The Deal Mommy

Slippery Slope, Party of One: Where Do You Draw the Line?

I’ve gotten some blowback this morning and would appreciate your take. No wrong answers here as I attempt to answer the question for myself, too.

The context: most of you know that United Airlines had a mistake fare posted yesterday for about 4 hours. The fare was related to a faulty foreign exchange rate and to get it, you had to set your browser to Denmark. That didn’t bother me and I booked 3 tickets.

Until I got to the payment screen. On the payment screen you had to put your billing address and the only way the charge would go through was if you changed your billing address to one in Denmark. 2 thoughts went through my head:

  1. United has a legitimate basis for not honoring this fare as I have to clearly lie to get it.
  2. What the #$#$# am I doing?

So I closed my browser and went on with my day.  Sure enough, about 6 hours later the thousands of folks, including many friends of mine, got the email from United explaining that their tickets would not be honored.  Most brushed it off and went on with their days, but over and over I kept seeing “United sucks” and “file a DOT complaint” on my twitter feed.

There’s another well-known story in certain circles about a Canadian blogger who filed a DOT complaint when a system glitch wasn’t honored and sent the whole scheme crashing down.  That glitch didn’t bother me a bit, even if I never took advantage, as you didn’t have to lie to get it.  Well, maybe you had to purchase a round-trip ticket when you only intended to go one way, but again it didn’t seem an outright lie.

Slippery Slope, Party of One?

Much of travel hacking is a grey area. It’s called “hacking” for a reason.  But I see a clear difference between exploiting holes in a poorly designed system and outright deception.  Or do I?

No judgement here.  I’d just appreciate your take in the comments.

The Deal Mommy is a proud member of the Saverocity network.

 


19 thoughts on “Slippery Slope, Party of One: Where Do You Draw the Line?

  1. Daniel S.

    I would suspect following a DOT claim is frivolous as they’re probably protected by Denmark laws and not US laws in this case

  2. David

    This is where the “sense of entitlement” comes from. I book a ticket and accidentally select March instead of May. Two days later I realize and call up United. United says “sorry to hear that, pay $200 and we’ll change it for you”. I change it. Later on the evening of the trip I end up in the ER and call United from the ER saying “clearly I cannot travel today; I have a doctor’s note. What can you do to help me”? United says “you can have a refund…minus the $200 cancellation fee of course”.

    Both of those things have happened to me with United, though not on the same ticket (thank God!). If you run a business where you have zero tolerance for your customers making mistakes it is not even remotely clear to me why I as a customer should have any tolerance for when the company in question makes a mistake.

    1. thedealmommy Post author

      You know, David, you make a good point. Fairness should shoot both ways. I will say that I’ve had errors I made fixed with no fee from airlines (a connecting ticket I booked with an departure time 2 hours before my connection landed comes to mind) but you’re right in saying it’s the exception.

    2. TJ

      United gives you 24hr to cancel your purchase, and United canceled these within 24hr. So by your logic they were acting the way you want them to.

  3. Trevor

    I think the changing to a Denmark site isn’t a problem, like you say, changing the billing country to Denmark is where it becomes more challenging. I’ve bought tickets through other country sites many times, you can often do so cheaper, and they are posted fares, not mistakes, just, perhaps targeted to a specific country. You can put in a US credit card and billing address, no problem.

    As far as whether the DOT has jurisdiction. If you interpret the DOT rule, they do if you start or end your journey in the US. What I suspect, is that this will force the DOT to issue the proposed rule change, which will make it much, much harder for mistake fares to be honored in the future. This *might* not have happened had several thousand tickets been purchased, likely due to the rather extreme exposure this got.

  4. mason

    I didn’t feel that I was lying about my billing address as I had to fill in all the normal information correctly. I thought of it more like Trevor in that I was buying from the Danish version of the United website. I the country had to be chosen from a dropdown menu, then I could probably see where you’re coming from, but that wasn’t the case.

    1. thedealmommy Post author

      Hi Mason, it was at the credit card payment screen. With your billing address there was a drop down there for country and it bounced back as an error when I put in “United States” , only “Denmark” got it to go through.

      That was the line for me, but now I’m trying to understand where my own line actually lies.

  5. thedealmommy Post author

    (Posting for a reader who wishes to remain anon.)

    I think that the day after all these people thought they were getting a free trip (some of them pretty incredible, like stopovers at home before going to Hawaii or getting to the Mideast) that you let tempers cool down. I know it is ridiculous to see some of these idiots saying that they’re going to sue United and is downright offensive to hear them brag about filing DOT complaints (which is just going to make United jump through hoops and is unlikely to result in them honoring the tickets), but people are pissed off right now. Do they have a right to be? Probably not. But they’re frustrated nonetheless.

    This is a good blogging opportunity: the lines between white, gray and black blur more as the compensation increases…If people knew they were taking from United with yesterday’s deal, they probably wouldn’t have done it. Of course people can debate whether or not it was taking. But for those who hadn’t considered the ethics of this and had gotten the deal, they were pretty happy. And then when it was pulled, they certainly were disappointed (justifiably or not).

  6. Laura

    This is an excellent question and I think one has to separate one’s hate for United (and there’re a lot of haters out there) with one’s individual behavior, regardless of the airline. I think some of the haters are conflating their hate for United with their anger at feeling like they “lost out” on something, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t theirs for the taking. If I understood correctly, one had to lie in filling out one’s address, correct? Other than people living in Denmark and having a Danish address of record, if you clearly don’t live in Denmark, then you clearly have to lie. I wouldn’t be able to do that. Also, wouldn’t the credit card issuer not process a transaction, since they know full well what your address is? Having said that, if there’s a glitch in a system and at no moment in the transaction there’s no instance in which I have to provide false information about myself or my address, then I believe I would go through with it, but still not hold my breath. In other words, if I get in on the deal and I don’t have lie, then I should feel happy. And if I don’t get in on the deal, didn’t lie to try to, I should still feel okay with myself. I think this is a case of sour grapes. But I agree about the air of entitlement. Too much Vendoming has gone to people’s heads… lol! For the record, I have never flown first or business class and travel economy all the time. I try to make my points go as far as I can, since we’re a family of 3 (dad, mom, toddler) and we feel fortunate to travel a lot on mostly points and miles.

    1. thedealmommy Post author

      You’ve nailed it. It was the active lie that got me. Exploiting an error like Victoria’s Secret? Fair game. (And I didn’t complain when I got 4 instead of 60. Still free underwear.)

  7. Danny

    Great post. I fully agree with what you are saying and I posted a similar opinion on my blog as well. I can’t believe that there was a uprising and calls to file complaints from some of the biggest blogs out there. I think it was just personal greed by those who booked flights and wanted others to help them keep them.

    you can read my post here if interested https://dannydealguru.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/united-airlines-debacle-should-you-complain-to-the-dot/

    1. thedealmommy Post author

      Hi Danny,
      I’ve learned to keep my righteous indignation in check…not so much. So I’m just trying harder to think of my own glass house.

  8. Kirsten

    I tend to agree with what Laura wrote ^ . I think that there are different levels of mistakes and errors, and common sense needs to prevail in such instances. I don’t think that the right vs. wrong is all that hard to discern in a case where someone needs to lie in order to take advantage of a mistake. Most rational people can agree that lying for personal gain is wrong. This isn’t a case of trying to feed a starving family by stealing bread. However, right or wrong, it doesn’t mean that some people won’t choose to do it anyway. There are times when I have done things that I know are wrong (like using a coupon code that I am not entitled to). I realize that it isn’t the right thing to do, and I have done it anyway. I even used my friend’s Costco card one time (so wrong, I know:)). I think that this is more likely the case with people who lied about an address to get in on this mistake fare – they knew it was wrong & hoped to get away with it.

    The more important part, in my opinion, is what happens next. In my case, if the coupon I have attempted to use (that I am not entitled to use) doesn’t work, then I just say oh well. If Costco doesn’t let me in, then I turn around and walk away. It would never then cross my mind to turn around and blame/sue/vow to destroy the company that I just tried to benefit from. It is clearly on me that I tried to do something wrong & was rightfully denied.

    A different situation is when there is a mistake that happens that does not involve lying outright. Something that is clearly a mistake because it is too good to be true. Most likely human or computer error. In those instances, it depends on how things are handled by the company. Some are willing and able to honor their mistake, and others are not. There are just too many variables for this kind of situation to be black and white.

    David’s ^ point about the company having poor customer service and unfriendly practices isn’t really relevant to the right vs wrong debate. Two wrongs don’t make a right is a popular saying because it’s true. And the company is usually simply following their own policies (which may be some terrible policies, for sure).

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