Originally Posted by
btonkid12345
They should cover the entire stay. Your 95% figure is awfully skewed; no way 95% of the people booking on any airline website know anything about fares or fare rules
Goodwill gestures are absolutely necessary because this airline is saying that they can randomly decide to cancel tickets after issuance. When we make errors, we have to pay at least $200. Why don't they get held to at least the same standard? And guess what? I'll be letting AirFrance know that I'll be directing my team's travel never be booked on them again for lack of reliability.
Finally, no - negotiating for J without downgrade compensation is not fair. These tickets were booked in F class. It befuddles me how you all think an airline charging an obscene $16K for a ticket is ok - as long as the amount is egregious - but if it starts to seem too low to any such apologists out there given some random line in the sand they draw - then we must all be clairvoyants upon booking.
I definitely agree the regulation around mistakes/errors should be improved. I like the idea that however long airlines get to cancel without penalty, customers should as well. But after that, there should be a penalty (paid to the customer) or they have to honor.
If you are saying that you 100% believed this fare was totally normal and there was no risk to cancellation as a result, then I think you may have a point as for "randomly cancelling", yet, AF was cancelling/notifying very quickly, definitely within 24-48 hours, so it's not like they kept us in limbo for a week or more. (And I find it hard to believe someone participating in this thread would have been one of the smaller number of people who had no idea this was a unique situation)
Lastly, why should they pay for your entire stay? What's fair is to make you whole. That means, if you now need to change your dates because you need to rebook flights, they should pay change fees or penalties for changing. If you need to cancel, they should pay any penalties. Most flights you can change with a fee. Most hotels will change dates with a penalty (or even for free if you ask nicely) especially if you just booked a couple days ago.