colpuck

Ok, I am done feeding this.

sbrower

That, of course, is your choice. But I don't think the fact that someone pointed out that your logic is circular (and wrong under the law) is a good reason to leave. It is a good reason to see whether you can be more persuasive.

I strongly doubt that "the DOT has made up their mind." Thay might have decided not to open an investigation because, notwithstanding the words of the [poorly written] regulation, they have decided not to get invovled here. And, as much as I like FOIA requests, I don't think it will help here -- my memory (feel free to correct me) is that there is an exception for regulatory deliberations.

colpuck

Seeing as it is neither, I beg to differ.

He has nothing say against what I posted other than "no" which in this case is neither correct legally nor morally. The rules are the rules neither party made a mistake here, we both knew what we were buying and selling. There is no legal out for UA to keep from honoring the tickets, especially when they have already honored some.

84fiero

How are they digging a deeper hole? They're just restating their position, as they've said publicly before.

The text I quoted just says that "Where appropriate, letters and web form submissions will be forwarded to an official at the airline for further consideration." Nothing says that they will pass along information only in conjunction with a DOT ruling or recommendation. I wouldn't call it blindly passing along, nor do I see how doing so means DOT isn't doing something.

We have some people like colpluck who received no communication despite a DOT complaint, others like myself who received the original UA email but not to our primary address registered with UA. It's really impossible to know what's happening with all of these email or lack of emails.

Maybe DOT has or hasn't made a decision, I just don't see this one email as evidence one way or another.

You're thinking of pre-decisional deliberations, which is generally correct as an exemption (I'm on the receiving end of FOIA requests). Not sure how the DOT handles and documents these internally, but once a decision is made - either to investigate or not; and if so, the outcome, the decision would usually be releasable as it then becomes a "record". Hard to say with certainty as there can be nuances to each particular record request.

zombietooth

But, that is not what we are talking about here. The article presumes that the plane goes out with unfilled seats. Most HKG flights go out full in J and F. And, we are talking about a large quantity of Standard awards in this situation, which rob from the revenue buckets. In addition, it totally disregards UFC, which is common on this route and is usually on the order of 1K per direction. Since premium cabins rarely go out with any empty seats to HKG, the marginal cost argument is moot.

The main problem here is that the guilty conscience wants a salve to justify dishonorable behavior, and the exploiters here are twisting themselves into Gordian knots trying to find reasons why UA and its passengers would not be harmed by honoring these tickets---it is a hopeless task.

chinatraderjmr

UA can certainly pass the cost of this mistake on to it's customers and I fear it may veto late, even if this mistake does not cost them a dime. No, they can't just raise fares as you are correct, they can't run the risk of being uncompetitive. But what they can very easily do is make getting award tickets not quite as user friendly as they are now. How many of us have benefited from UA's very liberal and generous ticketing and routing rules for award tkts ?(compared to most other airlines). We are all the losers here if UA comes out and says no more close in bookings or changes within 48 hours of departure? That would certainly help UA scrutinize bookings before actual tkts are issued, assuring that this kind of problem, even if it happens again does not hurt UA. But those members who have always benefited by bizarre routines and/or multiple changes to better flights as they open will all lose

sbrower

Your definition of "mistake" doesn't match my understanding of the law. The fact that the computer system "allowed" the sale (even if it is UA's fault for using a lousy system) doesn't mean that UA intended to sell the tickets for 4 miles each.

I have seen multi-million dollar contracts, drafted by lawyers who were paid thousands of dollars just to review the documents, where the parties signed the documents which included clauses saying "everyone read this stupid thing and agree to what it says" and the court still (correctly) found that there were "mistakes" in the agreement.

colpuck

there an argument. Maybe, maybe not. It seemed clear to me that they intended to sell tickets for 4 miles each. It seemed to clear to the phone agent that united intended to sell tickets for 4 miles each when then United Airlines agent issued the ticket.

Where's the mistake-in-fact, both parties knew that they were issuing tickets for four miles each.

Even if there was no obligation (which is what you are arguing under the mistake doctrine) when United Airlines honored the tickets, they vailidated their obligation. UA's true mistake was in honoring some of the tickets.

fyi here is my understanding of what a mistake is.

chinatraderjmr

That's a great argument but after reading at least half of these posts, I have come to the conclusion that a whole bunch of people here on FT are color blind. They see the rules, laws, etc only in black and white which helps them support whichever view they have. Fortunately, laws are never black and white, 99/100 times they are grey but for people here to admit that would be to admit they may be wrong. It's such a simplistic view of this situation that makes these arguments both for and against UA so laughable.

CMHFlyerOH

In my opinion, they would "digging a deeper hole" if they responded to a customer complaint in a way that was disconsonant with the DOT's official position. Now we don't know, of course, if the DOT even has a position. But, in my opinion, it seems logical that the DOT would only pass along contact information of a person filing a complaint if:

1. The DOT felt that the airline had violated a regulation and the DOT is asking the airline to work with the customer to resolve/settle his/her complaint

or

2. The DOT felt that the airline had not violated a regulation but is passing along the contact information of a person who filed a complaint to the airline to give that airline a voluntary opportunity to reach out to that customer, either in the form on a explanatory letter (as in this case) or some sort of voluntary compensation if they feel it is in their best interests to do so.

I just fail to see--in spite of anything that is listed on the complaint form--why the DOT would pass along the contact information of a complaint filer under any other circumstances.

Again--this is just my opinion--but, logically speaking, it makes sense to me.

fastair

Really? You truly believe that UA priced the ticket at over 100k miles, but they intended to sell it a 4/8 miles? Sales are advertised. What on earth in your history on this planet would make you suspect anything but an error? Possibly a small child with no ticket buying experience might think this was a legit deal, but you are fooling noone, so why not drop the charade about you believing it was UA's intent to do so.

If yo have real points, please share them, but trying to bs us on this is a waste of our time.

chinatraderjmr

You may be right but then again you may be as wrong as anyone else here. "Rules are rules" is a very simple argument that holds no water . A rule is only as good as the people who's job it is to enterpit them. Show me any "rule" or "regulation" and I'll show you 5 ways of finding exceptions to it, regardless of if they are written or not. UA has people working their way around this who are a lot smarter and more acquainted with this case then you or I (regardless of what your inside source tells you or who you used to work for). Everyone has an opinion here or worse, an analogy and while 99 out of 100 of them sound ridiculous, they are still based on the same facts that anyone else here has stated; none.

^^. Nicely put!

This mistake may will not cause fares to rise, but that does not mean UA will not find another way of fixing this wound and rest assured it can still end up costing us a lot in the long run. As I have pointed out before, if I were UA I would have a very very simple fix that would assure this never happens again and it has NOTHING to do with fixing a computer. If UA were to now say all award tickets required 48 hours to process, this would give them time to have people in ticketing plenty of time to catch mistakes and fix them or cancel the booking. But the end result is 2 of the best parts of Milesge Zulus would be gone for us; close in ticketing snd the ability to change segments the last minute when better flights become available. Don't fool yourselves, this whole 4 mile deal could really hurt a lot of us

colpuck

My belief in their intent comes from their actions. They willingly sold tickets for 8mi a pop. But it wasn't just the website they did it over the phone too. Then they honored those tickets. Now they want a redo, I think not.

LASUA1K

I bought a couch at 1000.00, I thought I got a great deal, 2 days later they cancelled my order since I should've paid 3K.

Guess what, they honored it at the end and UA should honor this.

DianeDakota

http://shine.yahoo.com/work-money/fl...201300319.html

I couldn't resist.