Travel agency settles suit

A Post Falls travel agency has paid $91,587 to Alaska Airlines to settle a lawsuit that accused the firm of deceptive and fraudulent ticket-selling practices.

Attorneys for Seattle-based Alaska Airlines filed the lawsuit last week in King County Superior Court against Travel Management Inc., whose primary office is in Post Falls.

Among several allegations, the suit claimed TMI’s agents “systematically defrauded and misled Alaska and consumers by misrepresenting the actual cost of airline tickets (they) sell.”

Among various practices, TMI was alleged in the suit to have purchased or obtained from Alaska low-cost or free tickets and then sold those tickets “at or above the market rate and present to those consumers that the tickets … are normal, full-price tickets.”

Rhonda Sand, owner of TMI, said the company made the payment to Alaska without acknowledging that the alleged practices had taken place.

She signed an agreement and made the payment last week to resolve the issue and move on, she said.

In particular, Sand said in an e-mail that “TMI has promptly resolved all old issues raised by Alaska Airlines and terminated its relationship with certain employees whose conduct Alaska called into question.”

Alaska spokeswoman Caroline Boren said the airline began an audit of TMI’s practices that stretched between 2003 and 2004.

After starting that audit, the airline in the summer of 2004 “pulled the plates” of TMI, which amounted to ordering Sand to stop representing her company as an agent for Alaska Airlines, Boren said.

Despite that order, TMI continued representing itself as an agent of Alaska until recently, Boren said. The agreement requires TMI from now on to inform customers that it is not an Alaska agent. It further states that anyone buying an Alaska or Horizon ticket from TMI be told what the airline’s ticket price is and whether TMI is adding any service fee to the price.

The $91,587 paid by TMI amounted to the losses suffered by Alaska during the time period reviewed, said Boren.

TMI’s clientele includes a number of corporate customers.

The suit filed last week alleges that TMI agents committed fraud by selling discounted frequent-flyer tickets to corporate customers at full price. The practice allegedly involved TMI agents buying a ticket with their own frequent flyer miles, then turning around and selling the ticket to a company for business travel.

“Defendant (Sand) and the client’s employee split the proceeds of the fraudulent sale,” the suit states.

Boren said Alaska is making a vigorous nationwide effort to examine alleged fraud against airline passengers.