Air Canada agrees to pay $4.5 million for slowrolling refunds

Thanksgiving travel, airline refunds and hotel fee crackdown 

Heading into the long Thanksgiving weekend,  we all assumed busy airports and flight delays were likely to dominate the holiday travel news. Then came the variant Omicron, which proves that Covid-19 is still in charge.

Indeed, reports about  the new potentially vaccine-evasive and highly transmissible strain of Covid-19 called B.1.1.529, or Omicron, were just one more reminder that it’s way too soon to let our guard -- and our masks -- down.

Global reaction reached a feverish pitch on Sunday, as the final days of the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel season coincided with the implementation of new travel rules, lockdowns and confusion. So far, the CDC reports that cases of Omicron have not yet been identified in the United States. The variant was first reported by the World Health Organization by South Africa.

Israel on Sunday became the first nation to ban entry of all foreigners, based on concerns over the new variant, according to NBC News. Morocco and Japan soon followed, according to The New York Times. And Australia delayed its reopening. Other countries, such as moved to reimpose mask mandates and other Covid protocols such as mandatory testing and curfews.

That doesn’t mean we can’t, or shouldn’t, still travel. But it is a reminder that it’s way too soon to abandon basic health protocols.

Lessons from Ecuador?

The news broke just as I was returning from a 10-day trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos, which has kept strict protocols in place despite high vaccination and low infection rates.

And it served as a reminder that Ecuador may well be a solid example of a country that is getting it right.

After being hard-hit in the first wave of the pandemic, Ecuador got tough. It temporarily locked down travel to the remote and health-care challenged Galapagos and implemented strict countrywide mandates that required masks be worn at all times outside one's home, except when eating or swimming. Now, with more than 60 percent of the population vaccinated -- and even before news of Omicron raised new alarms --  the protocols remain. Yes, even drivers alone in their vehicles are required to be masked.

And in the Galapagos, which is one of the few places in the world with a near 100 percent vaccination rate, the only time we got to unmask was when we were in the water. 

I have to admit that I was ready to burn my mask the minute I got home. But as one colleague on the trip with Metropolitan Touring said, “I'd rather have to wear a mask than not be able to travel.”

Indeed, it appears that masking for international travel is going to be the norm for a while. And I’m OK with that. I had recently cancelled plans to go to a reunion in Texas because of the lack of indoor mask mandates amid the Delta surge. And as news of the omicron variant spread, I was glad we had been required to adhere to such strict protocols in Ecuador, whose refusal to let up on basic precautions served as a prescient reminder that this pandemic is far from behind us.

Air travel: Air Canada to pay $4.5 million for slowrolling refunds

What happened? Air Canada recently agreed with U.S. aviation regulators to pay $4.5 million to settle charges that it didn’t properly refund U.S. travelers money when they canceled or changed flights during COVID, according to veteran aviation reporter Alan Levin, writing for Bloomberg. If OK'd by a judge, the sum would be the largest ever by won the DOT's Office of Aviation Consumer Protection. The DOT's unit had received more than 5,000 complaints from customers who'd flown on Air Canada since March 1, 2020, according to Canada's CBC.

Who will get the money? Air Canada would pay $2.5 million to its passengers, with the rest going to the U.S. Treasury. Canada's CBC reports that Air Canada took between five months and 13 months to issue the refunds for cancelled flights.

Why should airline travelers care? With this announcement, the U.S. federal goverment sends a signal to airlines that they'd better watch how they're treating passengers in these uncertain times. In its statement, the DOT'S Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg said the agency is "holding airlines accountable by ensuring that they treat passengers fairly when flights are significantly changed or canceled."

Resort fee about-face

On Nov. 17, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro brokered a landmark settlement with Marriott International aimed at helping consumers determine the “true price” of their hotel room advertised on a Marriott website. Covered widely by outlets such as USA Today and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the story has big implications for our collective trust in how hotels price themselves. 

What are resort fees? You may not know you’ve paid them if you don’t examine your hotel bills. Resort fees are miscellaneous charges that hotel owners tack on a guest’s bill as seemingly mandatory; they might add $20, $40 or $80 a day to your tab, depending on the property. The charges can cover things like wi-fi, newspapers, coffee, local bike rentals and/or other random things that a guest may not know about, want, need  use. 

Are hotels being “deceptive?” Shapiro called the fees deceptive, and said hotels shouldn’t be allowed to “slap hidden fees on top of your bill at the last minute.” Hotel owners like these fees because they put extra cash in their pockets -- without making their property’s rate appear more expensive than competitors. 

Marriott’s position: In Pennsylvania’s court filing, it notes that “Marriott maintains that it did not and does not misrepresent Room Rates, Mandatory Fees, or Total Price and clearly disclosed all Mandatory Fees.” 

Will Hilton, Hyatt and others follow Marriott? We don't know yet, but Shapiro believes they should. In his statements, he commended Marriott for its agreement to disclose resort fees as part of its initial advertised room rate and suggested it become an “industry standard going forward.”  

Hotel industry’s lobby group stays silent. So far, though, the hotel industry’s main lobby group -- the American Hotel & Lodging Association -- hasn’t said anything new. It maintains that resort fees “are not common practice in the hotel industry,” and “only seven percent of hotels currently charge resort fees – and these are the properties that have far more available amenities than other lodging facilities.” We’ll also need to see how Expedia and other online travel agencies respond with their own disclosures.

In our topsy turvy world of air travel these days, we're naturally expecting ups and downs -- but today, the U.S. federal government told one airline that it went too far.