If United Airlines decided to assess what they later define as the fair market price of the tickets thrown away, none of these bullet points would apply.

If you rent a car or motel room and you smoke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. Keep your rental truck an extra day, they can charge you a fee. If you rent a Uber or Lyft and puke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee.

The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it.

I wish this forum would allow people the option to disagree with an argument without censoring it. I respect (and even eagerly await) that others might disagree with my opinions, but that deserves a downvote less than an off-topic or rude post.

> The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it.

Nobody said they were violating it. The topic was that they would be violating it if they submitted their fictional debts to a credit rating agency or to a collections agent. Therefore they're never going to make good on their threats, because UA knows this.

Plus you're using bad examples, since in all the examples those companies can show financial harm, and are recouping costs. In UA's case their only "harm" is that they made less profit than they would have liked.

Those "debts" uncollected are just as much real to a credit agency or a bill collector as a late truck rental or motel overstay. I'm pretty sure there's some forced arbitration language in their contract of carriage, so the recourse you're counting on in practice just isn't there.

If you keep a rental truck an extra day, it may or may not disadvantage the rental company. You might be saving them storage costs because their small lot is already full, or you may be scaring off a customer because they are out of stock of the truck size wanted on the extra day. Or it may make no difference at all.

United's point (which I disagree with in its entirety) is that reserving the seat then abandoning it deprives United of the ability to get a good price for it from a customer who instead books with say, Delta, because Delta has room enough to sell at a lower price point. Yes, that's less profit than they would've liked, but McDonald's can say the same ("less profit than we would've liked) after an armed robbery cleans out their cash registers; doesn't mean it's legal.

A slightly less inane argument is that United, finding its thrown-away flight prematurely full, will now fly a more expensive 737 instead of a CRJ to accommodate more passengers. Then, finding the plane full of no-shows, United suffers damages in the form of higher leasing, fuel, insurance, and labor costs, because of a false representation on the person(s) booking the extra ticket.

This argument only exists because airlines make private resale of tickets impossible. Fix that and both sides will have less reason to kvetch about this.

Your slightly less inane argument is a good example for why they would deny last minute refunds, because some of those expenses cannot be undone at the last minute. But if the paid passengers take the flight, their ticket costs cover all those expenses you list. By failing to take the flight and not requesting a refund, a passenger does not add to those expenses, and even reduces the fuel expense slightly. So where are the damages?