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Appendix to opinion of the Court
These Guidelines cover frequent flyer programs including any partner airlines or other providers of goods or services such as rental cars and hotel rooms. They are intended to protect those consumers who have participated in these programs in good faith, without adequate notice that the programs could change, and to advise the airlines of how they can reserve this right in the future by adequately providing this information to all members in a nondeceptive manner consistent with state law.
3.0 Capacity controls
1. If an airline or its program partners employ capacity controls, the airline must clearly and conspicuously disclose in its frequent flyer program solicitations, newsletters, rules and other bulletins the specific techniques used by the airline or program partner to control capacity in any solicitation which states a specific award. This includes blackout dates, limits on percentage of seats (for example, "the number of seats on any flight allocated to award recipients is limited"), maximum number of seats or rooms allocated or any other mechanism whereby the airline or program partner limits the opportunities of program members redeeming frequent flyer award levels. To meet this Guideline, all blackout dates must be specifically disclosed. 2. As to awards for vested miles, the airline or program partner must provide the award to the vested member without capacity controls or provide the award with capacity controls within a reasonable period of time. A reasonable period would be within 15 days before or after the date originally requested. If all seats within this 31-day period were sold at the time the vested member requested a reservation, so that the member could not be accommodated without displacing a passenger to whom a seat has been sold, then a reasonable period would be the period to the first available date on which every seat was not sold to the re-
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