My $7,300 United Business Class Seat Was Broken, and I Got a Pittance
Dear Tripped Up,
Last October, when my adult daughter and I traveled to China, I treated us to business class seats — something I had experienced only on occasional work trips — spending $7,388 per ticket for United’s Polaris class from San Francisco to Beijing. When the cabin lights were dimmed after dinner, about 90 minutes into the flight, I attempted to lie down, but the seat buttons did not work. One flight attendant told me this happens all the time. Another wrenched the seat into lie-flat position, but the seat got stuck there with the seatbelt inaccessible. There were no empty seats in business class and, I assume, in economy either (or they would have moved me there). I was forced to lie completely flat, with no seatbelt, for almost the entire remainder of the 14-hour flight. On several occasions, the pilot advised us to be ready for turbulence and to be sure our seatbelts were fastened. I alerted the crew that mine was inaccessible, but no one seemed to care. Shortly before landing, two flight attendants worked together to wrench my seat back up, freeing my seatbelt in the process. When I complained to United, I was offered a $150 travel voucher. I countered by asking for 250,000 miles, the equivalent of $3,000 or so, less than half my fare. They offered a $350 travel voucher. It was all a huge disappointment. Have you come across complaints like this from others? Can you help? Cathy, Philadelphia
Dear Cathy,
When we hear about the indignities of commercial aviation these days, the setting is usually the economy cabin, with its scant legroom, pricey snacks and frazzled passengers. So it is agonizingly unlucky that in your attempt to escape that fate, you ended up falling prey to one of the few complaints I commonly get from business class passengers.
Such complaints — both in my inbox and on countless online message boards — always go the same way: Business class seat doesn’t work. Passenger demands a refund. Airline gives a pittance.
You actually got a slightly bigger pittance than most, as I discovered when you sent along the documentation of your (firm but polite) efforts to argue your case with United customer service. You actually received a little more compensation than you mentioned in your letter: You talked them up to $650 in vouchers, since that $350 voucher was in addition to the original $150, and your daughter got a $150 voucher as well (though I’m not sure if she should be rewarded for watching her mother suffer rather than offering to switch seats with her).
Charlie Hobart, a United spokesman, told me on the phone that you had received more than was typical with such complaints, calling the final result “fair.”
“It was unfortunate we didn’t provide the sort of experience this customer was expecting,” he said, adding that he hoped you would fly United again. (Me too, because otherwise you’ll lose that $650, since those one-year vouchers are set to expire in a few months.)
He added that he would flag your United account so that on your next trip, the airline would “work to ensure she has a pleasant experience with us.”
Whether that means a complimentary bag of salt-and-vinegar nut mix (retail value $6) onboard or a free upgrade to business class (good luck) is anybody’s guess. Please report back to me.
You and I agree that $650 in vouchers isn’t enough. A free upgrade on a future flight sounds right to me, so I found your request for 250,000 United miles quite reasonable. That’s about the difference between the price of United award flights in economy and Polaris for the one-way route you took, at least in the coming months. And a nonworking business class seat — especially stuck in an uncomfortable and dangerous position — is certainly worse than a downgrade. (A United representative who responded to you via email seemed to admit as much: “This situation is unacceptable and does not meet the safety and service standards we strive to uphold.”)
Oddly, if you had been downgraded to an economy seat with a working seatbelt, which Mr. Hobart said should have happened if such a seat had been available, United would have owed you a cash refund of the difference in fare. That’s a federal regulation, though how airlines determine that figure is shrouded in mystery.
But what happened to you is not technically a downgrade, and airline representatives love to point out to me whenever this type of situation comes up that the passenger boarded early, dined well, had access to free drinks and enjoyed more overhead storage space.
I asked Gary Leff, who runs the aviation news site View From the Wing, if he could explain why compensation is so much less than seems rational.
“Airlines market a ‘premium product’ and describe the features of what passengers will experience if they purchase a ticket,” he wrote, “and then when they don’t deliver on that experience, they fall back on a contract of carriage that says the passenger is only entitled to transportation between two airports and nothing more.”
In these cases, he thinks airlines should offer a full refund, or at least a refund of the difference in classes.
That’s an opinion, not a solution. So I turned to Anton Radchenko, a lawyer and the chief executive of AirAdvisor, a U.S.-based company that helps travelers extract compensation from airlines.
But his company doesn’t assist in situations like yours, he said, because the fine print and a lack of effective regulation give airlines a great deal of protection in these types of cases.
In fact, most airlines’ contracts of carriage make very clear that “any ancillary service or amenity” is “not guaranteed,” to use United’s wording. Of course, a seatbelt is not exactly an amenity.
Mr. Radchenko had two suggestions, neither of which, he admitted, was ideal. The simplest, he said, was to initiate a credit card chargeback, in which you claim to your card issuer that you did not receive the service you were promised. “It basically shifts the balance of power to the consumer, and then you don’t have to prove anything other than that this incident happened,” he said in a video call.
Alas, if the airline decides to fight back, it can argue that it fulfilled the contract, falling back on the small print. (In your case, the seatbelt issue may help, though you didn’t have any photos, video or independent witnesses, which makes for a tougher case.)
Mr. Leff pointed out that if airlines lose, they may ban you from flying with them in the future.
Mr. Radchenko also floated the idea of filing a small-claims lawsuit. He cited cases in which passengers won money over a nonreclining seat in India and over a business class cabin that was shabbier than advertised in New Zealand.
Short of taking an airline to court, there are a few things business class passengers should do to improve their chances for compensation.
First, check your seat as soon as you board. You won’t end up in a situation like this if you can switch to a working seat.
If it’s too late, be sure members of the flight crew log the incident and document any promises they make.
Then, document, document, document. Take photos and videos, get the contact information of witnesses, and politely ask for the names of the flight attendants. This will help not just in eventual credit card disputes and lawsuits, but also in gently prodding the airlines to offer at least slightly more reasonable compensation.
This advice goes for broken seats in economy too. Though if, say, seat 47E doesn’t recline, you might consider yourself lucky if you manage to get a free bag of salt-and-vinegar nut mix out of the airline.
If you need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry, send an email to TrippedUp@nytimes.com.
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