American Eliminates 24 Hour Holds To Protect The Lazy From Themselves

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Under US DOT regulations US carriers have to offer passengers the option to cancel a ticket within 24 hours of purchase with no penalty or offer them an option to hold a ticket for 24 hours during which time the fare is locked in. Historically, all US carriers except for American Airlines have offered the option to cancel while American has offered its customers the option to place tickets on hold….but this is no longer the case.

As of 1 April 2016 American Airlines is allowing passengers to cancel tickets, without penalty, within 24 hours of purchase and is doing away with the 24 hour hold option that so many of us have put to good use.

Consumer advocates like Christopher Elliott have long been banging the drum for American to fall in line with the other US carriers, so they’re delighted with this change…but then they would be. Consumer advocates make their names (and money) by not only standing up for those who have genuine grievances but also by standing up for the terminally lazy and unthinking. And it’s thanks to these last two groups that we no longer have 24 hour holds on American Airlines.

The Issue

The issue that some consumers have had is that, because most US airlines offer free cancellation within 24 hours, they’ve booked tickets on American, assumed that the airline uses the same rules as the others, and then been surprised when they’ve been changed a fee when they’ve tried to cancel within 24 hours.

The important word in that last paragraph is “assumed”.

As far as I’m concerned, if you assume something is or isn’t in the rules of a corporation that you’re willingly doing business with, you deserve whatever you have coming to you if you get burned.

Yes, it’s true to say that American Airlines didn’t make it patently obvious that they had opted to offer a hold option and not the “cancel for free within 24 hours” option…but then the option to hold a fare was (and, because of IT issues, still is) at the bottom of the payment page with all the other payment options:

American-Airlines-hold-1

It’s not exactly hidden!

And when a consumer chose the hold option it has always been very clear what the option means:

American-airlines-hold-a

So what’s the issue?

If you think there’s even an outside chance of your plans changing why would you possibly book a ticket when you can place it on hold? Equally, why would you possibly part with significant amounts of money without checking what your rights to a refund are? Why would you assume anything at all?

I book a lot of flights during the course of a year and I book a lot of hotel rooms too. Every time I’m ready to make a booking with an airline or hotel whose policies I’m not 100% clear on I check my rights and the cancellation policies. Every. Single. Time.

I must do this, on average, at least once a week and I don’t seem to have any issues doing it….so why is anyone else having trouble?

This has nothing to do with having more experience booking flights or hotels and it has everything to do with using common sense. Something which apparently so many people lack that American Airlines has had to change its policy and its IT systems.

Arguments Against 24 Hour Holds

Two commonly used arguments to support the campaign to get American Airlines to change its policy have been:

  1. American Airlines’ policy was confusing
  2. he policy was unfair because passengers were being caught out

I can address both of those arguments quite quickly:

Re. point 1: No it wasn’t. There was absolutely nothing confusing about the terms of the policy for those who bothered to check the policy in the first place.

Re. point 2: There is zero reason to pander to those who couldn’t be bothered to check the rules before they booked their ticket(s) and I refuse to believe that there have been that many people caught out who couldn’t possibly have foreseen their plans changing, booked tickets and then had to cancel within 24 hours.

The Difference In The Options

Having an option to place a fare on hold for 24 hours was great because it gave consumers time to firm up hotel plans, check if fellow travelers were happy with the fares and timings and generally get all their ducks in a row all without having to provide the airline with any type of payment. If no payment was made within the hold period then the reservation was automatically cancelled and no transaction ever took place.

Under the “free cancellation within 24 hours rule” passengers actually have to purchase the tickets (i.e. provide credit card details and have the funds taken from their cards), actively cancel if something isn’t quite right and then keep an eye on their credit card statements to make sure the refund is processed correctly. There’s a lot more that can go wrong.

Bottom Line

I’d love a consumer advocate to explain to me how having to actively do something to get your money back is a better option than not having to part with funds in the first place. Feel free to leave comments below this post, I’m here to be persuaded.

The sad thing is that pandering to those who can’t be bothered to think for themselves (or to those who love to complain when their carelessness and/or stupidity gets in the way of an easy life) is with us to stay. We have cups of coffee that remind us that what we’re drinking “may be hot”, we have bags of peanuts with warnings that the pack “may contain nuts” and we now have perfectly good airline policies being cast aside to protect the unthinking and lazy from themselves.

Note: At the time of writing the 24 hour hold feature is still available on the American Airlines site. This is because the IT department is still working to remove it. My understanding is that, for a short period of time, both the 24 hour hold and the free cancellation within 24 hours options will both be available.

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