What happens if I go to small claims against a giant airline?

[scrub]

[ QUOTE ]
Guys,

I have a legitimate grievance against an airline for $544. I have tried to resolve the matter through phone, then e-mail, then certified mail, then the Better Business Bureau. If I file in small claims court against them- I know that I need to do this across the country in their home county and so forth- what should I expect? Will they actually bother to send a slick lawyer to crush me or will they noshow and allow me to win by default?

-Michael

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If you have a bunch of screenshots I'd email them to Consumerist and at least embarrass the airline.

scrub

[Michael Davis]

(Warning: very boring) Here are the details, hopefully I get them all correct:

This was a BOGO (buy-one-get-one-free) offer from Spirit Air. In order to take advantage of the offer, I actually canceled tickets I had purchased just one day before the offer came out, paying a $150 change fee.

The process for getting your BOGO flier involves a lot of steps, some of them seemingly unnecessary. You must sign up for a Free Spirit account number, make your flight reservations online using your Free Spirit account, and enter your Free Spirit number (only your number, the page looks very shady although to my knowledge nobody else had similar problems) on a separate BOGO page which is different from any of the other purchasing pages and so forth.

Then, some many days later, I was to receive your BOGO flier in an e-mail. Then you must book a flight very quickly to be used during a specific timeframe some months from now. All very standard airline-type BS, but intentionally confusing nonetheless.

Anyways, needless to say I receive no BOGO flier. I contact SpiritAir and, after explaining my situation, I am immediately told that I entered the information wrong. We go back and forth and I swear that I entered all of the information correctly. The first customer service representative refuses to transfer me to a supervisor for five minutes while I repeat "transfer me to your supervisor" to everything she says.

Finally I am transferred to a supervisor who sticks by the "you didn't enter your information properly" defense. This goes roundabout for an hour or so and she says there is no higher supervisor than her, so I am eventually left high and dry.

Since this time, I discovered that my Free Spirit account was never credited with any miles for the flight, period. So it is very likely that the problem doesn't even involve any of the tricky BOGO steps, but rather is an issue of the flight being credited to my account at all, before we even get to a discussion of the special BOGO designation. This doesn't make sense, since I purchased the flight using my free spirit account. I called Spirit again and brought this to their attention. They again state that I entered things improperly.

Since then, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Southeast Florida and received an e-mail response from Spirit in which they reiterated everything they have already told me. This e-mail also included the line "simply logging in and purchasing the flight using your Free Spirit account is not sufficient to have your Free Spirit miles credited to this account." I believe, but am not sure, that the discrepancy could be in that my last name on my Free Spirit account has a space in it and, though I entered it with a space on their webpage, the space is eliminated and so my name is different as their computers read the text strings. The computer system thus determines that the ticket is being purchased for someone who is not the account holder and does not properly credit the miles. (Also, absurdly, my girlfriend has a hyphen in her last name and is potentially subject to the same issue, which is why her miles were not credited.)

Note: I am only proposing this computer text issue as a possibility as I don't know for sure and as far as Spirit is concerned this is my fault, although what is undeniable is that I was logged into my Free Spirit account when making the purchase.

Anyways, I think this line from their e-mail is pretty damning, and after I responded to them by e-mail indicating such, I received their formal response to the Better Business Bureau. This response was almost a carbon copy of the e-mail I received, except a few key lines that I had questions about were eliminated. I still have the original e-mail, of course.

As to why they are being so unreasonable with a customer who obviously made a good faith effort to take advantage of their deal, I cannot answer.

-Michael

[M2d]

giant airline?

[cbloom]

I had a major problem with an airline once. I stopped payment from my credit card and wrote them repeatedly. Here are some of the steps :

1. Tell credit card company the charge is in dispute. They won't stop payment yet. Write a letter to airline & copy to credit card company.

2. Airline still doesn't comply, stop payment on credit card. Again send letter copies.

3. Airline still wants the payment. Send letter to airline & copy to credit report agency saying charge is in error.

4. Send letter to consumer protection boards, such as :

Aviation Consumer Protection Division, C-75
U.S. Department of Transportation
400 Seventh Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20590

copy letter to them and airline (noting to airline who you've copied to). Make sure all letters are registered/certified so you have acknowledgement of receipt.

5. They give in.


Here's the money link for you :

http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/publi.../telljudge.htm

[emon87]

[ QUOTE ]
emon,

Does the phrase "opportunity cost" cause you to reconsider your post? Oh and big companies pay it both ways.

J

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Not necessarily, because it only matters if the lawyer would actually be doing something else - do airlines have that many claims against them? (Honest question, not rhetorical)

[emon87]

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wont defense with a lawyer cost more than 544?

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Big companies pay their lawyers a salary, not per hour.

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so? surely the salary could be broken down in per hour incrememts.

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But it is paid in the same amount regardless of how many hours the lawyer works (unless he gets paid for overtime, etc.) I am assuming the lawyer would be doing nothing with this time.

[Humble Pie]

At this point it seems that you've invested way more time and effort than you'll be able to recover from the airline. I would suggest just letting it go, especially if you're a 'balla', but if not, try contacting your credit card company and doing a charge-back. Normally you have like 90 days for this type of thing, just explain the situation to your bank, and whatever you paid to spirit will be given back to you, then it is on spirit to persue you. However if this is after 90 days I revert to my original suggestion and say let it go.

[mosta]

Your claim's not preempted by federal law with exclusive federal jurisdiction is it??!! (yes, I need to be studying for my fed courts exam at this very moment.)

you should do it just b/c it'll be fun as hell. you get to be vindicated by the law! and as others have indicated--they will pay b/c they have property you can collect against. (most private party deadbeats don't, so that's why that judge said it's usually not worth anything.)