FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Strange/Alarming reminder from UA on China flights when ticket was booked by miles
Old Nov 18, 2020, 5:22 pm
  #4  
lincolnjkc
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Originally Posted by sexykitten7
Hmm. Is this IDB? I guess the answer is yes. I haven't seen any reports of US airlines thinning the herd so to speak.

But are pax entitled to compensation? According to the letter of the law, yes. But the intent of the law was to exempt airlines from paying due to unforeseen circumstances. Of course, they could choose to sell fewer tickets in anticipation of govt regulation. I suppose the shrewd move would be to cancel these flights 1 day out and rebook most pax onto a new flight number. How has UA been handling this (if at all?).
By the literal letter of the law yes, and admittedly I am not a lawyer but I can definitely see a court interpreting "(b) The flight for which the passenger holds confirmed reserved spaceis unable to accommodate that passenger because of substitution of equipment of lesser capacity when required by operational or safety reasons;..." although the aircraft has not been substituted the lesser capacity is definitely for "operational or safety reasons" (and possibly, under the COC's "refusal to transport when it would violate a government requirement" escape hatch)

That said I can't imagine UA would actually allow a flight to be booked >75% knowing that that's a limit; revenue management would have to be insane to authorize >75% of seats for sale (plus, perhaps some small oversell margin)

And I agree the message makes no sense since MP tickets are not non-revenue tickets for NRPS/NRSB purposes... I'm guessing someone clicked the wrong checkboxes when applying that waring to specific fare classes/reservation statuses.
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