Tue., December 3, 2013 6:15am (EST)

A Supreme Court Fight For The Rights Of (Frequent) Fliers
By Nina Totenberg
Updated: 3 months ago



Frequent-flier programs famous for their free trips, upgrades and goodies are also infamous for what some members view as arbitrary airline behavior.







"I did exactly what they asked you to do," Ginsberg said in an interview with NPR. "If you have a negative experience, they want you to give them feedback." And so he did a lot.



But then Ginsberg was notified by telephone that his frequent-flier status was being terminated because he had "abused it."

Ginsberg says that the agent told him he was "no longer a member of our frequent-flier program," that his miles had been confiscated, and that he would "never be able to join the program again."

Ginsberg says he thought it was a joke at first. But when he realized it wasn't, he asked for an explanation. "And they said, 'Because you complained too much about our service,' " he says.

When he called the legal department to follow up, he says he was told that under federal law the airline has "total discretion" in such matters.

"I said, 'You know what, you're forcing me to take legal action,' " Ginsberg says, "and she started laughing, literally," telling him, "'You know, you're not the first person who has threatened that, and we don't get scared of that.' "




But the court left open what it called "routine breach-of-contract claims," where customers assert they are trying to make the airlines live up to their agreements.

In Ginsberg's case, the Northwest contract provided that the airline could terminate membership in the frequent-flier program at any time if it believed in its "sole judgment" that a member had abused the program.


Northwest, however, says Ginsberg's "reasonable expectations" are not reasonable and that he is attempting to make the agreement more expansive than it actually is.

