Often1

This.

An educated guess is that Chase should never have accepted the CB against UA and UA ought to have researched the claim and denied it. But, Chase did accept the claim and nobody at UA could be bothered.

If this had been $12,600 rather than $126, I suspect that someone who can read and write at UA would have taken a peek.

Thus, the legal principle here is that sometimes the law does not matter because the amounts are small enough that competent people don't spend time with the issue.

murphyUA

Patently absurd? If an agent sold me a ticket, and gave me a receipt saying I didn't have to pay for bags, and on my trip I end up having to pay for bags, of course I would hold the agent responsible.

But nice try with the "Chase messed up". Instead of that, how about apologies to the OP? Because it sure seems like it's others who are being "patently absurd".

murphyUA

Wow. A TON of speculation just to cover your previous poor advice to the OP.

murphyUA

The receipt they issued that said zero bag fees begs to differ.

jsloan

The agent correctly communicated the policies, including the fact that no luggage fees were due.

If you wanted the agent -- UA, in this case -- to do something about the fees, the time do to that would have been before paying the fee in the first place. After you've paid the fee, how on earth is it the agent's responsibility that somebody else made a mistake?

Zero bag fees was the correct amount. That doesn't somehow make UA responsible for refunding money that they never collected in the first place. This entire conversation is somewhat surreal.

murphyUA

At some point, some airline reticketed things in such a way that resulted in a bag fee being charged. It isn't up to the traveler to figure out which airline involuntarily reticketed it incorrectly. This would be up to the agent that originally sold the traveler the ticket. That's UA.

Thankfully for the traveler, Chase agrees. And that's all that really matters, despite what some folks here think.

jsloan

The traveler doesn't have to worry about any of those details. The issue is with the merchant who made the invalid charge. That is not UA.

Chase made a mistake, and it worked out well for the OP, which is a good thing. I still can't fathom why the DOT wouldn't get involved. I feel like I'm missing something there. Regardless, for anyone looking at this thread in the future, this insistence that UA is somehow responsible for everything some other airline does is... contrary to how things normally work in practice.

murphyUA

But the issue is there wasn't an invalid or unauthorized charge (which Chase also agrees with). The ticket was reissued by some third party incorrectly that resulted in yet another third party charging the traveler.

Do you honestly feel like it's on the traveler to unravel the mess of involuntary changes to the ticket to figure out who made the mistake? And even if they did, what would the recourse be? Find someone to fix the ticket? How many weeks would that take?

In this case, the onus is on the agent who originally issued the ticket. They can make the traveler whole, and investigate how they can be compensated if they feel it's worth it.

jsloan

That isn't how these things work. Tthe fare included baggage and LO made the OP pay for it anyway (at a rate that they apparently made up). By what definition can that possibly be considered a valid charge?

No. It's on the traveler to collect the money from the people who charged it incorrectly. They (LO) can follow up to figure out why their systems made a mistake, if they choose to do so.

There is near-zero chance that UA will be able to figure out that LO charged the passenger incorrectly. That information was almost certainly not transferred back to UA. UA is nothing but an easy target here.

chavala

Exactly. Isn't this one of the main reasons we use CCs to pay for things? It's their job to be on my side of a dispute.
If it were me, and Chase DENIED my refund, I would cancel my account.

murphyUA

"That's not how these things work." Did you read the original post? The ticket UA issued was for travel on Brussels Airlines. That flight got cancelled. Brussels rebooked on Finnair (now we're out of Star Alliance). The Finnair flight got cancelled. Finnair rebooked on LOT (back into Star Alliance now). It's pretty obvious that it was actually Finnair or Brussels that fouled things up when they reissued the ticket either the first or the second time. LOT had nothing to do with it. The ticket they saw said to charge for bags, and that's what they did, and that's what the OP agreed to.

So what you're doing is advocating that the OP go down some worm hole and figure out whether it was Brussels or Finnair that made a mistake when they reissued the ticket? And then what? Take them to small claims court?

Again, UA is responsible for the original ticket. If they want to give a call to Brussels or Finnair to get some money back, let them, but it has nothing to do with the OP.

jsloan

Yes.

None of those details matter. LO can figure that out if they want. They're the ones who actually collected the money that wasn't owed. How can we possibly still be having this discussion? And I'd call it a stretch to say that OP "agreed." The OP was basically held hostage by LO's illegal act. Are you seriously asserting that LO is in the right, and UA is somehow in the wrong, because SN or AY made a mistake? That makes no sense whatsoever.

No. My suggestion, from the beginning, was that OP pursue action against the carrier that actually harmed them. LO. I advocated a DOT complaint, which somehow failed to work, although I don't think we ever got the whole story there -- I've never heard of the DOT flatly refusing to follow up on an issue, particularly one this obvious. Anyway, when that didn't work, the chargeback should have gone against LO, not UA. The fact that Chase allowed the chargeback against UA doesn't mean that it was right; it just means that it worked.

UA is not responsible for the ticket. They merely sold it.

Look, if you buy a ticket from a travel agency -- which is what UA was, in this case -- you can expect a certain level of service from that agent. That would include (a) asking UA to follow up with LO to get the ticket corrected in advance, or (b) asking UA to follow up with LO to get the situation solved afterwards. Perhaps an agency might voluntarily refund the money as a customer service gesture: in fact, it wouldn't have surprised me if UA had offered an ETC to do exactly that. However, they do not then assume all responsibility for problems that occur during the booking.

As nearly as we can tell, OP did neither of these things, but rather asserted -- to a third party -- that UA didn't provide the service that they promised and thus shouldn't be entitled to get paid for it. So, now, LO is unjustly enriched, UA is unjustly penalized, and there's virtually no chance for UA to be made whole again.

The fact that this worked doesn't mean that this is a script that should be followed the next time someone has a similar problem.

Chase should have been on OP's side in the case against LO. UA did nothing wrong. It's LO who forced the OP to pay a fee contrary to DOT regulation.

murphyUA

If you were to get a bid with Company A for a new driveway, and you agree on $5,000 if they also include a mailbox repair. Contract signed. Company A subs the work to Company B, Company B subs the work to Company C, and Company C subs the work to Company D. You get your new driveway and repaired mailbox, but Company D charges you $100 for the mailbox repair. All they show you is their contract from Company C that says to charge you $100 for the mailbox repair. And since they aren't Company A (or even know anything about them), the contract you signed means nothing to them.

I find it laughable you would go any further than just dealing with Company A to be made whole. I can't even believe there is discussion about it.

jsloan

You're not going after Company A. You're going after Home Depot, because you used Home Depot's contractor referral service to hire Company A.

murphyUA

Lol, that's so factually wrong, it's hilarious. But nice try. There was a single contract signed. And that was with UA. (And in your example, if I signed the contract with Home Depot and paid them, yes, I'd be going after them, obviously).

Thankfully the level headed folks at Chase agree, and the OP got their money back ^