Frontier Airlines Makes Bizarre Credit Card Claim With DOT, Then Backtracks

I'm glad you advocated for the reader. It seems like the only way to get companies to respond is to keep escalating the issue.

It's absurd in the 2020s, but back in the 1990s when E-tickets were first being rolled out and res were still made over the phone UA had this exact policy. So maybe it's more like F9 is just stuck in the 1990s.
If the ticketed pax was different from the credit card holder, the credit card holder had to go to the airport ticket counter or city ticket office to verify their identity.

Ben ‘tried to help,’ and apparently, no good deed goes unpunished. We really do need better passenger regulations in this country. We need an EU261 equivalent, too. I know this isn’t that exact situation, but can’t hurt repeating that again and again until it happens.

What is a ‘Community Ambassador’ title? Is that above ‘Diamond’?

It's fine, they won't be around too much longer so no point in updating old policies.

My hunch is that credit card fraud is a big issue with Frontier (and probably Spirit). Unfortunately, good people get stuck with a policy designed to protect against scammers.

But as one poster put it correctly the airline's days are numbered. Unless it's investors want to dump a ton more of good money after bad.

I say, please do, dear shareholders. Nice to see more competition in the market. Yippie.

This was airline, as well as merchants' policy for a couple of decades. Gradually, with the advent of online purchases it became less and less common as merchants and credit card companies chose to absorb credit card fraud in the name of keeping things moving.

But airline tickets present a unique opportinity for fraud on a global scale. First, purchases tend to be large-usually hundreds of dollars. It's not like spending $75 at Wayfair. Secondly, online purchases are tied to a delivery address. If multiple fraudulent purchases are tied to a particular delivery address, then it can be caught.

In the case of airline tickets, a stolen credit card number and billing address could generate thousands of dollars of purchases in minutes if someone in Bulgaria, using a VPN to show they were in the US, bought tickets for several people in someone else's name and then resold them to that passenger at a discount.

United avoids this problem by having a Mileage Plus member add other people to his or her MP profile so buying a ticket for someone when the cardholder isn't also traveling is not a problem.

I suppose Frontier, or their credit card processor, has decided fraud has gotten too high and Frontier doesn't have the money to upgrade their frequent flier system for relatively few passengers.

United got into it ages ago so a business manager could buy tickets for his or her team to travel and pay with a company credit card. Sometimes the card holder would travel with the others and sometimes not.

I remember those days well.

@1990 Yep in your world an airline can offer Frontier fares with PanAm Clipper service and stay in business. Were you absent that day in second grade when your math teacher taught that a positive subtracted by a bigger negative would always be a negative? Four example 4-6=-2.

Nah, I think the US market can support a combination of ULCCs and legacy carriers. Besides, you should recall PanAm focused on international routes, while other carriers did domestic. Different era. I don’t expect Frontier to fly TATL or TPAC. Then again, as Southwest proved, Hawaii could be possible.

I was a corporate travel manager in that era and prior to E-Tickets we had a Pre Paid Ticket Advisory which was a hand written "accountable document" that had a ticket number that was called into the airline. This is how people paid for tickets for other people. The traveler would go to the ticket counter and present their ID and the airline would issue the ticket.

As an aside, Delta is notorious for enforcing this policy on their flights to Africa. Whoever purchased the flight must show the check-in desk their credit card and ID or you'll be denied your boarding pass.

I fly Frontier alot and buy tix with those in my pool and never had a issue. Also use it for biz purchases and no issue. Im all for trying to prevent fruad and have had charges with especially Chase and CO held up in the past but something flagged here but Frontier does need to fix this.

Airline customers have practically no recourse if a carrier violates its conditions of carriage (the one-sided "contract" that governs tickets). The Airline Deregulation Act deprived states of almost all jurisdiction, so small claims court is not a viable option. Are you supposed to file a Federal lawsuit over $79.99? Of course not. All that's left is the Federal regulators, who have never been very interested in individual passenger complaints, and under this Administration are less so than ever. So in practical terms you can ask an airline to honor its obligations, but other than trying to embarrass them on social media there's not much you can do about it if they decide not to.

If A flys on a ticket bought by B's cc, B claims fraud, and the airlines get a charge back from the cc company, I see the concern. Isn't there a way to handle this so that a charge back can't happen? If it's flagged, why not let cardholder address the issue through the cc company beforehand?
In recent years, every time I buy an international J (which I do at the airlines website), I have to do a 2FA. I love it, no big inconvenience and no, you have to try again or start over.

The easy way to handle it is for the cardholder to sign a waiver or sign to say they agree to purchase the ticket for the other person. Many non-US airlines have this policy. This not only allows the other person to do the purchase but prevents the chargeback

The claim that 'there's not an airline in the world' that asks for credit card holders to be present at check in is clearly inaccurate.

Turkish Airlines have been notorious for that requirement and I'm certain that it is, or at least used to be, explicitly codified within their online booking system (not conditions of carriage as they wouldn't be able to make sense of any tickets issued by agencies and/or on other airline stock). I've also had at least a couple of airlines, including TG, ask to see the credit card used for my booking at check in (I was carrying it with me so I don't know what would have happened had I been unable to produce it).

As another comment says, it's quite likely that these practices are less common than they used to be, but I don't think they've been eliminated just yet.

I would just type in my name on the card info section when using someone else’s credit card, with someone else’s billing address. I’ve done this a ton of times (with my spouse, sharing same address but not last name) and haven’t had any issue so far.

Nothing that can’t be fixed with a small claims court lawsuit. Those things are won by default, as Frontier won’t send anyone.

Nothing that can’t be fixed with a small claims court lawsuit. Those things are won by default, as Frontier won’t send anyone.

Wrong. U.S. airlines can and are sued in small claims court every day. They have the right to remove the case to Federal court, but it’s rarely worth their while to do so.
https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/air-travelers-tell-it-judge

Well, frontier breached the contract with my ticket purchase.Then, I purchased for a friend of mine supervisor kept insisting that the ticket was flagged.Fraudulent by the third party, a certified, which their legally bound by law, to be responsible for all its agents, they put in place. When we asked why there we were being denied, they stated. There's no ticket, was not legally purchased. It was flagged well, because the name on the ticket matched. I d they were bound to allow her to board, they chose not to and then they also violated the dOT regulations in federal law? They are required by law to give you a written statement of why you're being denied and your right well in our case, they turned around. And listed my friend as a no show and did a refund and to top it off. It was a partial refund. I didn't find out until I started investigating and researching it and looked at the contractor carriage, clause and nowhere in there does it state a third party person? Cannot purchase a ticket for another person. I'll need requirement. Is the name on the ticket? Must match the government issued. ID of the traveler if they deny boarding for any reason. If they aren't breach a contract and required by law to give you a written reason for this. Well my friend even presented a copy of my I. D to verify the name of the card match the purchaser. They didn't wanna hear It gave him confirmations. Everything didn't want to listen anything. It wasn't until I got to San Francisco Airport and showed the other supervisor the bank statements and everything else. Then, we illegally purchased this ticket in advance. That he printed me the receipt. Which stated payment status approved? He was confused by the situation because of the everything he could see. The ticket had been paid for in advance 12 days. To be exact and flag at last second and boarding gate and did not attempt to try to help fix or research. Their false accusation. They did defamation at character. Mental anguish, bereavement consequential, damages, etc. I will be filing in small claims against them. Have the paper trail and all the evidence, and their comment to me is even more ridiculous, saying that they didn't deny her boarding. Because the ticket was not illegally purchased ticket. It wasn't even a credit card. It was a debit card which is the same as cash. Ticket was purchased to Expedia. On December 26, paid for on the 27th 2 frontier. They even sent 8 emails, trying to upgrade and give us all this information on frontier. And then the day of the flight, after a 24 hour confirmation was done on the sixth. They say the ticket's flagged as fraud. Because the name on the credit card, it does not match the name on the ticket.The person with the ticket must present the credit and reorder the ticket at a $179.
Where nowhere in the contract carriage? Does a state that they have to have the card present? And they have ridiculously consistently told me that, because it was the third party insurance. That flagged it. They're not responsible and because the flight was not overbooked.It doesn't constitute involuntary denied boarding and therefore knot required to give the finds associated with the DOT regulations for this act, the 400% times the price of the ticket. Funny thing is, once I started researching it. And I explained to them, the violations they'd done, they started backpedaling and refunded, my money. All the way instantly and I was confused because they kept insisting, they were refunding the card. All the while alleging, they were protecting the card holder from fraud, but they were only doing a partial refund. And then they listed as a no show when the person standing at the gate that act violated the insurance. That was purchased to protect that ticket frontier is a terrible organization. They have been doing bountying on trying to get extra money for tickets. Their staff have been known to look for reasons just to try to do up sale. And if you would read the response, they gave me, you would laugh. I'm going to take them to small claims. Court and I only can wish I could sue them more for then. The 12500. I'm illegally allowed to ask foreign small claims. My friend was on a bereavement trip. And the embarrassment she had to endure was ridiculous. The unprofessionalism and their attitude in all levels from the airport to the executive branch. It's a ridiculous you can watch the update Stevens Vs Frontier Airlines in Monterey County.

I just went through this an hour ago at MCO frontier. They denied me check in in and boarding due to exactly what you wrote about in the article and then wanted to charged me a whole new flight for my family.