Money Savers

Knowing "Plane" Language Can Land You A Good Deal

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ― It's a tightly worded, legally binding and sometimes confusing one sided deal you make with the airlines every time you fly.

Arlington traveler Sharon Smith was on her way to Denver when we told her all about the contract she agreed to when she bought her airline ticket.

"If I change my flight, they are going to penalize me, but yet if they [the airline] change their minds, I just have to take it," said Smith. There may be a double standard.

Normally, you are penalized up to $100 to change your flight. But there's a way to avoid the airline penalty box: by reading the lengthy Contract of Carriage, the agreement you made with the airline when you bought your ticket.

Tom Parsons is a travel industry expert and owner of Bestfares.com. He calls this contract one-side and "gobbly-gook."

Here's some of what you told the airlines they can do:
-Change your flight and not tell you.
-Not operate a portion of your itinerary and send you on a bus or train the rest of the way.
-Reschedule your flight and prevent you from getting any of your money back.

The Contract of Carriage isn't the only agreement you made. On American Airlines, if you are scheduled on a flight that leaves at 9 a.m., and a few days before your flight you learn that American has rescheduled that flight for the rest of the year to leave at 9:01a.m., you can tell them you don't want to take the flight and demand you money back in a voucher. The best part is you can do it without penalty! A one minute change on their end could entitle you to your money back!

It's called rule 240/80, but there was a lot of turbulence in getting American Airlines to acknowledge its existence. In a series of email exchanges with American Airlines, the company first stated to CBS 11, "We haven't had Rule 240/80 since deregulation, back in 1978!"

The next email stated the rule "has little meaning today," referring to the rule as "ancient" and "defunct." But CBS 11 found the rule on American's website.

"Anytime we can find a loophole, yippee! Because I promise you there are not that many loopholes," said Parsons.

The rule, in its entirety, allows passengers on American to obtain a full refund for any scheduled flight that experiences a schedule change of less then 90 minutes. You get the refund in a travel voucher good for a future flight. But, if the time change is more than 90 minutes, you get your money back in the original form of payment. It's that easy.

We also went to the airport to see if airlines were complying with the law requiring giving you copy of the contract to carriage on demand.

The only airline that couldn't produce a copy of the contract upon demand was Northwest Airlines. Its contract, which is 145 pages long, was locked up in a manager's office. Click here to see what happened when we went undercover.

Northwest responded by stating the CBS 11 story "prompted a review of policy" and is "retraining" its staff on the issue.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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