General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I refuse to "voluntarily" give up a seat I have paid for, and am, in fact, occupying, and some [View all]OrwellwasRight
(5,170 posts)Contract= agreement. Adhesion= forced. Therefore, while there was an agreement because the contract was made (money was exchanged for a ticket), there was no meeting of the minds. The entire flying public takes the terms because the other choice is not to not to fly. Your point that it is "still an agreement" is off point. My point was what kind of agreement it was. If you want to try to argue that it was contract that represented fair bargaining among parties that each had a chance to craft the terms, I think you'll find you are on the losing side of that argument. "It was still an agreement," is about the rhetorical equivalent of "so there."
Your other points are equally spurious:
1) I said United should have offered more to get VOLUNTEERS to get off the plane. You mention the federal law covering required compensation for INVOLUNTARY denial. So your evidence is spurious. Voluntary is not the same as involuntary. In fact, it is the opposite. What the rules are regarding involuntary denial do not have anything whatsoever to do with what United may or may not offer to people to get them to willingly give up their seat. If United offered $1350 and no one took it, they could certainly offer $1500 or $2000 or whatever. And yes, my argument is that they should have. That is certainly better than calling the policy forcibly remove people from the plane by battering them.
2) The federal law that requires compensation of $1350 for involuntary denial is a minimum requirement that people are entitled to -- it is completely specious to assert that paying more than the law requires would be "defying" DOT in anyway. There is no law against giving money away to make people happy or cooperative and to state that there is makes no common sense and has no basis in law.
3) I have repeated multiple times that United had a right to do what it did. I never disagreed on this point. I also said it was a stupid decision. Just because you can do a thing does not mean you should do a thing. This applies to the United situation as well as to life more generally. Your rebuttal does not disprove that in any way.
If you're tempted at this point to post some additional spurious comments that don't rebut my points, you can spare yourself the effort, since they won't be any more convincing the next time you post them.