The Department of Transportation (DOT) is being urged to investigate American Airlines over the way it advertises its co-branded credit cards, over claims that it has engaged in “unfair and deceptive” marketing practices by advertising free checked luggage as a listed benefit.
The complaint against the Fort Worth-based carrier has been made by Benjamin Edelman after he noticed an advertisement for the AAdvantage Aviator Mastercard on a recent flight from Tokyo Haneda to Los Angeles.
A napkin advertising the co-branded card prominently promoted the fact that passengers who sign up to the card can “get your first checked bag free” but what the napkin didn’t explain was that this benefit only applies to domestic flights.
In fact, the benefit only applies to itineraries that are entirely domestic, so even if a passenger had a connecting flight from a domestic flight to an international flight, they would still be expected to pay for luggage on the domestic leg.
In the past, this wasn’t so much of a problem because American Airlines often included checked luggage in their international fares but short-haul flights to international destinations like Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean haven’t included complimentary checked luggage for many years.
And more recently, checked luggage restrictions have been expanded to Basic Economy fares on long-haul international flights to several countries and territories, including Australia, Brazil and Chile, as well as Hong Kong, India and Japan.
Even AA Basic Economy fares for transatlantic flights to Europe and the UK no longer include checked luggage.
Benjamin argues that the plain language used in AA’s advertisements would leave passengers believe that they can use their co-branded credit card to check their luggage in for free – even on Basic Economy fares on long-haul flights.
They would, however, be wrong. Unfortunately, the only way to find out this fact is to scour AA’s small print of the offer.
This isn’t, however, the first time that American Airlines has been criticized over the way it advertises its free checked bag credit card benefit. Back in 2017, American Airlines faced a class action lawsuit over the clams, which it eventually agreed to settle.
American Airlines continued, however, to advertise the free checked bag benefit in the same manner and faced a second class action lawsuit, which the carrier was forced to settle.
“AA isn’t worried about customers suing yet again because AA has slipped a class waiver into its current Conditions of Carriage,” the complaint against the airline states.
“AA claims that any passengers who booked travel after April 8, 2020, is now bound by AA’s class waiver – meaning that any such passenger would have to sue individually and could not get the obvious efficiencies of sharing a single set of lawyers with thousands of other similarly situated”.
Benjamin believes that with the class action waiver in place, passengers have no “realistic opportunity to sue as a group, nor an economically viable opportunity to sue individually.”
As a result, AA “acts emboldened” to continue to advertise its first checked bag free credit card benefit without highlighting the limitations of this offer.
Benjamin says that the DOT has a special role in fixing this problem, especially given the department’s recent interest in consumer protection and its intent to investigate frequent flyer programs.
Earlier this year, American Airlines decided to hike the price of checked bag fees by as much as 33%, with the cost to check the first bag on domestic flights increasing to $40 and the cost to check a second bag rising from $40 to $45.
The new structure, the first change since 2018, does, however, allow passengers to save $5 on the cost of the first checked bag by booking online, although there’s no additional saving for booking a second checked bag.
The cost for checked luggage on flights to Canada and other short-haul international flights also increases from $30 for the first checked bag to $35 and from $40 for the second checked bag to $45. There’s no saving for booking luggage before arriving at the airport.
At the time of the price rises, American Airlines yet again promoted its co-branded credit cards as a way to swerve the new fees altogether.
