Can an airline charge you for a ticket it canceled? If you said “not in America” you’re right.
Barbara Salvadore booked a ticket from Frankfurt to Vienna last fall through Air Berlin. But when she called the carrier to confirm her flight, a representative told her her tickets had been canceled because of a problem with her credit card. She went to the airport on the day of her departure to see if she could use another card, but the airline insisted that she pay a walk-up fare that was seven times higher than the original price. She decided to take the train, instead.
End of story? Not quite.
I received a letter from Air Berlin stating I owed them money for the flight that I booked. I e-mailed them back, explained to them that they were the one who canceled my flight and I did not fly Air Berlin.
I received my second letter today stating I owe Air Berlin 149 Euro or they will take legal action against me.
I am clueless why I would owe Air Berlin money since I did not fly with them and they canceled my flight. From my e-mail correspondence with them, they do not seem to understand they are asking for payment for a service not rendered.
I thought there must be some kind of misunderstanding, so I contacted Air Berlin on Salvadore’s behalf. Diane Daedelow, a spokeswoman for the airline, responded:
We strongly regret the inconvenience caused. Although, we want to refer to our terms and conditions to which a customer agrees with the booking of a flight.
“Terms and Conditions “Prices / Payment”:
2.3. If a credit card company or bank refuses to settle the claim arising from the contract for reasons that are the customer’s responsibility, the customer shall be required to pay a flat rate of 10 EUR as compensation for the bank’s return debit note. The customer is free, under German law, to prove that the airline did not suffer any loss or that the loss incurred was significantly less.
Otherwise the Airline shall be entitled to terminate the contract in accordance with sections 5.1.1-5.2 and levy the charges stipulated therein if the period allowed for payment has expired without effect.”
Additionally, we learned that Ms Salvadore booked the “Saver fare” modus:
“5.1.2. If a ticket for a short-haul or medium-haul flight (the great circle distance between departure point and destination being less than 3,000 miles) booked as a saver fare is not used or is cancelled, the Airline shall be entitled in accordance with the law to demand the agreed remuneration less any savings in expenditure made and/or possible alternative uses of the service booked. Objections raised by the customer shall be taken into account in accordance with section 5.3.”
Following our database, Ms Salvadore were informed by E-Mail on 16.10.2008 that her credit card could not be charged. But we also learned, due to spam filters not every E-Mail reaches directly the addressed inbox.
As I read the rule, Salvadore might be liable for a 10 euro charge. But billing her for a flight she couldn’t take seemed problematic. I asked Daedelow if the 149 euro charge might be an honest mistake. It wasn’t.
In fact, the number of 149 euro is the outstanding payment for the flight. If a customer cancels a flight booked one day before rsp. the day of departure, the amount of charge corresponds 100% with the price booked. If a customer booked a flight without taking the flight and without a cancellation upfront, the price has to be balanced as well. Due to the fact that Ms Salvadore neither cancelled nor took the flight, the bill about 149 euro has to be acquitted.
I followed up with Air Berlin several times, asking if it could clarify a few things. After all, Salvadore didn’t cancel her ticket — Air Berlin did. Did it do enough to notify the customer and explain her obligations under its terms?
The standard operating procedure in such a case is: with the notice about a problem during the payment procedure e.g. the credit card number given does not exists, Air Berlin extends the time limit in favour of the customer to initiate the payment – or via a valid credit card, alternatively via direct debit to a bank account.
After what I considered to be a very polite back-and-forth with Air Berlin, the airline stopped responding to my questions. So Salvadore is left with a threatening letter that demands payment for a flight she never received.
If this were happening in the United States, the Fair Credit Billing Act would protect her from Air Berlin’s policies. In fact, it is unimaginable to the American consumer that any company could charge for something it never delivered.
I think it all comes down to disclosure. Was Salvadore informed of Air Berlin’s policies? Did it let her know that under its terms, she would be liable for the ticket even if she didn’t fly? If you ask Daedelow, the answer is “yes.” But Salvadore would disagree. Neither the Air Berlin reservations agent nor the ticket agent at the Frankfurt airport warned her of this policy.
I don’t know enough about German law to advise Salvadore on her next move. Should she pay for the ticket and put this matter behind her? Should she ignore the airline and risk litigation?
I take a dim view of travel companies that threaten to sue their customers, so my first instinct would be to fight this on principle.
What’s yours?
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Chris,
This is horrible! I agree with you wholeheartedly, I would fight it..
I don’t know the laws in Germany either but I can’t imagine paying for services I didn’t receive..
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice
This is a very difficult situation. Assuming that Ms. Salvatore is an American citizen without and ties to Germany, then I would probably fight it. I can’t imagine an American Court, enforcing such a provision.
That being said, in my European travel experiences, I have found that the paradigms are substantially less consumer friendly.
I’m tempted to call their bluff.
Don’t pay, and don’t respond.
They *might* take legal action… but probably not for a mere 149 euro.
I think its more likely they’ll let it drop.
The airlines behavior is intolerable in this case.
In the customer’s shoes, I’d blog about this far-and-wide as a cautionary tale to others.
I thought the EU had a “passenger bill of rights” and a strong oversight group I think they need to hear from this passenger
The ONLY way in which I could see that Air Berlin woud have a valid claim would be if she hadn’t followed up in any way to pay the $149 before the flight. But she did – she actually went to the airport, attempted to pay it, and they denied her! How can it be in any way legal to deny her the opportunity to pay for the ticket before the flight actually happens, then deny her taking the flight, then demand payment AFTER they wouldn’t let her take the flight that she actually went there to pay for and take?
Chris – while you didn’t publish the whole exchange, it sounds as if you may have missed the boat in your communications with Air Berlin by not focusing on the fact that she made her best effort to pay for the flight – AT the airport, BEFORE the flight, and then avail herself of the service she’d purchased – which they refused. They cannot now come after her to pay for a flight that she tried to pay for and they wouldn’t let her, in time to actually avail herself of the service.
I do hope that she prevails – and PLEASE give us an update! I actually am ready to purchase a flight on Air Berlin, as they have some great business class fares – but I will not do so if this is how they do business. I pay attention to things like this, and strongly believe in ensuring that travel companies suffer the consequences of their bad behavior by losing business.
Something is not quite adding up. When she called to confirm her flight, she was told her tickets had been canceled. But why didn’t she resolve it while she was on the phone? She waited until the day of her departure to see if she could use another card, but there really was no “day of departure” if her tickets had been canceled. And waiting until the day of travel to deal with such a situation makes no sense.
I wonder if we are getting the whole story here.
However, whether she is in the wrong or not, I don’t think an overseas company is going to be able to collect, and any legal action would be meaningless here.
Let me get this straight. Air Berlin knew that a spam filter was keeping Barbara Salvador from getting the company’s emails about the credit card problem. So, why couldn’t they resort to a letter on real paper, delivered by the postal service? Seems to me AB did not expend much effort in attempting to get in touch with Ms. Salvador and could have tried harder. If it were me, I would fight it.
And, if I were LeeAnne, I’d pay more to fly on another carrier.
Was Barbara Salvatore informed of the airlines policy, I really don’t think so .Barbara Salvatore should fight this and not back down.
This is not legal advice but my own opinion:
I would say that Barbara needs to contact the European Commission aviation department as they are the ones who have written a “passenger bill of rights” and they very much like to know about this. Besides, if Barbara is a US citizen living in the US, the rules and laws that apply to her are the ones of her state of residency.
I do have a friend that her German landlord wanted to sue her for more money (even though she left the apartment better than she got it and they kept her deposit worth more than 3 months rent) and they threatened lawsuit. But my friend just ignored it and the letters stopped and never got any more from her landlord as the laws that would apply would be for the Sate of Illinois and not Germany.
She should also contact the Better Business Bureau, the Department of Transportation and even the District Attorney’s office of her state. The fact is that Barb did things right. Don’t know why things were not taken care of over the phone when she called to confirm her ticket but no service = no payment.
Everybody is shooting in the dark here. No point in contacting the Better Business Bureau, the Department of Transportation or the District Attorney’s office of her state. They have no jurisdiction in Germany and American consumer law does not apply. If nothing has been charged, I would advise her to ignore the demand (i take it she’s resident int he States).. They would need to pursue her in the states and they would probably win but they are not doing to do it for 150 Euro.
Here’s something I haven’t seen mentioned: would it make sense to contact the German embassy here in the states? Maybe they could be of assistance. Their website is at http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/01__Embassy/Washington/00/__Home.html
Douglas- I work in an Embassy (not for Germany, nor in Germany) and an Embassy is not going to get involved in what it sees as a private dispute between an independent, private business and a foreign, non-resident consumer. It’s not an Embassy’s role to represent a foreign citizen in a business dispute.
I think ChelseaGirl is on the right track — we don’t know how far in advance she called to confirm her reservation, but the write-up loosely implies that it was not the same day as they flight, when she went to the airport to see IF she could use another card.
It appears to me that she did not take timely (make that immediate) action to resolve the problem once informed of the payment issue. The airline said, “Air Berlin extends the time limit in favour of the customer to initiate the payment – or via a valid credit card, alternatively via direct debit to a bank account.” So that suggests that there was time for her to resolve the matter in advance, but that she just didn’t do so within the window provided by the airline.
Whether or not the airline clearly explained things, I think she opened herself up for trouble by not immediately taking steps to resolve the situation.
In my experience, the WORST way to deal with problems is to wait and bring them up in the high-stress, time-is-money environment of an airline check-in counter. Counter agents don’t want exceptions, they want to keep people flowing to their flights without having to ask their supervisors for approvals and special allowances.
I would argue that if the tickets were never actually purchased – i.e. credit card declined – then no contract was entered into.
This one?
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/passengers/air/air_en.htm
For the resident lawyers: correct me if I’m wrong, but the probable “legally worst case scenario” is Air Berlin sues in their home court, gets maybe a default judgment against Ms. Salvadore, and will likely enforce it on her the moment she’s found in German soil, absent any “agreement” or “treaty” between Germany and the U.S. for specifically this sort of thing? Because if that’s the case, then Ms. Salvadore might have future and potential difficulty travelling into Germany if she especially needs to.
Then again, that’s what I’ve learned from various U.S. and Europe-based lawyers. I guess we can only imagine (can’t we?) what the worst case scenario would possibly be.
@David Z
I’m not an expert in international law by any means, but the difficulty with that scenario is that air Berlin would have to serve her in the US. That would be necessary to get a default judgment. International service is a b*tch.
Even if Air Berlin were to get a judgment, I have no idea how that would affect travel in Germany, or why would it.
From Air Berlin’s email: “If a customer cancels a flight booked one day before rsp. the day of departure, the amount of charge corresponds 100% with the price booked.”
Was the flight booked only 1-2 days before the departure, so that the credit card rejection wasn’t apparent until less than 24 hours before departure? If that’s what happened, I’m siding with the airline – a credit card rejection is ultimately the customer’s responsibility, and they didn’t have the opportunity to resell the seat. The 24-hour rule for refunds is standard industry practice.
It is strange that they didn’t offer to let her use another card when they called her. If I were her, I would have asked about it then or called back, not driven to the airport the day of the flight with my fingers crossed.
The airline had the opportunity to resell the seat — to her when she showed up at the airport. The airline refused.
Since the airline did not offer to let her use another card on the spot, it is difficult to side with the airline.
I would suggest that she not pay the airline and await the next move by the airline if there is one.
Of course this means she should never book with that airline until the airline comes foward and reconciles things.
Walk-up fares are almost always higher than advance reservations. I don’t think the ticket agents at the airport have the authority to lower the prices given to them by the airline. They can sell a ticket at the walk-up fare, or not sell it. Most airlines don’t give any kind of refund if a ticket is changed or cancelled 24 hours or less before departure. Whether it’s fair or not is beside the point – it’s well-known standard industry practice.
Her credit card was rejected, probably because it was either over the limit or she didn’t tell the credit card company she was travelling internationally. That’s her responsibility. They emailed her, and she didn’t check her spam folder. That’s also her responsibility. I’ve never bought anything online (even a t-shirt!) and not checked my spam folder for relevant messages from the seller. If she’s that clueless about email, she shouldn’t have been booking tickets online. There are other ways to do it.
Sometimes the spam doesn’t even get to your spam folder. It just goes into the ether. (And not EVERY woman carries a purse, by the way.)
I would note that the airline policy requires them to deduct any amount that they received if they sold her seat on the plane. I wonder if the flight was full.
In my opinion, whatever the airline says, a failed credit card transaction means no binding agreement between two parties.
As I have lived in Germany, I have experienced with threatening letters from companies for services not rendered. Just ignoring them (even living there) never caused any trouble.
I agree with Dungdang, a failed credit card transaction means no binding agreement between two parties and the traveler should not be charged.
I also agree with Jennifer…
Keep in mind when the consumer purchase goods through the internet it is the consumers responsibility to ensure they have read and understood the terms and conditions placed by the company for the consumer to review prior to purchasing. The Airlines are no diferent. The responsibility lies on the consumer who failed to read. I would say 95% of us do not read these regulation, we simply click on “accept” and continue with the purchase. Then we complain, when we things like this occurs. It was her responsibility. We are all very well aware that every company has rules and regulations still we do not want to take responsibility for not reading them.
How many credit card regulatuions have you read prior to applying and finding out that the APR after 90 days has gone up to 21%.