Hi fellow FTers
See below an e-mail I received from an official at the EU upon inquiring there regarding the recent price transparency clause. Seeing the above post, the e-mail below, and the huge amount of Euros FB has sucked out of my pockets with charges I now believe have been illegal - I feel compelled to take action.
My suggestion:
a) Lets form a group of people damaged by the prohibited business practice of FB advertising free flights and charging very high surcharges.
b) Lets get a good lawyer, and enter into correspondance with FB/KL/AF "the nice way", friendly but firm, with the possibility of legal action in court later on. If we pool our resources, and the group is large enough, cost per group member is minimal and the financial risk / other risk is minimized as well.
c) start a media campaign to accompagny the lawyers actions
d) involve Randy as much as possible
My goals would be
- get reimbursed for all fuel surcharges FB has illegitemately charged me
- obtain a basis which allows me to get fuel surcharges on future awards back, for awards booked until that time when all false advertisment and the unfair business practive have been corrected
- convince FB to immediately have surcharges on airlines which have none or lower taxes&fees in their own programs / for their own passagners eliminated or adjusted
- have the fuel surcharges on awards generally eliminated or at least lowered by the end of our "campaign"
- prevent such misleading advertising in the future
- make FB/AF/KL aware what a big issue this is for their most important customers
- and of course have them pay the lawyer
E-Mail from European Union Directorate: Dear f4free
Your e-mail raises an interesting issue. Indeed, some airlines have taken the habit of advertising free flights with collected miles although in pratice, to obtain these so-called "free" tickets, various charges and surcharges need to be paid.
The new regulation on common rules for the operation of air transport services in the Community introduces a provision on price transparency. (...) According to the new provision on prices, "the final price to be paid shall at all times be indicated and shall include the applicable air fare or rate as well as all applicable taxes, and charges, surcharges and fees which are unavoidable and foreseeable at the time of publication."
This provision will also apply to the price to be paid for "free" flights based on miles. Indeed, it is misleading to advertise these flights as free. The airlines will be obliged to advertise these offers correctly, by stating in their frequent flyer programs for example that collected miles give the right to discounts on flight tickets. Also the attached conditions need to be clearly mentioned.
You should be aware that the current practice is already prohibited by Directive 2005/29 on unfair commercial practices. Indeed, in the annex 1 of the Directive, this type of practice is explicitly mentioned in the list of commercial practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair and therefore prohibited (§20 of annex 1): "Describing a product as 'gratis', 'free', 'without charge' or similar if the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable cost of responding to the commercial practice and collecting or paying delivery of the item."
The Commission has not investigated these practices of the frequent flyer programmes as the enforcement of these rules is a national competence. However, we will draw Member States' attention to this problem as we regularly exchange information on these issues.
Kind regards
XXX