Originally Posted by
bodory
When you make an error, you have 24 hours to cancel your booking.
This is true only if departing from the US, and only because DOT rules dictate so. The same logic does not apply with different departure points.
Most of your points are comparing apples and oranges. BA F is a far cry from AF. The Emirates fares were not from the US West Coast.
The AF $3k sale to Spain earlier this year was from NYC and the $6k sales originate in France. All completely different markets.
Honestly, if I compare the hard product (i.e the F seat) of an AF 388 and a BA 789, I think that BA wins. But I agree that the transfer experience in CDG will be much more enjoyable than in LHR (should a transfer occurs as LHR is the end destination). The comparison with EK is also not in the favor of AF's case in that particular example.
Based on the prices people pay to travel in First on AF, and therefore the margin that AF makes on those tickets, and also considering the number of tickets issued including a first class segment operated by AF (maybe no more than a couple hundreds a day max), I believe that AF could easy hire someone, possibly in a country where the wages are quite low, to verify manually if every ticket comprising a First class segment would be priced accordingly, and then and only then, the ticket will be issued. A booking reference could be issued at the time of booking but only the ticket will be issued by a human being. If AF wanted to be very careful about revenue mangement and first class exclusiveness, that could have been an option they could have choose. they did not. THEIR systems issued tickets based on valid fare rules. Those bookings were not results of a hack of any sort by someone external to AF/DL. Those bookings were done after someone from AF/DL published a change in the base fare. This was not the fault of the customer. The average customer would not know this (remember : not everyone in the world has a membership on Expert Flyer and is fully aware of the airfare pricing structures and marketing strategies).
Again, AF does not care if you make a mistake or not when you book your ticket and need to modify the dates. They do not care either if you show up at the airport too late or with an excess of luggage. They just charge you according to their rules, which you agreed when you purchased the ticket. A potential mistake was done at their side, too bad for them. Now man'up, "give me break" and take your responsibilities. And learn from your mistakes.
Some think that the situation was handled quite well. I have to say that I do not agree. I got the first email or phone call more than 24 hours after the cancellation of the ticket. I also got yesterday another phone call informing me of the cancellation of the second ticket. One week after booking, this is just unbelievable. While my credit card was swiftly and correctly charged, I still did not receive any refund almost 9 days after booking, and 8 days after cancellation. Is that right ?
If someone would have offered me a seat in J with the same conditions, I think I would have gladly accepted it, and if I would have enjoyed the experience, then I would have maybe changed my preferred carrier for long haul flights to the US to Air France. Just like I did after trying QR on the first time with the Sake fare to Tokyo, and now QR is my first airline of choice when flying to asia or the middle east. Same with BA, which is now my airline of choice for the past 5 years when flying trans-atlantic... And once again, we are not talking about a 20 dollar ticket incorrectly quoted in Danish Krone, but a 1500 $ + ticket - so a rebooking in J would not have killed the yield on a competitive route I guess.
But I am sure that AF will survive without me on board their flights to the west coast...