Automatic Refunds and No More Hidden Fees: D.O.T. Sets New Rules for Airlines

You don't appear to realize it but you are paying the "convenience fee", one way or another.

Ya mean like stock buybacks? Or golden parachute retirements for CEOs when their companies have actually lost money, laid off hundreds if not thousands, but he still gets a friggin bonus.
Give me communism any day, pal!
That’s why American manufacturing has gone down the toilet the past 30 years!
You must not have been watching Boeing’s woes the past 5 years, huh? And how many CEOs have gone bye bye there? Bet none of them left empty handed.
Caveat emptor doesn’t even come in to it, but corruption certainly does…..

The amount of tax does make a difference in the final price but it is part of the amount that comes out of your pocket. All over the world except US and Canada the prices displayed include the tax because that’s what you need to pay to get the item. On the receipt it shows the tax amount separately if you really need to onow

Why do you think this will raise prices?

Rubbish! Over in Europe and the UK, they’ve had this for several years now. It’s always fun watching the US catching up with the rest of the world!
In fact, it was the same with the financial sector, too. Over the pond they had chip and PIN, and contactless credit/debit cards for 10 years befire the US reluctantly caught on.
Better late, than never, eh?!

EXACTLY! It really isn’t rocket science, not unless you want it to be……and yes, it’s much more than that. Heavens forbid that an airline might have to pay compensation for an extensive delay like 3 or 4 or more hours at an airport, or worse, a cancelation and then you have to pay for a hotel and wait for reimbursement which can take months!!

Well if any outfit should understand being despised it's fed.gov

The airlines are pretty good doing those statistical calculations, just as insurance companies are for their customers. By way of example only, and just like LAS casinos, the odds of a particular flight being overbooked on a particular day and at a particular time and between a particular city pair are pretty well known by the various carriers, and their fares reflect that. Because flights were being excessively overbooked, the airlines were finally forced, by the government, to pay Denied Boarding Compensation, and anyone who travels a lot has probably that system at work. The system of DBC fundamentally works pretty well. There are those passengers who try to "game the system" and they are sometimes successful in getting X dollars or free tickets, but it actually makes little difference to an airline who gets the DBC, only that it needs to be paid, because the government says so.

I would submit a few perspectives, using DBC as an example:
One, to get to that point (of having something like DBC) in a system takes an outside force with sufficient power to stand up to an organization as big as the airline industry, i.e. the government, and they did so, and can do so in other areas, too, and have to some extent.

Two, The airlines have a vested interest in calculating their overbookings to a very accurate level, but yes, the cost of the DBC is built into a ticket at some proportion. There's no other way to do it. Fortunately, DB's are actually pretty small, even though they loom large in the eyes of the traveler affected.

Three, we the people have to keep pushing on our representatives in government to have them push on air travel issues that are important to us--delays, cancellations, "hidden" fees, (which aren't really hidden if one takes the time to read the ticket) and especially, clarifying what is gracefully called "Conditions of Carriage". We can do it, not quickly nor easily, but change can be wrought.

Alex is right, our odds are not good, but we can work on making them better--keep pushing on the government employees, at every level, and especially at the ballot box when that force is available, to change the things we want changed. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."

What?

Literally EVERYTHING is better "over in" yet you have chosen to live in a land you hate...

...why? (and GTFO)

Where is Nick Leeson now?

Where were your supposedly great UK Government Central Scrutinizers when Barings Bank really needed them?

How the heck did that happen?!?