Originally Posted by
Often1
There are easily 10,000 rants on FT about what peeople think the law ought to be and drawing analogies which may either be appropriate or not. The fact is, that HCT is established practice, it's clear that carriers take action and that the consequences for some are pretty bad.
So, why can't people track down facts? First, few if any of these wind up in court and when they do, they are in low-level unreported courts if they don't settle. When they do settle, I would bet that both sides want the settlment confidential and that's why nobody is bragging on FT. Second for the 99.999% of disputes in the civilized world which don't wind up in litigation, they either peter out or are resolved, again in a confidential manner.
Add to all of that the fact that the carrier has the ability to zero out and close the FF #, debit the TA who issued the ticket, debit the CC used for the refare, etc. All of those put the shoe on the customer's foot and the customer knows s/he's wrong and doesn't want to make a public scene.
Let's add one last detail. HCT is a fairly sophisticated practice, one which is presumably used by business travellers. Having engaged in contractually violative conduct (let's stay away from the "fraud" word) isn't something most businesses, their customers and clients want to see in the vendors and professionals upon whom they rely. Put simply, engaging in this conduct not likely to get you promoted to CEO anytime soon. So, those who get caught are, if they're smart, not talking, and those who got away with it, if they're smart, not talking.
Is that so? I think most of us are just looking to see where these facts are coming from and are just looking for a case of two to substantiate this fact. It is hard to imagine that someone wouldn't publicize such a case given that people tend to sue for minor things like spilling hot coffee on themselves!
The fact is that I know of many people that have used HCT for one reason or another but I don't know of anyone that actually got in trouble for this. Granted the sample size of people that I know is pretty small compared to the flying public but based on this knowledge I would hesitate to call this a fact. But to each their own.
And another thing. CEOs and senior management often engage in contractually violative conduct. I had provided a few examples of financial services corporations where senior management has acted in a manner which you deem as "contractually violative". I would be happy to provide other examples of organizations in other industries. Somehow their CEOs are still raking in the big bonuses and the shareholders, customers, boards are none the wiser.
At the end of the day I would argue that airlines are to be blamed for engaging in pricing techniques that encourage their users to act in a manner that might be seen as a violation of CoC. But then again who here actually goes through the CoC every time they buy a ticket. I would be the first to say that I don't. My purchasing decisions are based on my loyalty and pricing of a given route.