickets than for A-to-C tickets, so they are able to charge more. As long as selling A-to-C tickets is marginally profitable though, they will do that as well, even though the price is lower, and regardless of the fact that the most efficient way for them to move people from A-to-C is through B.
Basically airlines will charge what the market will bear; their costs on a given route don't really factor into it, except in as much as they won't generally fly routes that aren't profitable.
Plus they're outright wrong that it constitutes "fraud," if for no other reason than the person skipping additional legs didn't profit from it, instead they simply limited UA's ability to further profit off of their travel.
If this was "fraud" then any other airline discount or saving would be too. Shop around for the cheapest price? That's "fraud" since UA didn't make as much. Didn't check bags for $50+ and instead overload your carry on? That's "fraud" since UA lost the checked bag fee. Fly to a smaller airport instead of a larger one, then take the bus? That's "fraud" too, UA deserves that money.
UA's creative use of the law here is nothing more than an intimidation tactic. They've run out of ideas so instead are just trying to muddy the waters enough to stop this becoming overly popular. I guess that's easier than re-examining how you ticket/what your business model is.