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.
Come on...this is FT. The proportion of people who engage in HCT and BTB must be much higher among our membership than in the general public.
Are you suggesting that in this anonymous forum there is no one that is willing to spill the beans about how they got caught and what the judge ordered as a remedy? And that this is the case because of a confidentiality agreement? I'm dying to hear about how someone lost their house because some airline's pack of lawyers came after him for repeatedly violating the T&Cs. I think the truth is that the airlines use their strong-arm (and very effective) method of threatening a reset of the FF points to get most people to back off.
Finally, I disagree with you about business travellers engaging in HCT. I think it's mainly savvy leisure travellers and possibly those business travellers who run their own companies or work for SMEs, but no one who is on the CEO track of a company of any serious turnover is going to bother doing this anyway for business travel. I have worked for several large financial and professional institutions and I never even booked my own travel. A secretary spoke to someone in the travel company to sort it out. I eventually gave them some input but that's about it. I think the 'personal history' point is not a factor, just paranoia.