英媒曝穆帅猜中孔蒂变招 切尔西每一步都在掌握

Question

I had a bizarre experience with Southwest Airlines in 2024. I had booked an afternoon Southwest Airlines flight from LAS (Las Vegas) to SFO (San Francisco). I breezed through security and was about to board the flight. However, when the boarding gate agent scanned my mobile boarding pass for the final time, the machine flashed red. The agent tried a few more times to no avail.

I was asked to provide my reservation number, so I pulled it up from my emails. What should have been a 10-second search took several minutes. They could not find my reservation on their system. I was confused. How did I get past multiple layers of security then? I was astounded when I opened the Southwest Airlines App. My ticket was no where to be found. The miles I gained through the purchase were rolled back before to the amount prior to the transaction. My Reservations page showed no trace at all. Not a crossed out ticket, no "invalid" marker, nothing.

I argued that something must have gone wrong, but they ordered the gate to be closed and had the plane depart in time. I was frustrated and demanded a proper explanation. One of the agents dialed multiple departments and told me after more than 5 minutes of talk that my credit card was declined, and that the ticket was automatically cancelled because of the failure. I knew this was a lie because I would have gotten a text message from my credit card provider had that been the case. Still, I called the fraud department just to double check. The transaction was successful.

I called out their incorrect statements but they didn't budge and refused to explain further. I argued with a Southwest Customer Service Representative on the phone who reiterated the same nonsense talking points. After a half-an-hour conversation with no progress, I exited the post-screening area and went to the ticket sales area. I explained my situation and demanded the Southwest employee a proper reason. This person had a different excuse. They said that their "automated fraud detection system" may revoke purchases they view as fradulent. When I questioned why I wasn't notified, he simply shrugged it off that the system sometimes doesn't do so. He refused to put me on the next and last Southwest flight from LAS to SFO for the day.

I was furious but had no choice to take another airline's plane because I didn't want to ride Southwest again nor could I afford to risk receiving the same treatment. I also had to return to San Francisco that day. I ended up taking a United Airlines flight, paying a hefty price. I was so paranoid that I asked the United agent to check my boarding pass' validity before the gates opened. Thankfully I got home safely.

After arriving home, I calmed down and tried to understand what happened. According to my research, it is common for U.S. airlines to target people of color, young, foreign, poor, solo travelers to resolve overbooking issues. According to DoT guildelines, I am eligible for 400% of the original fare because I arrived more than 2 hours late than the original flight. However, Southwest declined my claim, asserting that such compensation is only applicable when Southwest cancels my flight. They never admitted overbooking in their email response, repeating the "fraud" talking point again.

I filed a DoT complaint online and am waiting for Southwest's response. Can airlines skirt compensation regulation by crying "fraud" and wiping my purchase off their servers to deny any purchase ever took place? I've also talked to some foreigners who experienced similar issues, and they said they didn't even get refunds. How is this even legal?

Edit: This was not the first time I booked Southwest, and I had no issues riding a previous flight. Edit2: I eventually got a refund for only the base fare, not the price difference between the two flights nor the 400% compensation that I am entitled to should they admit an overbooking issue.

Answer 1

Can U.S. airlines dodge responsibility of compensation by blaming overbooking-induced cancellations on "automated fraud detection systems"?

Depends on what you mean by "can". If you you mean whether this is a valid reason to deny boarding and withhold compensation, the answer is most likely "no".

If any, fraud detection happens at time of purchase, not at time of boarding and even if they have real reason to detect fraud, they can't cancel ticket and just keep the money. This feels like a bogus excuse and even if their fraud detection misfired, they didn't handle it correctly (by keeping the money) and it is still their fault.

If you mean "Can they try" the answer is most definitely yes. They will try all and every nonsense to avoid paying compensation and drag their feet as much as possible. Unfortunately they often get away with it since passenger recourse is limited and enforcement isn't all that great,

In this case you just need to sit tight and hope that the DOT will rule in your favor.

Answer 2

I think the main points are:

• You had a valid ticket
• You were at the gate on time
• You were denied boarding

and, as such, you should be entitled for compensation.

(there are a number of exclusions, but they don't apply in this case)

I find the EU rules clearer, since they only mention "denied boarding / cancelled / delayed", not invoking the actual reason for the denial, whereas US rules do mention in some articles "on an oversold flight", which raises the question if the compensation itself can only apply if the flight is oversold.

My suspicion is that it's not. Otherwise, when the companies detected that for a given (oversold) flight more customers than seats would actually show up, they could start refunding tickets until the flight was no longer oversold, and avoid paying any compensation at all.

In this case, it may have been unintended by the company, with the fraud being a different department, but nonetheless:

• They did sell you the ticket (even though they then tried to unsell it).
• They chose to implement that fraud detection.1 They could do no further fraud checking after selling a ticket. Or use a better detection that wouldn't have flagged you.2
• They could have notified you that they were cancelling your ticket. That would have even been an opportunity to let you buy another one. They chose not to.
• Since the issue was apparently with the payment, they could have allowed you to fix that on the spot, by using another card, or even with cash!3

I really see a case for this, and even if it was not overbooking-induced, the potential to seek the same remedy as overbooking compensation, for breach of contract, as it's indistinguishable to you.

We will probably need to wait for the resolution to your claim to learn if they really manage to get away with this.

1 The fraud detection is probably performed by a third party, but the airline will have chosen to contract that third party

2 Easier said than done. Likely any detection will produce some false positives. But still, it could have been better. And they must balance it with the compensation it will cost them if they are overzealous.

3 Not too likely when you are at the gate, but again, they didn't give you such opportunity earlier, as you didn't even know they unilaterally cancelled your ticket.