Southwest – No Hidden Fees Finder Fee?
Incident:
The plan was to take a 1 hour flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I got to the airport about an 1 hour and 20 minutes before my scheduled flight time of 8:40pm. I noticed that another Southwest flight left at 8pm, so I figured I would try to get on it. I ask a Southwest service agent if there is room on that flight? Yes. Can I get on that flight? Let me see here...yes but there's a $35 fee. What? I thought Southwest didn't have any hidden fees? The agent gives a smirk that combines the look of come on, do you really believe that? and I don't make the rules around here, then says if your flight is delayed there would be no fee.
I grumble back to a chair and sulk, wanting to prove to the agent that her company is currently airing commercials claiming the contrary and trying to convince myself that 40 minutes is not a big of a waste of time. Knowing my luck, Murphy's Law, and the disproportionate number of flights from LA to SF that get delayed, I keep checking my flight's status every 5 minutes. My flight's status never changes, the 8pm flight departs, but when boarding time comes around the plane is not at the gate. Turns out the flight coming in was late, “delayed” if you will, so the flight takes off about 20 minutes late. Great. To make matters worse, due to congestion at SFO, we circle for 45 minutes before being able to land.
I landed about an hour and a half later than my original itinerary. My reward for finding a hidden fee, a loss of two hours. I was quite upset.
Whoever was working the gate very well could have purposely waited until the 8pm flight left before showing any delay, preventing people to switch, and hence make southwest more money.
The Hidden Fee Business:
Hidden fees, surcharges, etc. are additional costs incurred for purchasing a product or service which are not disclosed in the advertised price. The airline industry has recently been in the spotlight for using, and increasing, hidden fee tactics to stay in business. So it's a strong statement from the most profitable airline when it exclaims “No Hidden Fees.” Here is a snapshot of all the fees they don't charge:
Notice the “No Change Fee,” as this is the fee in question from my experience. The bottom of the web page displays the following small text:
You must rebook if your plans change, which could cost more. But we have no additional change fees. Baggage weight and size limits apply. © 2008 Southwest Airlines Co.
A couple of things to notice here:
No asterisk or footnote: Usually, if there are important pricing details that wouldn't fit into a nicely marketed piece of advertising, you are allowed to place them below the ad, as long as you can point the consumer to the location of the information. This is why all those car commercials on TV have all the little text at the bottom of the screen. Furthermore, it would be considered false advertising if you hide information from the consumer. The fact that no mark is on the ad, means no extra information needs to be supplied to the consumer. However, a footnote does exist and does provide relevant information about the ad, thus, I would consider it to be hidden as it is not clearly demarcated.
Logic of the note: By acknowledging that you are forced to (“must”) rebook to a more expensive option if you make a change and there are no “additional” fees after that, is the same as just having a fee. Imagine a store with the following shipping policy: “If you order a product for a certain date, but then decide to get it one day earlier, we will charge an extra $3 and there will be no other additional fees.” Just say it costs an extra $3 for expedited shipping!
Double Standard: If you buy a ticket for $100 and then switch to a flight where $59 seats are available, I can promise you that you will not be getting the difference back from Southwest.
Copyright Infringement: Notice the 2008...Well luckily it's 2009 so I could reproduce this web page without crediting Southwest, but that defeats the purpose of this post. However it is a legally eerie coincidence that the advertisement has not been updated for the current year.
If this is not a hidden fee then what is?!
Lessons:
I need to just accept the fact that flights from LA to SF always get delayed. More importantly, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. As cliché as the proverb sounds, its wisdom is twice as loud. It's time to become a vigilant consumer or, even better, a consumer vigilante, class action anyone?
