Airline Sues Customers Who Don't Take All the Flights They Book

[MULTIZ321]

Airline Sues Customers Who Don't Take All the Flights They Book
By Gary Leff/ View From the Wing/ viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com

"Airlines have fought against ‘throwaway ticketing’ for years. A ticket on United Airlines to Chicago might be super expensive, but connecting through Chicago to Milwaukee may be cheap. So passengers might buy a ticket to Milwaukee and just get off in Chicago and not board their final connection.

This strategy is not without risk:

• You can’t check bags or your bags will go to the final ticketed destination
  
• You don’t want to have to gate check bags either, you don’t want those getting sent to your final destination (though it’s not hard to have them tagged just to where the plane is going)
  
• In the event of bad weather or a mechanical delay the airline might want you route you through another city entirely (though insisting on the connecting city you want shouldn’t be hard)

Moreover if the airline ‘catches you’ especially if you do it frequently they might take away your frequent flyer miles or even ban you from the carrier going forward. That’s why it may be a good idea to credit miles to a partner frequent flyer program instead.

In the past airlines were aggressive with travel agencies issuing throwaway ticekts — they would issue debit memos (charging the fare the airline believes they lost) and agencies would risk the ability to sell tickets on the airline in the future. It was rare though for an airline to go after an individual passenger....."

Richard

 

[bogey21]

I'm talking 25 years ago but this was standard procedure for me without any retribution. Maybe being a multi Million Miler helped...

George

 

[Sapper]

Here’s my take:
A) Airlines continuing to prove to the world that they are poorly managed.
B) re United trying to “trash their customers credit”. They need your social security number to do this, right? How did they get your SSN?
C) re suing passengers for not using a portion of the trip. A German court May set precedent by siding with the German flag airline (68% German ownership), however, I find it hard to believe the same ruling might occur in the US.

 

[tombanjo]

If they were united customers they probably bailed after experiencing united. Damn the vacation, we've got to get off this plane and walk the rest of the way.......

 

[moonstone]

United isn't the only airline doing that.

https://www.secretflying.com/posts/...Ylgw3uBcNiIq8032CGkmfMVKcnbtRQc7KhBRhurHrglE8


~Diane