sbm12

It was 2008 when Rabbi Ginsburg was tossed out of the Northwest WorldPerks program, allegedly for complaining too much. He filed suit against the company and for the past 5+ years the case has worked its way through the US legal system. SCOTUS finally ruled on the case today. He lost unanimously.



The court essentially ruled that the FF programs are covered by the Airline Deregulation Act meaning that state law won't be able to preempt them with breach of contract claims or similar.

Read more: http://blog.wandr.me/2014/04/lawsuit...t-termination/
Read the SCOTUS decision: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...2-462_p8k0.pdf

The justices did leave a small opening suggesting that as the programs become less and less tied to the airline operations and more about 3rd party partners that the ADA protection could go away. That would be an interesting shift, though I'm not sure how the interstate commerce clause would apply at that point.

mahasamatman

That's an incredibly broad ruling. It basically flushes all claims against frequent flyer programs, including the United million-miler suit.

Just a side comment - it's very confusing to use ADA as an acronym for the Airline Deregulation Act (even though it is) because that's usually interpreted as the Americans with Disabilities Act.

GUWonder

Yet another sign that Congress should be lobbied to regulate FFPs, no less so if they are going to regulate Bitcoins too.

djrez4

Slight misinterpretation of the decision. The SCOTUS decided only that a breach of the common law duty of good faith and fair dealing was preempted by the ADA. The rabbi did not appeal the breach of contract claim and the SCOTUS made no ruling on it. In fact, Justice Roberts hinted that if the Ginsberg had appealed the breach claim, the court could have potentially found that claim was not preempted by the ADA.

PDX Duck

I am all for gaming the system, i.e., churning credit cards, doing mileage runs to take advantage of bonus offers, etc., but it seems like this guy pushed it too far and as a result got thrown out of his mileage program. I don't have a lot of sympathy for him. Kind of reminds me of the old adage: "bulls get rich, bears get rich, but pigs get slaughtered..."

CPRich

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ent-flier.html

philemer

Concurrent discussion found on last page here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...t-flier-6.html In an effort to keep this info in one place I'll close this thread and ask y'all to continue discussion on the above thread.

Thank you.