Double standards the travel industry must fix

Christopher Elliott Travel columnist • Profile • E-mail

No business, except maybe politics, is as two-faced as travel. There’s one set of rules for us, the customers. And there’s another set for them, the airlines, car rental companies, hotels and travel agencies.

But it’s worse than that. See, the travel industry isn’t just getting away with its duplicitous behavior. The real crime is, we’re letting it happen.

We shouldn’t, but then again, most travelers aren’t fully aware of the industry’s most maddening double standards. Here are four of the worst, plus my tips on how to even the score:

Double standard No. 1: If an airline cancels a flight, it owes you nothing. If you miss a flight, you lose everything.
Let’s say an airline cancels a flight because of any circumstance beyond its control, like the weather. According to its rules, you aren’t entitled to any compensation. (This has, as I noted in an earlier column, prompted airlines to invoke the weather excuse with greater frequency in an apparent effort to save money.) And even if it is the airline’s fault — for example, a mechanical problem — airlines won’t offer compensation unless you experience a significant delay.

But turn the tables. What if you miss your flight?

The airline industry used to have a “flat tire” rule that said if circumstances beyond your control made you miss your plane — like the weather or a fender bender — you would be rebooked on the next flight at no cost. But the airline industry quietly did away with that policy after 9/11. Latecomers are now told “tough luck,” even when it’s obvious they did everything they could to make it to the airport on time. They have to pay for a new ticket, usually at the most expensive walk-up fare.

This double standard must end now. If airlines let themselves off the hook for the weather, why can’t they cut us a little slack when we’re snowed in?

How to get around it: Give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport. And if an airline tries to play the weather card, don’t buy it. A terrific resource for flight data is the Federal Aviation Administration’s flight delay information site.

Double standard No. 2: If you reserve a hotel room, you have to “guarantee” it with a credit card. If the hotel sells too many rooms, it doesn’t have to guarantee you anything.
Ever book a hotel room by phone? Then you probably remember how the call ended. You know, the part where the agent cheerfully asks which credit card you’d like to use to guarantee your reservation. Hotels take your credit card number and if you don’t show up or if you cancel without enough notice, they’ll charge you for a night. This policy isn’t exactly the most customer-friendly, especially for an industry that claims it is in the hospitality business. But I digress. You make a reservation, they take your card number. That’s just how it works.

Does the credit card actually guarantee a room? Actually, no.

Here’s why: the hotel’s clever reservations system figures that anywhere between 10 to 30 percent of the hotel guests won’t show up, so it allows the property to sell more rooms than it has. When the system is wrong — which tends to happen at the peak of tourist season and during major holidays — it’s forced to “walk” guests to another hotel. Usually a hotel of lesser quality. There goes your guarantee.

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How can hotels get away with this double standard? It only seems fair that if they can take your credit card number, they should be able to guarantee a room at their hotel. The solution is simple: either don’t oversell or stop asking for guest’s credit card numbers.

How to get around it: Read your hotel’s cancellation policies carefully before you buy your room. Sometimes when you book a room directly through a hotel, the cancellation terms are more favorable than if you buy it through a third party, like an online travel agency. And join the hotel’s frequent-stayer program. Good guests are rarely walked to another hotel, and they can cancel their rooms with little or no penalty.

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