Originally Posted by
HansGolden
Given the DOT regulation which clearly says mistake fares must be honored, I already was making solid plans on the basis of this. The rest of my family was adjusting obligations (my brother turned down a $1k contract based on these dates instead of the EI dates) and making plans. Like I say more clearly below, if the DOT doesn't like their existing rules, they need to modify them. But in the meantime, they must enforce them, because the existence of those rules magnifies the harm if they were to change their minds and not enforce the rules as written after all, because people who are aware of the rules and have seen the past pattern of enforcement then rely on these error fares and make firm plans on the basis of them, even when the airlines are ignorant of the rules.
The past pattern of enforcement also includes examples where the DOT did not force the airline to honor the tickets, correct? If so, it sounds like enforcement is not so clear, and you were relying on enforcement
going your way -- a roll of the dice. I'll take you at your word that you made many plans *within the 8 hours* that these tickets were still in force, and from your posts in earlier threads, I can tell that you indeed knew of the DOT regulation before you booked the fare. But you should also have known that in those earlier threads, 399.88 did not always get enforced the way we expected or wanted. Therefore, why would you make subsidiary plans when the possibility existed that these tickets might not see the light of day? Didn't I read somewhere in this very thread that people should be careful about booking ancillary plans on these tickets?
Originally Posted by
HansGolden
Not being able to rely on advertised, purchased, and confirmed prices is abusive harm.
You're using "abuse" again, so you need to point to the actual
harm or
injury from
this event.
Originally Posted by
HansGolden
If I make a bankrupting financial mistake, I lose my house; AIG makes a bankrupting financial mistake, they get an $85b bailout. I make a mistake in purchasing tickets, they're non-refundable; United makes a mistake in selling tickets, they're rescindable with not a bit of penalty. What's the direct harm to me? The $k's of change fees I've spent, for starters. But the damage of slanted playing fields--fields slanted by billion dollar lobbyists--to the overall economic and legal systems is much greater.
Geez. No offense, but these analogies to Zimbabwe and AIG and things that happened to you unrelated to this event are abusive to analogies.
I feel you on having had to pay change fees for when you made a mistake, but it's really not germane to your argument. United didn't wait to cancel your ticket; they voided them within 8 hours. If you had canceled your ticket within 8 hours, you wouldn't have paid a penalty either.