But for the ADA pre-emption part of of this, I much prefer the plaintiffs' side of the case on an issue like that.

Forget about the regulation overlay and DOT oversight and all that for a second -- imagine just that Alaska Airlines were a regular company that sold a service. Imagine they sold gift cards, but put in a term that said "once you pay we can drain your account and not give you any services." Or, imagine their contract to join their boardroom said, "we can decide, after you pay, to exclude you from the club."

Actually, imagine they were less clear than that. Suppose they simply said, "we can change the terms of your gift card redemption" or "we can change the terms of your board room membership." And then when you tried to use your gift card or the boardroom, they said, "sorry, we've changed the terms and you can't have what you paid for, and you should have known we might do that."

Would one have a cause of action under state law? Almost certainly. Here's the tricky part, though. If your claim is one for basically stealing from you, then you probably can go forward with the claim. It might be a fraud claim, or conversion, or something like that. If, however, a court were to hold that contractual agreements that the company interprets essentially to mean "we can steal from you" are binding, you would likely only be left with a good faith and fair dealing claim. Why is this important? Well, a good faith and fair dealing claim is pre-empted. A fraud or conversion claim likely wouldn't be. As I said, I'd like the plaintiffs' side of that argument.