davidbridgman

As someone else said, loser does not pay attorney fees absent a statutory basis. Costs are fair game. In a contested brain injury case that goes to trial, there are usually going to be $30,000 in costs associated with medical expert consultations, depositions and testimony. Most doctors charge $600-$1200 an hour for their time in litigation matters. I guarantee you the defense attorney fees in that case were north of $100K and probably more.

Expected costs (not fees) to United of defending this case: $0 to $600.

They'd lose money paying their attorney to ask for that amount.

GMUJD06

^

But alas, that's their problem, not mine! Well, when my reservation falls apart it is...

raptastics

1. A U.S. citizen holding a U.S. passport may visit the HKSAR without visa for a short visit or tourism and stay in Hong Kong for up to 90 days.

Link

bangkokiscool

I think this is key. United can do a lot of things to minimize its losses here, including using a carrot (25K RDMs per ticket if customer cancels would certainly incentivize a lot of cancellations at very little cost to UA) or a stick (ban user from registering for future promotions, suspend or close account) approach. What UA should NOT do, and what DOT must make sure UA does NOT do, is unilaterally cancel tickets. The tickets are now the property of the ticket holders, not UA's.

UPDATE: NBCnews.com (formerly MSNBC) has the story now. A new quote from DOT below. The story is picking up steam, with 22 outlets reporting on it now according to Google News. There were 4 this morning. Absolutely no doubt now that UA is talking to DOT (or listening rather than talking, as the case may be). From DOT's perspective, a chance at publicizing the new rules too, which got a lot less coverage than the "one advertised price" and tarmac delay rules did.

exerda

Absolutely. If UA is retroactively debiting accounts the "correct" mileages, that is going to be really frowned upon by the DOT. It's very similar to a scenario where the airline decided a fare wasn't right and just went back and billed every pax's credit card for what they say is "right."

I say that as someone who doesn't feel that UA should be expected to honor so obviously-wrong a mistake (though after delving into the changes to DOT regulations and the RGN debacle a bit more, I'm wavering a bit on that).

UA is just going out and demonstrating yet again how idiotic their management is, it would seem--if they're indeed debiting accounts unilaterally. The sad thing is that rather than considering their IT system may be awful and their reaction to the system worse, UA management will probably just blame the "over-entitled" pax and go and make our lives even worse in the future (like putting in 24 hour holds before ticketing or UA's right to cancel within 24 hours any reservation).

fsfsfsfs

Does the DOT enforcement organization work as an adversarial system like our courts, or is some other type of procedure followed?

I'm asking because... I'm imagining some DOT complaints may not have the full set of information, background research, and other supporting facts that have been discussed ad nauseum here (of course, some "facts" have dubious merit).

Is the DOT going to treat these complaints as their universe of facts and conduct bilateral talks without involving the complainant, or do the complainants get involved at some point?

GMUJD06

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but to be honest, I went to bed Sunday night fully expecting my trip to have completely disappeared by Monday morning. At least from my point of view, had UA cancelled this thing within the first 24 hours, I would have just shrugged my shoulders and said "oh well" and not given it another thought, except for my post-mortem "what if" dreams.

DillMan

Wait, are you suggesting that a "contested brain injury case" would cost a total of $30k in lawyers, experts, and court costs?

If so, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. $30k would get you a couple letters written and maybe a draft complaint from any semi-white shoe law firm. I had a deposition a few months that racked up $30k in fees between both sides for two days of questions.

tlott

There might be a distinction in that awards follow the clearly published award chart which MileagePlus members are aware of when making a redemption.

On the other hand, revenue fares change constantly.

I have one of these tickets, I hope it gets honored, but it is helpful to look at at this from all perspectives - there are many good arguments on both sides.

as219

This is the irony of the situation. Every time I've booked a *A award through UA, I've had to double- and triple-check everything to make sure it went through and correctly, including checking with the partner airlines directly. Mistakes and glitches happened all the time in this process. Now UA makes a real, honest-to-goodness mistake, and it goes through quickly and smoothly. Go figure.

Thunderroad

This is a pretty interesting, illuminating exchange. I appreciate both of your perspectives on what's going on with this issue and think you both make some very good points.

I didn't jump on this deal so don't have a concrete interest in the outcome. But on a gut level I find myself rooting for those who did grab it, partly simply to wish fellow FTers well but more because I think UA management is getting what it deserves here. Its lousy IT system and other policies and practices have messed up my and many, many other travelers' plans, transformed UA's formerly adequate ways of handling IRROPS into a series of constant CFs, resulted in significantly increased rates of cancellations and delays, and forced us to monitor our reservations and spend much more time on the phone dealing with various matters than we had to do just a year ago.

What's more, that IT system and the various other policies and practices were intentionally chose by Smisek and company. And at least with respect to SHARES, he was told by his former CIO that the system would be inadequate, but pressed ahead with it anyway.

But to channel this rant back to the topic at hand: If these same IT flaws have come back to bite UA, there's some poetic justice here. A relative handful of folks getting free rides is nothing compared to the uncompensated inconvenience, indignities and difficulties it has heaped on many other passengers (including but not limited to screwing up award tickets). In addition to the other factors shaping people's reactions, I'd think one major influence is the extent to which they're p**sed off at UA management to begin with.

Having said all that, I do see the logic in china's concerns. I'm voicing more of a gut response here rather than an analysis of how this will all play out. I would hope that UA's reaction to this mess would be to straighten out at least some of the myriad dysfunctional ways in which its IT systems now operate. But I grant that management might just focus on how to limit customers' award redemption options, particularly given the nature of the company's leadership.

On the other hand, one possible byproduct of all this is that it could add even in some small way to customer and public knowledge about the incompetence of UA management and its systems. If that happens, something good will come of it, whichever way DOT rules and whatever actions UA takes.

entropy

I certainly don't think that United would be within reason to close accounts for people booking a couple instances of this fare unless they go out and start suing UA.

I tend to subscribe to the "pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered" principle; there's nothing at all wrong with booking a couple that you intend to use, its another story if you're booking 20/week for yourself and people you don't know.

I expect that given the publicity and DOT involvement, they'll probably come out with a use-it-as-ticketed no changes or indemnify and get a cert/miles.

davidbridgman

Please see last sentence of my first paragraph. I was making the distinction between costs (which loser pays) and atty. fees (which loser does not pay, absent specific rule to the contrary).

People on this board seem quite anxious for a reason to pounce.

sonomawine

Here's our scenario, and yes I called the airline, but many hours after they shut down the 4 miles per trip.

I booked 2 one-way tickets and 2 round trip tickets to Hong Kong. The first set finished off a planned trip, and the second for a get away next year. Like everyone else that booked, the receipt had the usual final amount of 4 or 8 miles, and taxes detailed on the receipt. A couple of hours later, and as many have reported, we had substantial miles deducted from our account, but not to the level to cause the account to go negative. The mileage they deducted after ticketing did not match any published award level. How could that happen? Perhaps they had someone manually deducting miles from accounts that had been previously ticketed?

Being a bit intrigued by this, I called (and don't flame me as it has taken me a while to decide to share this) on Monday morning and requested they return the higher mileage deductions and honor the tickets. After two hours, they did just that. I have the deducted mileage back in my account and the tickets are still valid. They said the tickets would be honored, and the return of miles was based on the receipt. Obviously, I called prior to any of their CSRs knew what was going on, but they obviously had some procedure to follow.

XLR26

The only way expected costs would be that low is if UA wins on a motion to dismiss.