The "Sneaking into First Class" thread and a "Carlson CID" thread in the National Car Rental forum prompted me to ask. At what point does using the information gleaned on FT to improve your travel experience become stealing from the airline/rental agency/hotel/etc? Look at the various forums listing discount codes and coupon IDs. If you use them when you aren't really qualified to do so, is that stealing or just smart travelling? Is it really us against them?

I'm no ethics expert, for sure, but the older I get the more dishonest it seems. Maybe I'm finally just an old fogey...

If one has to ask is it stealing, the answer is yes.

Sitting in FC when not entitled to, using discount codes you are not qualified for, etc. - all "stealing" - "To take without right or permission". Seems pretty easy to me.

I agree that there's an ethical line, but I also think some people have a huge double-standard about ethical issues, being very hard on individuals or the consumer side, but excusing just about anything on the corporate side (such as inventing gouge-level fees to apply against people in captive situations) as somehow permissible within the market. It takes an Enron to wake people up, and some on the far right would try to defend even that.

Am not trying to say that two wrongs make a right, but if you look at the history of practices within the airline, hotel and rental car industries and what have generated consumer complaints, you'll see again and again a legacy of practices like hidden fees, bait and switch, gouging in certain situations and other very preventable, easily avoided practices if there were an intention to play fair. But the travel-related industries in the U.S. are practically without peer for introducing unnecessary complexity to the business model for the purpose of revenue maximization.

Or, in simpler terms, customers have long felt they were being gamed, and that kind of feeling crushes goodwill and leads to a desire to even the score. Some go too far in trying to do so. But trust and good faith between parties has long been in short supply.

The two are not the same.

I'm pretty apolitical and don't think it's a "left vs right" issue. If I think I have been wronged by the travel industry and desire to even the score, why on earth would I participate in the same type of behavior which I condemn in them? You are correct, though...two wrongs do not make a right.

I'm interested...explain.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CPRich
Sitting in FC when not entitled to, using discount codes you are not qualified for, etc. - all "stealing" - "To take without right or permission". Seems pretty easy to me.


Would one say being dishonest is stealing? If the answer is yes, then the above amounts to stealing too.

That's true. If you see something lying on the street and you take it, you didn't have right or permission to take it, but was it stealing?

I think sneaking into first class (for purposes of sitting there, rather than using the bathroom) has been successfully prosecuted as theft-of-services. Most people wouldn't go for that.

Using codes, IMO, is murkier. Many people would say that if the computer takes it, it's fair game. Should it be an individual responsibility to see if they're qualified, or a provider responsibility to police it through automated means (as more and more are doing)? It's kind of like crashing a party you weren't invited to (but of course SHOULD HAVE been).

That was the distinction I was aiming at.

The coupon codes get even murkier when you realize companies will spread discount codes on the internet virally - they may have been initially "intended" for one market, but the company knew and accepted that that code would be used by others not in that intended market. Since the technology to verify whether the user is part of the intended group and entitled to the discount is easy to implement, and most companies can and do implement it on occaison, I'm left thinking that companies knowingly and willingly accept such practices. As an example I know of several internet outdoor goods retailers who sometimes tie discount codes to email addresses and thus accounts, and other times choose not too.

A bit like someone leaving their Mercedes unlocked, with the keys in the ignition, in Compton, in the middle of the night, on purpose. Technically it may be "theft" - but they wanted it to be stolen.

Caveat emptor? Caveat vendor?

Do you have any sources for the statement about successfully prosecuting ppl who "illegally" sneak into F? I did a couple Google searches for ("theft of services" "first class") and ("theft of services" airline) - and was not able to find any examples. I would be interested to read any courts' findings you could cite.

Seriously? Someone hopping in and driving away is not guilty of anything? I hope you are being facetious.

I'm always intrigued by the "technically" qualifier. "Technically, it may be theft". How does that differ from "It is theft"?

Darn... I guess now I'll have to return my table tray from UAL. It wasn't that useful without the seat, though.