Dear Tripped Up,
On October 3, 2022, I booked a seat on a Megabus coach for the busy Sunday after Thanksgiving to return to Boston after visiting family in Philadelphia. With a $3.99 booking fee, the total came to $53.98. On October 26, I received an email from Megabus canceling the trip “due to schedule change” and promising a refund. But I only received $49.99. I wrote every few months asking for my $3.99 back, never getting a response until almost a year later when an agent named Danielle wrote back to explain that the service fee was non-refundable. I understand why a company would keep a fee if I had canceled or rebooked, but that was their decision. You can help? Gabriel, Boston
Dear Gabriel,
That may be small potatoes compared to standard Tripped Up fare, but no one likes to be nickel and dimed and paid $3.99 in fees that seem arbitrarily designed to cover the companies bottom line. In this crazy case, you didn’t even get the service you paid for and you’re still paying the service fee. Considering the effort you put into this sub-$4 shipment, I suspect you’re more interested in the principle than the money.
When I contacted Megabus, Meghan O’Hare, a spokesperson for Megabus and its parent company, Coach USA, was not willing to discuss your request or refund the service fee. “Unfortunately, we do not comment on the details of customer interactions,” he wrote in an email.
Fortunately, we have the details, thanks to the one-way email string you forwarded to me. After sending four emails between November 2022 and September 2023, you finally received a response from Megabus on September 22, one day after you threatened to “file a formal complaint” with the US Department of Transportation. (Good move!)
“The $3.99 booking fee is a non-refundable fee associated with completing a booking to which you have agreed by accepting our terms and conditions on our website,” wrote Danielle, a member of our customer support team. “Unfortunately, this amount will not be added to the total value for refunds.”
When I wrote back to Ms. O’Hare to confirm that this was company policy and to ask what the service charge actually was, she did not respond.
You didn’t end up filing a complaint with the Department of Transportation because when you contacted the agency, an employee there pointed you to federal regulations which do not appear to require refunding fees for canceled intercity bus routes. (The Biden administration’s recent announcement that it would require airlines and tour operators to disclose charges “the first time fare and schedule information is provided” does not apply to bus travel. Megabus and its competitors have been adding fees late in the reservation process.)
So that leaves us alone By Megabus terms and conditions, which state a “non-refundable booking fee of $3.99” levied “to cover administrative fees associated with your booking” and note that if a customer changes a booking, this fee is non-refundable and, in fact, it is charged again. It does not say what will happen to the fee if the company itself cancels a trip.
Jeff Shovern, a consumer law professor at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, told me in an email that “if the contract is ambiguous, the ambiguity is interpreted to benefit the party who accepted the contract — here, the consumer.” But, he added, “I don’t know if a court would buy that interpretation.” And taking Megabus to court for $3.99 can push your already quirky quest into a region that tilts at windmills.
Chris Elliott, the consumer advocate who has helped many travelers through his non-profit organization, Elliott Advocacy, suggested a simpler solution for consumers in a similar situation: a credit card chargeback. “Banks take a dim view of such shenanigans,” he wrote. (Since chargebacks typically need to start in 60 to 120 days, this advice applies more to others than to you.)
So why should Megabus keep an administration fee when they have inconvenienced a customer by not providing a service?
I suppose you could argue that there was some cost incurred in planning the route in the first place and, perhaps, in processing your credit card order. But it is hard to understand how this is your problem.
Even companies whose business model revolves around booking fees often promise to refund those fees if a service is not delivered. Both Ticketmaster and Broadway.com specify in their terms and conditions that they refund these fees if a concert or event or performance is cancelled.
At least two of Megabus’ major competitors charge return service charges. Flixbus, which owns Greyhound, provides “the full amount of the ticket fare(s), including any fees,” according to its terms and conditions.
Trailways terms and conditions are more vague. But Alex Berardi, the president of Trailways.com (Trailways’ ticketing and sales platform) told me that when a trip is canceled through no fault of the passengers, “We’re going to get that money back, and that includes the fee. “
“It’s just good customer service,” he said, adding that less than 0.75 percent of Trailways carriers’ trips are canceled, more than half of them due to weather.
Mr. Berardi also noted that through an agreement between the two companies, you can book Megabus seats Trailways.com and be protected by Trailways terms and conditions.
Amtrak, in case you were wondering, does not charge a reservation fee. And you don’t have to dive into the labyrinthine conditions of airline transportation, since the Department of Transportation clearly requires them to refund “the ticket price and/or related fees” when they cancel a flight.
Guess who else is refunding service fees? Megabus in Britain. The company, which has been under different ownership since 2019, refunds “fare and transaction fees” if it cannot provide suitable alternative transport, according to its terms and conditions.
Gabriel, you told me that bus and train fares from Philadelphia to Boston had gone up by the time Megabus canceled your trip.
Fortunately, thanks to a flexible work schedule, you were able to leave on Tuesday and fly back from Philadelphia on a JetBlue flight that you booked with 5,000 miles (worth about $65, according to 2022 Points Guy valuation), and a fee of $5.60. All in all, keep the lost $3.99 Megabus fee and you ended up somewhere around $25.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve easily made up for your losses with Thanksgiving leftovers consumed at your relatives’ house Sunday through Tuesday. So they are the ones who should really be crazy about Megabus.
If you need advice on a better travel plan gone wrong, send an email to TrippedUp@nytimes.com.
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