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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
With some airlines you are breaking the purchase contract if you don`t use the return ticket! First news to me. Any comments??? Experiences??? Earl *** Is justice served by ticket rules? Susan Stellin NYT Tuesday, April 6, 2004 * NEW YORK Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court inadvertently raised a hot-button travel issue last month in explaining why he was not recusing himself from a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney. Offering details about his January duck-hunting trip with the vice president, Scalia disclosed that even though he had flown to Louisiana on the vice president's plane, he bought a round-trip ticket on a commercial airline to return to Washington, because it was less expensive than the one-way fare. That is a tactic familiar to anyone who has discovered that one-way fares can be triple the price of flying round trip. But most travelers probably don't know that five of the six largest U.S. airlines - American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and US Airways - explicitly prohibit buying a round-trip ticket with the intention of throwing half away. Ed Turner, a spokesman for the Supreme Court, declined to say which airline Scalia flew. But the two airlines that fly nonstop from New Orleans to Washington are US Airways and United, and United does not the have same policy as its competitors, leaving open the possibility that Scalia didn't skirt any rules. Although it may seem ludicrous that an airline could require passengers to fly both segments of a ticket, the ban on so-called throwaway ticketing is buried in an airline's contract of carriage, an often lengthy, legally dense document drawn up by each airline outlining the terms of every ticket sale. Also known as "tariff rules," these policies range from the fees for excess baggage or for transporting a surfboard to the airline's right to deny boarding to anyone "malodorous." Most airlines post these contracts on their Web sites, and they do enforce their terms, often to the surprise of passengers who don't know such rules exist. Besides the ban on throwaway ticketing, the six major carriers (including United) prohibit "back-to-back ticketing": buying two round-trip tickets and using half of each to avoid paying for a more expensive ticket that does not include a Saturday-night stay. The big six also forbid "hidden city ticketing" (sometimes called "point beyond ticketing"): buying a ticket to a more distant city (San Francisco, say) and then getting off at a stopover point (Chicago) because the San Francisco ticket is cheaper than the one to Chicago. The ticketing rules are primarily intended to prevent business travelers from buying cheaper leisure fares, and how often they are enforced is a matter of some debate. Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines, said the carrier could detect back-to-back or hidden-city ticketing more easily than it could someone's buying a round-trip ticket to fly one way. "It's almost impossible for us to know why someone didn't use the second half of a ticket," Wagner said. But he defended the airline's throwaway ticketing rule. "If somebody books a round-trip ticket and never intends to fly that second portion, that's lost revenue for us," he said. The logic of that argument may leave some travelers scratching their heads, but the airlines do try to enforce these rules, either by imposing penalties on the passenger or on a travel agent who booked the ticket. Although the penalties vary by airline, the big six all outline various actions they may take against passengers who violate ticketing rules. Among the options: invalidating the rest of the passenger's ticket; forcing the passenger to pay the difference between the purchased fare and the price of a new ticket; deleting frequent-flier miles from an account, or revoking the passenger's elite status. To this list, Continental adds a more draconian option: legal action. As it happens, the courts are not unfamiliar with this matter - despite Scalia's apparent naïveté about throwaway ticketing, even the Supreme Court has had a brush with the debate. At least two class-action lawsuits challenging these ticketing practices (or penalties) are working their way through the federal courts - one brought by a group of passengers and one filed by a group of travel agents. And an appeal involving one of them reached the nation's highest court. The first case was filed in 1996 by a passenger, Nelson Chase, who was caught flying on a hidden-city ticket by Northwest Airlines. Other passengers later joined as plaintiffs and the defendants now include American, Continental, Delta and US Airways. In the painstaking march to an actual outcome, the case was granted class-action status in May 2002 - a decision the airlines appealed unsuccessfully to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati. In June, the Supreme Court declined, without comment, to hear another appeal by the airlines. As for what happens next, a New York law firm representing the plaintiffs would not comment, but presumably the case is proceeding toward trial. The other case was filed in 1999 by a group of travel agents against American Airlines, its parent company and the Airlines Reporting Corp., which acts as a clearinghouse between the airlines and travel agents; that suit was granted class-action status last July. The plaintiffs claim that after American began charging travel agents penalties for booking tickets that violated ticketing rules, the airline and Airlines Reporting Corp. threatened to revoke their authorization to issue tickets on American if the agents did not pay the fines - actions the agents say violate racketeering laws. Theoretically, one of these cases could reach the Supreme Court, potentially presenting another recusal decision for Scalia. But in practice, these ticketing rules may become moot long before then. Low-fare airlines like JetBlue and Southwest have built successful businesses selling one-way tickets without a premium and cheap last-minutes fares, putting pressure on their older competitors. The New York Times * |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 11:38:31 -0400, 127.0.0.1
wrote: that's because you're a nit wit who posts copywrited articles Do you mean as opposed to a nitwit who can't spell "copyright"? -- Larry |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
"Earl Evleth" wrote in message ... With some airlines you are breaking the purchase contract if you don`t use the return ticket! First news to me. Any comments??? Experiences??? Technically true perhaps but I dont know of anyone who has been penalised for this. Since they cant actually force you to fly they would have to prove in court you never intended to use the return half which would seem somewhat problematic. Back to back tickets are a different matter since its clear and easily provable that you did indeed intennd to circumvent the ticket pricing. This of course does NOT apply if the 2 sets of tickets are purchased from different airlines. Then the same practise is quite legal. Keith |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
On 6/04/04 18:39, in article , "Keith
Willshaw" wrote: This of course does NOT apply if the 2 sets of tickets are purchased from different airlines. Then the same practise is quite legal. Keith The other question is Eurostar. We have use Eurostar one way and the tickets are VERY EXPENSIVE, clearly near or more than one say tickets. We won't use them one way again for a while but the other question is on train tickets on Eurostar. Earl |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
"Earl Evleth" wrote in message ... With some airlines you are breaking the purchase contract if you don`t use the return ticket! First news to me. Then you haven't read the small print nor some of the threads that have been on here. Some of the cross-channel ferry companies have been known to charge the difference in cost to the credit card of people who have paid by card for a cheap day return and used it as a single. Under UK law, you are deemed to have given your authority for them to do so when you buy the ticket with a card and accept the terms and conditions attached to it. Apparently, in the USA, that would require a separate authorisation. Colin Bignell |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
On 7/04/04 0:43, in article ,
"nightjar .uk.com" nightjar@insert_my_surname_here wrote: Then you haven't read the small print nor some of the threads that have been on here. Some of the cross-channel ferry companies have been known to charge the difference in cost to the credit card of people who have paid by card for a cheap day return and used it as a single. Can you pay cash??? Earl |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
On Tue, 6 Apr 2004, Earl Evleth wrote:
The other question is Eurostar. We have use Eurostar one way and the tickets are VERY EXPENSIVE, clearly near or more than one say tickets. I remember that 20 years ago (in British Rail times) in the UK a "day return" or "weekend return" ticket had a price comparable to a single. I also know that in Germany railways sometimes have offers (typically for off-peak days in a week) with a fixed price (or a few fixed prices for a range of distances) for a return trip. Buying two of those, not using the return trip on one, staying over a weekend and not using the first half on the other, could have been cheaper than a return ticket, when travelling across two weeks. I remember a colleague told me that Max Planck Institute was actually encouraging their staff to do so. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- is a newsreading account used by more persons to avoid unwanted spam. Any mail returning to this address will be rejected. Users can disclose their e-mail address in the article if they wish so. |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
"Earl Evleth" wrote in message ... On 7/04/04 0:43, in article , "nightjar .uk.com" nightjar@insert_my_surname_here wrote: Then you haven't read the small print nor some of the threads that have been on here. Some of the cross-channel ferry companies have been known to charge the difference in cost to the credit card of people who have paid by card for a cheap day return and used it as a single. Can you pay cash??? You can. However, these days, trying not to leave a record of crossing the channel would probably get MI5 watching you as a potential terrorist. :-) Colin Bignell |
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Throw away air tickets, rules, legality??
On 7/04/04 22:39, in article ,
"nightjar .uk.com" nightjar@insert_my_surname_here wrote: Can you pay cash??? You can. However, these days, trying not to leave a record of crossing the channel would probably get MI5 watching you as a potential terrorist. :-) Colin Bignell I am curious. We were faced with much the same problem on the TGV. We like taking the day flight from Boston back to London, but to come back to Paris we have been taking the train. One way. One way is very expensive, over 200 euros each, they hit you with the business rate. I think it would be cheaper to buy a round trip special and and throw away the ticket we won't use. The train is convenient since we don`t have to go to and from the airport. Our last trip in January was Paris = Miami: Miami = Boston and Boston = London, on American. I could not get a forth leg back to Paris from London by air although did not work on that. The trip allows several days in London, which we like. If one tries to mix airlines the fare goes too high. It is a lot more expensive doing what we do since we have to pay for lodgings in Boston and London but added to this is the TGV fares (2nd class) which are outrageous one way. I personally thing is fundamentally unfair to have a particular seat on a transportation system having prices which are much much different, depending on the rules imposed to merely maximize profits. Earl |
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