Originally Posted by
jordyn
Why?
The general argument here seems to be if you pay a premium for something time-sensitive and don't get it, you should get the extra you paid for the different service back. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
Other examples: 1) I pay FedEx extra for 10 AM arrival instead of 3 PM arrival; package shows up at 3 PM. 2) I pay for an extra night at a hotel to hold a room for early check-in. When I show up, no rooms are available until the normal check-in time. 3) I go to my local copy store and have a big job. I pay a "rush job" fee to get it done faster than normal, but they end up doing it at the same speed as normal. In which of these scenarios would you not expect to get your money back?
I know in the arcane world of contracts of carriage and yield management that the letter of the "law" probably doesn't favor the customer in these cases, but the default assumption on most of the rest of the world is that if you pay extra for something and don't get that something, you get your money back.
I agree, in principle. In practice, I agree with companies like FedEx, and I have taken them to task for late deliveries.
The "in principle" part applies (in this case) to airlines. Yeah, it would be nice, and might even be reasonable. But the complications of reconstituting all flights for all delayed passengers, referenced back to the time of purchase, is infeasible. The FedEx rates are pretty well fixed (barring price increases) and do not change by the hour.
The "get you there" thing in the travel world is not the same as package delivery. If I take a train and it gets me in 30 minutes late, I'm not getting any money back, that's for sure.
So, I just think that the reality of this is hard to justify, even though it would be nice in an ideal world.
Cheers,
Bruce