As a customer, I definitely feel the pull of an adversarial relationship with the airlines. After all, those guys consider $100 change fees and $40 fuel surcharges fair. They're definitely not restrained by conscience in doing those and other monopolistic "what the market will bear" moves, believing that any situation where the customer can take-it-or-leave-it is "the market" and thus exempt from ethics or greed considerations.

Which isn't to say there aren't situations where people are going too far on trying to get miles. It's just to say that airlines (and many other big businesses) have set a certain tone by their own behavior. With that in mind, I can refrain from or even mildly condemn some of what I see, but I can't get too far up on my high horse about it.

Just ask yourself, "What would William Bennett do?"


[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited 05-24-2003).]