On the Spot: Opting out of ‘travel protection’ with Travelocity

Question: I recently bought a plane ticket on Travelocity. My credit card bill included a $19.95 charge for “travel protection.” I phoned Travelocity, and an agent told me I should have unchecked the box on the website. He said it could not be refunded. I asked to speak to a supervisor, who did eventually process a cancellation. Buying products should be opt-in, not opt-out. Can you ask Travelocity what is up with this?

D. Gold

Los Angeles

Answer: I asked Travelocity as well as experts in online marketing about opt-in — that is, choosing a service or goods — and opt-out — that is, having to make some physical effort, as in unchecking a box. Not surprisingly, the answers were different.

Here’s what Joel Frey, a Travelocity representative, said in an e-mail: The insurance is “prominently displayed with a blue header, a box around the choices and a list of the highlights of purchasing travel protection. The price is also broken out as a separate cost, so there is no confusion on what is the airfare charge and the travel protection charge.”

But is opt-out legal? Is it fair? And is it smart?

In answer to the first question, Jeff Langenderfer doesn’t think so. “Under basic guidelines of contract law, silence is not a contractual acceptance,” said Langenderfer, an associate professor of business at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. “In other words, someone can’t send you a letter reading, ‘If I don’t hear from you by Friday, we have a contract’ and thereby bind you,” he wrote in an e-mail. “In many ways, a pre-checked purchase box is not any different in that it requires no active assent from a purchaser and thus tries to create a contract by inaction or silence — something that the law has prohibited for a very long time.”

To the second question, Thomas Way, associate professor in the computing sciences department at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, doesn’t necessarily think so either. “If a user overlooks an opt-out check box that signs them up to receive a monthly e-newsletter, so long as there is an easy and surefire way for them to unsubscribe, most would say that is ‘fair,’” he said in an e-mail. “If, on the other hand, some additional cost is incurred (opt-out of adding delivery insurance to an order, for example), then that is not ‘fair,’ even if it is strictly legal.”

And to the question of whether it is smart, Thomas Harpointner chief executive of Atlanta-based AIS Media, which specializes in helping businesses develop interactive strategies, would also say no. “Marketers need to recognize that it is not a good practice,” he said in an interview. “What they’re really doing may be making a little money but really causing long-term damage” by losing the customer’s trust.

But Frey of Travelocity notes, “We believe that travel insurance is a valuable addition to every trip.... Travel insurance doesn’t solve every potential issue, but it can significantly alleviate financial risk to customers when their plans change involuntarily.”

His response reminded of how much happens “involuntarily” — volcanoes, earthquakes, other unforeseen adventures. I have enough “involuntarily” to deal with, thank you. As a consumer, I don’t want decisions made for me. And I do need to be protected from myself. I’ll do my part by promising to read more closely if companies will do their part and acknowledge that it’s wrong to prey for pay.

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