One of the most unrecognized scams by Corporate America today is airlines deliberately overbooking flights and bumping passengers.
If you prefer land travel, intercity bus lines do it too - by intentionally overbooking routes.
These are outright frauds - but authorities don't see it as criminal, even though it's one of the fastest growing corporate scams in America.
It's pretty simple really: Airlines sell tickets to more people than the flight has room for. Unless quite a few customers miss their flight to begin with, passengers are inevitably bumped from the flight.
Talk about unchecked greed. Airlines sell too many tickets just to Make Money. And it hurts the consumer.
Shockingly, airlines aren't even legally required to offer a full refund. If a family wedding is the only reason you're flying somewhere, and getting bumped makes you miss the wedding, the airline isn't even required to refund one penny.
Can you believe that? America is a society that puts 16-year-old kids in lockup for disagreeing with their school principal, but airlines endure almost no regulation at all - even when they commit outright fraud.
If you're a victim of a bumped flight, raise hell. If you don't get a full refund, raise more hell. It is your moral right. If necessary, sue the airline.
Furthermore, this overbooking scam should be outlawed. And if the federal government doesn't act, the states should.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Bumped flights a scam
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Relax, it's usually only a couple seats overbooked and the airlines always offer free flights to get volunteers to take a later flight.
ReplyDeleteActually @scheffbd it isn't only a couple of seats. It happens every single day, with many airlines now known to overbook by OVER 50 passengers per flight. People miss connections with eldery relatives meant to be meeting them at airports (eldery relatives who normally never fly). They miss weddings, urgent visits to critically sick relatives, cruise ships, christmas, once in a lifetime events. We shouldn't just say that missing a holiday, or a trip home is no big deal so let's not care about it. It's a crime - and I cannot believe people are subjected to this kind of treatment by supposedly corporately responsible airlines. So, Bandit, good point. And certainly don't "Relax" about it.
ReplyDeleteRelax, Woollyknickers, just relax.
ReplyDelete