2010 - Year of the Ridiculous Airline Fee

DNS wishes everyone a happy and healthy New Year! This year may go down as one of the worst for ridiculous airline fees. Ranging from forcing travelers to pay for carry-on bags or coercing them to pay $39 extra for a seat in coach, domestic airlines went above and beyond where consumers thought they would go to hike up fees.

Charging for Carry-Ons - Fliers weren’t pleased when low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines revealed back in April that it would start charging fliers up to $45 for each piece of carry-on luggage that they couldn’t stow under a seat. Air travelers could save a cool $15 if they purchased their carry-on allowance online but even $30 is an outrage for a suitcase.

Toilet Toll - Leave it to the English! British based Budget airline Ryanair caused an uproar when it instructed Boeing to retrofit more than 150 of its planes with coin-operated lavatories. Boeing flatly refused, but that didn’t discourage Ryanair and they told Boeing to remove a few of the lavatories to make room for more seats.

Continental’s FareLock - Savvy travelers book their flight to freeze the fare and reserve the seat before it sells out, and then go shopping around for a better deal. Continental obviously knows this, since they are now charging fliers to hold their fares. The service, aptly dubbed FareLock, lets customers browse and save their seats as they always have online, except now they get hit with a $9-$19 fee to do it.

Paying Extra for Coach - In August, 2010 American Airlines decided to start charging passengers $19-$39 extra to book the first few rows in coach. The airline went so far as to name those rows “Express Seats,” and in its press release claimed it was “providing [passengers] the convenience of being among the first Coach passengers on and off the plane.”

Paying for Leg Room - As if paying for “choice” coach seats wasn’t enough, now you have to pay for leg room. Continental Airlines has raised the cost of exit row seats in coach. While prices vary, these seats cost $59 on one flight from Newark to Houston, and some airlines regularly charge for roomier seats. US Airways, for example, asks customers for $5-$30 extra to get a view of the friendly skies from a window seat.

Paying for Wiggle Room - It’s no big secret that America has a weight problem. But talk about adding insult to injury, United Airlines is collecting a “fat fee,” if your girth and/or weight exceeds their specifications and Southwest Airlines drew a lot of flak this year for booting Hollywood film director Kevin Smith off one of its flights for being too heavy.

Paying for Peanuts - Here’s a fee where you’re really paying for almost nothing. Delta, Alaska and United currently charge up to $7 for snacks, while US Airways grabs $2 from passengers for a simple bottle of water. You could satisfy your appetite with the carrier’s $6 snack box, but then you’d be paying 400% more than the supermarket price, and that’s just a “rip off”.

Baggage Fee Outrage - Baggage fees and other charges may be a profit engine for the airlines, but they have air travelers steamed. Luggage charges topped a list of travel annoyances in a recent Consumer Reports poll. Travelers have begun fighting back against hidden fees with an online petition and a push for legislation. These fees can run from $20-$25 for the first bag and another $25-$35 if you check a second. For a round trip with two checked bags, that’s another $100 or more to add to the final bill. No wonder people are so angry. To hear the controversy raging around baggage fees, you could be forgiven for thinking that paying to check your luggage had become an unavoidable fact of air travel.

An Overzealous Debt Collector

When you try to pay your debts to a company, the last thing you expect is to receive a death threat in return, but that’s what one customer said he recently got.

Al Burrows owed $308 to Verizon Wireless and had spoken with a bill collector at the company who set him up on a 90-day timetable to pay it off. However, shortly after, Mr. Burrows said that another bill collector called him and demanded that the debt be repaid immediately. The collector then allegedly threatened Mr. Burrows, saying, “I’m gonna blow your motherf%$^ing house up”.

According to ABC News Mr. Burrows was so frightened that he and his wife immediately changed their locks but then decided to leave their home in Las Cruces, New Mexico and move to an undisclosed location out of state. Now, Burrows is filing a lawsuit against Verizon. Verizon allegedly told Burrows that he was making up the story, but a company spokesman told ABC that “the alleged behavior is inappropriate” and the company “takes such allegations very seriously.”

To call this behavior “inappropriate” is certainly an understatement. As consumers, it’s easy to feel helpless when dealing with debt collectors, but it’s crucial that you know your rights. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act contains a number of provisions restricting the conduct of debt collectors. For example, Debt collectors are only allowed to call you during certain hours of the day (usually between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.) and you have the power to tell them not to call you at work. Yes, these collectors are permitted to raise their voice on the telephone but they cannot yell or scream in a frightening manner and they are absolutely not permitted to make any threats against you.