<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Globaliser:
Originally posted by Tango:
The only reason why I posted this is due to the number of recent threads where the "ethical police" members of flyertalk have come down on other members trying to exploit loopholes--and was wondering why they were so silent on this one?</font>
Because this was different in nature from some of other "loopholes". Some of the other "ethics" discussions have been about the probity of people doing things which have been specifically forbidden by the rules of the programmes to which they agreed and signed up.
Now, you may have views about whether or not those people should or should not have broken those rules. But it's a different order entirely from people who have taken something openly and unequivocally offered, if only by mistake. No rules were broken by doing so.
You are throwing down an implicit challenge to compare chalk and cheese. No wonder nobody's taking you up on it!
To buy something that you know is mis-priced in error is unethical because you are taking advantage of a merchants mistake which was not intended. This is not the same as illegal - which clearly it is not. All the same, in the case of the price of airtickets it is difficult to assess whether it is a mistake or some sort of crazy price stunt (e.g. discount airlines offering 1$ tickets) so taking advantage of this specific offer may well be ethical.