The protest lodged by the affected agencies claims that United’s action would undermine the Fair Credit Billing Act and is simply an attempt to shift operating costs to travel agents, and ultimately on to customers. United asserts that consumers would still be protected under the Fair Credit Billing Act which offers protection in the event that the airline would declare bankruptcy, and analysts point out that the amount of costs that United would be passing on to so few a number of agencies would not be significant. So why would United do this?

Speculation is that this is simply a trial for a much broader action by United to shift operating costs to agents. But the implications of this are much broader than cost shifting when considering how this would affect online travel services which allow for easy comparison between the price of tickets offered buy different airlines, forcing consumers to deal directly with United. Without access to airline merchant accounts online travel agents would not be able to offer such easy comparison between airlines.