HOUSTON -- Continental, further explaining its new debit memo
charges, said agents will not have to pay its new $25 debit memo
service fee if the memo is proven to be invalid.
"Continental will not charge the debit memo service fee if the
agent can demonstrate that the debit memo was issued in error," a
Continental spokesman said when asked by Travel Weekly to clarify
the policy.
The notice that Continental sent to agents Aug. 20 said the $25
service fee will apply to any debit memo issued which is not a
"flat fee" or "administrative" in nature. The fee is intended to
cover "the increasing costs of ensuring accurate booking and
ticketing," the airline said.
"Flat fee" refers to debit memos for items such as fictitious
bookings and speculative bookings, and includes everything in the
ARC addendum group under utilization, the Continental spokesman
said.
"Administrative" in nature refers to items such as improperly
coded tickets, even if the total dollar amount of the ticket is
correct, he said.
He said the following is an example of an item that would not
fall in either category, and thus would be subject to the $25
service fee: an agency gets a debit memo because it books a
customer on a ticket in one class of service, but tickets the
itinerary in another booking class.
In such a scenario, Continental would issue a debit memo for the
fare difference between the two classes of service, and also assess
the $25 service fee, the airline spokesman said.