United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments
viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com
viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com
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.
No, because overbooking is disclosed in the Contract of Carriage. See https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.ht..., section 5G.
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.
Mr. Lundgren can bear witness to this, as can I.
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).
Violations can result in civil damages[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Civi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Furn...
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.
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.
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.
If they're overbooked, they avoid having to pay to bump someone.
They incur less in fuel costs, as the plane lands in its destination city with a slightly greater fuel load.
Some passenger somewhere has a more pleasant flight because they have an empty seat next to them.
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.
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.
Heck, jetliners actually can’t land if the tank is too full - https://youtu.be/R9oqi6HteJg
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Law school is expensive, but I’d recommend attending if you’d like to better understand beyond what I’ve already said here.
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.
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).
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.
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.
No, I'm not.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs
Please review the Hacker News Guidelines:
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.
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?
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.
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.)
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".
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.
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.
Because when you buy a united ticket you agree to a contract of carriage that specifically says you will use the ticket in its entirety.
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.
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.
But the language of a contract of adhesion doesn't seem likely to be taken as a representation by the non-drafting party in a fraud case.
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.
>UA's creative use of the law
You mean "use of contract", assuming they're correct that it violates the contract of carriage (too lazy to check).
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.
Wasted seats on flights is a much bigger environmental problem than wasted fries.
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?
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.
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...).
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.
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).
Airlines should, conversely, have terrible social credit scores for selling tickets to people and then bumping them from a flight they paid for.
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.
[1] Updated 9/27/18 with section 6.J --https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.ht...
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=air%20travel%20climate%20chang...
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.
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.
[1]https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.ht...
I honestly thought they would be happy to be able to give our seats to someone else.
The airline was paid as agreed for the itinerary.
The seat on the last leg of the flight will be empty, which actually saves the airline money since it will take less fuel to transport less weight.
And the airline can resell that empty seat to a standby passenger and double-dip if they wish.
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.
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.
I'd sooner give a loan to that person than some reckless spender.
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.
"Flight completion discounts"
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.
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.