Originally Posted by janetdoe

I am not referring to this mistake, I am referring to any ticket I buy that is not a full flex fare. For example, I had a friend who needed a flight on 2/14 and accidentally booked on 3/14 but didn't realize it until a few days before the flight. $200 fee plus the difference between what he bought and full-fare Y. That is normal business for UA. It doesn't matter that he made a mistake, he has no other option than paying triple his original price.
See above. You are misunderstanding my example.

When you get on a plane, there is always a decent chance that the person sitting next you paid 1/10th or 1/20th of the price you did. UA regularly sells Yugos for Rolls Royce pricing and gets away with it, it is SOP for them. It is their business model. It is the primary driver of their profitability.

In the Economist example, the only thing the customer is entitled to sue for is half the price of his original ticket, the refund he was promised. He has no recourse for the fact that he paid $7000 for a ticket while his neighbor paid $350. Not receiving the $3k refund he was promised was just salt in the wounds.

So yes, that is my argument. If a big bad company makes a billion dollars in profit by selling Yugos at Rolls Royce prices, and penalizing customers for every mistake or change they make, then YES, it is abusive to cancel tickets when the airline makes a mistake and sells a few Rolls Royces at Yugo prices.

And apparently, someone at DOT agreed with me. They made a clear regulation governing this exact situation, which says an airline can't cancel a ticket because of a mistake.

The airlines are abusive and have ridiculous pricing. The behavior is so egregious that the airlines' primary regulatory body took away the 'normal' contractual recourse of unilateral mistake with respect to airline tickets. So yes, it is exactly that - "big bad evil company hurts this guy consumers, so we all get to hurt big bad evil company back."

If you are still confused, please read the DOT regulations and the DOT FAQ that explain why this regulation is necessary, and if that doesn't help, read the public comments that sparked the regulation. I think I have done all I can to explain my viewpoint here.