Overselling - No Show Refunds - Your Opinions Please

[bealine]

As a member of Airline Ground Staff, I feel absolutely hacked off when my airline oversells a flight and, at flight closure, some customers are denied boarding (even though their tickets and reservations have been taken in good faith as Fully Confirmed!). It sometimes befalls me to deal with offloaded customers and I fully understand their anger and frustration.

BA is not unique - all airlines (and hotels and car hire operators)oversell in order to offset "No Show" passengers. The business side I can understand partially - it is the human side I feel for - particularly the woman I checked in a few months ago who had been summoned to her son's hospital bed in Valencia after he'd had a motor cycle crash.

Now - the airline industry is, at the moment, unique! It is the only business where:

(a) The product starts off selling cheaply and the price rises the closer you get to its "Use By Date"

(b) A customer can change bookings as many times as he/she likes and then obtain a full refund - despite all the administrative time, work and effort the airline has invested in making all the changes.

(c) A fully flexible ticket holder can even check-in for a flight, mess the airline around by failing to show at the gate and STILL obtain a full refund!

(d) The airline pays staff more to work on Christmas Day, Public Holidays and Sundays, yet still offers cheap (or free Air Miles type) tickets for sale.

(e) Offers cheap seats even during peak holiday times (even the railways don't do that!!!)

What would your views be if an airline was to make a pledge that its flights would NEVER be oversold but, a £25 charge would be made for every change of booking or ticket refund and £100 would be deducted as a "No Show" penalty if a booking was not cancelled by a customer?

[Hotel Tango]

Good idea in principle but won't work due to the many ramifications. I have called reservations to cancel bookings and found later that, for whatever reasons, they didn't bother to do it!!! How do I prove that I did call and cancel in good time? Unless, of course, the system provides cancellation references. Also, if you turn up for an earlier flight it's often the case that the check-in agent will not cancel your reservation you held on the later flight. Who picks the tab up for that? As I say, too many ramifications which can only be solved by further administration and costs, which is why, after all these years, the airlines haven't yet found any other solution than to overbook.

[Eboy]

I guess United, which I fly most of the time, has different policies than BA -- policies that go somewhat to what you are proposing. If I get the most discounted domestic tickets (400-800 USD or so) , they are usually non-refundable, with a 100 USD charge to change. To Asia, I can cancel the discounted tickets for a 100 USD charge. The only time I can get a full refund is if I buy a full-fare ticket -- 2200 USD to cross the U.S., or 3300 USD or so to go to Asia.

Regarding overbooking, United used to just say "sorry" if the flight was overbooked. Now, they solicit volunteers to take the next flight with the offer of a free round-trip anywhere in the U.S. in the next year. I have even heard them offer a meal and a place to stay, in addition to the free round-trip, if the flight is the next morning. With such offers, they usually have more volunteers than they need, and good will is maintained.

[ExSimGuy]

Makes it bloody annoying for other pax - the region where I live (see box at bottom of my post!) is notorious for the "natives" making 3 or so bookings for the same trip (now that SV have got wise and check this on their computer, they can still book 3 airlines on different days) - in order to have a flight confirmed on whatever day they finally decide to travel. Cancell the unwanted booking - why bother? :(

Yes - deduct 25% of the refund value when they fail to canx - it means that others (like me) are told that "the flight you want is full, waitlist closed, but it'll probably be okay on the day" - or that the airline's CRC dept has to "confirm" 400 seats on a 300 seat aircraft :rolleyes:

[bealine]

Thanks Exsimguy - certain VIP's and Pop Stars do the same with our Concorde flights - make bookings for every day of the week. No wonder poor Connie with 100 seats booked only goes out with 45 passengers - yet loads more Concorde fans, who would definitely have travelled, have been prevented from buying tickets!

[Pax Vobiscum]

Your original suggestion sounds perfectly sensible to me, bealine. I've sometimes been able to alter no exchange/refund tickets for a £25 fee - but it's subject to the airline's agreement, of course.

I think there is a gap between expensive fully flexible and the low-cost airlines' utterly non-flexible options.

[radeng]

How do you handle the pax who is 'no show' because their connecting flight was late/cancelled or whatever? If they were connecting from another airline who didn't inform you, whose fault is that?

[bealine]

Easy - the Late Inbound Carrier (as long as it IS a properly booked connection within Minimum Connection Timings and on a conjunction ticket) has responsibility for rebooking or, if necessary, providing overnight asccommodation.

Where this would fall down, however, is where passengers make their own arrangements without following the "connecting flights" advice (eg EZY from AMS-LGW then BA with LGW-DEN, as neither airline would be aware of any connection and, indeed, they are NOT shown in any publication as connecting services).

For these sort of occasions, Travel Insurance often covers overnight stops or re-booking penalties, subject to an excess charge, as long as you can provide evidence of Late Inbound Aircraft!

[DistantRumble]

In all fairness


Overbooking is one of the few issues that your ticket normally warns you about

and I've made a fair few quid over the years from the auctions...

Take the cash and don't let them fob you off with MCOs


and if it's a real problem to

GET THERE EARLY. (ignore the other thread I'm posting to regarding lateness - If overbooking is an issue - you can check freely on the WWW but first come has best chance. )

[Gaza]

bealine - When I book a £59 EDI-LHR return it is non-chageable and non-refundable. When I book a full flexible "C" class fare for the same route it costs over £300. On-board I get the same service, same seat, etc. but what i am paying for is the flexibility. If a meeting overruns I want to be able to get a later flight. If my meeting is cancelled I want a full refund. Introducing charges is not reasonable. I am already paying significantly more, so why should I pay for no-show/changes? When devising pricing Airlines take these into consideration. There are many times I am flying full fare and I use both the outbound and inbound flights as booked. I could have booked a £59 ticket, but I booked a £300 ticket for flexibility.

The reason airlines offer cheap deals at xmas, etc is more to do with aircraft positioning. On longhaul aircraft and crews need to be in the correct place so it is better to fly the aircraft with cheap fare or airmails pax than none at all.