Originally Posted by
dilanesp
To all those arguing that the EC nondiscrimination rule means that United MUST offer the same mistake fare to anyone in the EU that is offered to a Dane, and that the EU will certainly "educate" United about this if United says otherwise, a simple question.
Suppose the computer terminal at the ticketing counter at Barajas Airport in Madrid malfunctions, and as a result anyone who walks up to that ticket counter to purchase a ticket, for a week or so until the problem is fixed, ends up getting charged 1/3 of the regular fare.
United discovers the error and announces it will HONOR all the tickets as a customer service gesture.
At that point, someone who lives in Amsterdam brings an EU complaint arguing that United's customer service gesture violates the nondiscrimination rule, because the mistake fare was not offered on an equal basis to residents of Holland.
Do they win?
If your answer is "no", please explain how this case is different.
If your answer is "yes", I would respectfully say you are wrong. The issue of customer service gestures and dealing with the company's errors is simply not the same thing as discrimination (the discrimination rule would apply if United, for instance, published a base fare that was substantially different for residents of Holland than the published fare on the same flight for residents of Spain).
Your analogy is completely incorrect and even I would wipe the floor with you in a court room!
It would be the same if someone from AMS ***accessed*** the MAD terminal through regular means, i.e. the MAD terminal was meant to be accessible by everyone, and was denied because he/she is dutch. In other words, merchants are not obliged to offer the same products or services to everyone, but if they do, they cannot discriminate based on customers nationality/residency/billing address etc. Anyone from EU (or anywhere else for that matter) can change their country to Denmark (for various reasons), i.e. there is no ip reserve lookup check, and United.com is actually meant to allow customers to choose their point of sale. Once you do that, you cannot discriminate EU customers.
Originally Posted by
Fanjet
No. They cancelled your ticket and refunded your money. There was nothing left for them to honour at that point. You were not being obligated to go back and rebook with them.
Wow, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. BTW, although completely immaterial to Section 399.88(a) not a single transaction has been refunded (at least my bank account still shows all charges)