Travel Advisors Are Fighting for Two Bills on Capitol Hill

Two policy proposals are driving discussions at the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA)’s Legislative Day 2024 this week in Washington D.C..

The House Resolutions – the Flight Refund Fairness Act (H.R. 9552) and the ACPAC Modernization Act (H.R. 3780) – are bipartisan, would cost nothing to the federal government, and have a positive impact on small travel businesses, according to ASTA.

“Our goal this week is to raise awareness about the critical role travel advisors play in the broader travel and tourism industry,” said ASTA President Zane Kerby, “and to secure support for policies that will help our members and their businesses succeed. Legislative Day is a meaningful way for our members to be at the table, telling their stories.”

Travel advisors are meeting with Congress members on Capitol Hill on Sept. 18, asking them to sponsor or co-sponsor the following bills. 

Flight Refund Fairness Act (H.R. 9552)

The Flight Refund Fairness Act (H.R. 9552) was officially introduced just last week in response to Department of Transportation (DOT) rulemaking that dictates how consumers receive airline ticket refunds. 

The DOT rule states that the “merchant of record” – which in many cases is the travel advisor – must refund consumers for cancelled or significantly delayed flights within seven days. However, it did not originally mandate airlines to refund travel advisors. It was recently updated to ensure that the airlines refund advisors “promptly,” but gave no clear timeline. 

“It doesn’t affect everyone, but the [advisors] it affects, it affects them greatly,” said Jessica Klement, ASTA’s vice president of advocacy, during a daylong training session for travel advisors and suppliers ahead of Legislative Day. “If you are big on group travel bookings, this can very quickly put you in a financially precarious situation. While the customer gets paid back in seven days and you have to pay your client back in seven days, there was no language about how the airline pays the ticket agent back in those scenarios.” 

To mitigate this problem, H.R. 9552 says it would “exempt ticket agents that are small businesses from the requirement to provide refunds for cancelled or significantly delayed or changed flights, and for other purposes.” 

Under the proposed law, travel advisors who are the merchant of record for a cancelled or significantly delayed airline ticket would not need to refund their clients until the advisor receives the refund from the airline. Significantly delayed is defined as three hours for a domestic flight and six for an international flight.

Rep. Marίa Salazar (R-FL), Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV), and Mark Alford (R-MO) introduced the bill on Sept. 12. About 250 ASTA travel advisors and suppliers are now asking Senate and House leaders to sign on as co-sponsors. 

ACPAC Modernization Act (H.R. 3780)

Klement said the DOT rules on ticket refunds “may or may not have happened if travel advisors had a stronger voice” in the committee that influences DOT rulemaking. 

That DOT committee is the Aviation Consumer Protection Advisory Committee (ACPAC). It is currently made up of four members representing consumers, the airlines, airports, and local government.  

The ACPAC Modernization Act (H.R. 3780) would add a ticket agent seat to represent travel advisors on ACPAC. The bill was introduced in May 2023 and its provisions were included in the House-passed version of the FAA Reauthorization Act but were nixed in the final legislation. 

“Since DOT regulates travel agencies as sellers of airline tickets, travel advisors should have an opportunity to weigh in on policies that affect them,” Kerby said. “As more consumers turn to travel advisors for their travel needs, it has become increasingly clear that a ticket agent seat should be added to this committee.”

ASTA believes that having an advocate for travel advisors on ACPAC would have significant influence in future DOT rulings. The organization noted that the DOT referenced ACPAC more than 90 times in its final ruling on ancillary fees and nearly 40 times in the ticket refund rule.