South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
The DoT giveth to travelers — and maybe taketh away
In a flurry of lame duck activity, the outgoing Department of Transportation (DoT) has announced a few consumer benefits — minor, but true benefits — while also announcing a really big potential takeaway.
Bumping compensation. DoT increased the minimum compensation your airline has to pay you if you are “denied boarding,” or “bumped,” due to overbooking. Effective in April 13, if you are bumped from a domestic flight because it’s overbooked, your minimum cash mandatory compensation increases from $675 to $775 if you are delayed in reaching your destination up to two hours late, or from $1,350 to $1,550 if you are delayed more than two hours, with more lenient time limits for international flights. The new rule emphasizes that these are minimum figures and do
not prohibit airlines from paying more.
This rule is actually of less value than you might think. Historically, airlines entice about 90 percent
of overbooked passengers to relinquish their seats by offering vouchers for future travel in amounts that can exceed the specified minimum amounts. So the new rule applies only to the few travelers who
(1) are on an overbooked flight and the even fewer who (2) refuse an airline’s voucher offer.
My gripe with this whole rule is that it applies only to overbooking. There’s no reason travelers shouldn’t be compensated for denied boarding for any reason—a right already available in European rules.
No dragging. New rules also say that an airline can’t drag you off the plane once you’re on board, a la Dr. Dao, or even once you have a boarding pass. As I read the rule, it applies to denied boarding for any reason, not just overbooking. This is long overdue and welcome.
More baggage money. DoT increased the upper limit for compensation an airline must pay you due to mishandled baggage from
$3,500 to $3,800. This too, looks like a bigger deal than it is, mainly because you can claim only depreciated value and you have to produce receipts for big-ticket claims. Also, you probably have additional coverage for damaged or lost baggage through household policies or a credit card, anyhow.
Full-fare advertising. DoT’s big threat is potential loss of an important protection: the requirement that airlines advertise the full price of a flight rather than a low-ball figure to which they add fees and taxes later. The current full-fare requirement has been a big benefit to consumers, and loss would be substantial. On its face, this should be no worry. DoT’s notice says, “This rulemaking examines whether the full fare advertising rule imposes unnecessary or costly burdens on carriers and consumers,” and it clearly does not:
There’s no “costly” burden on carriers, because the only cost incurred is that of switching the fare figures they post. They may want to feature low-ball prices, but featuring all-up prices instead doesn’t cost them a penny extra.
Far from being any burden to consumers, full-fare advertising is an important benefit; the burden for consumers would be losing it.
The gold standard for all consumer price advertising is “what you see is what you pay,” and full-fare posting is exactly that. The main deception in travel right now is that many hotels don’t post WYSIWYP rates, adding a “resort” or other fee later in the process—a deception we consumer advocates are fighting.
I avoid partisan political positions in these columns, but as far as I can tell, fair price advertising is not partisan. So I urge you to submit a comment supporting the full-fare requirement to the formal DoT proceeding. Log onto regulations.gov, enter DOT-OST-2021-0007 in the search box, then enter a comment or upload a pre-prepared comment.