Originally Posted by LHR/MEL/Europe FF

All of the arguments for and against error fares have been discussed comprehensively in other error fare threads.

The arguments are that people will never be able to trust a fare again. Or how would anyone possibly know it's a mistake. And so on.

The answer is that it all depends. A fare of $1500 TATL might be fine in business class, even on a top tier carrier. A fare of $2600 on AF, that rarely, if ever, discounts that far, might give rise to some suspicion that the fare might be an error.

Airline process millions of tickets a day. What some people are proposing is that for the sake of a few error fares, no one should have their ticket issued for one, two or three days (allowing for time differences and weekends) while an airline checks the fare they are about to issue is error free. That would be unworkable.

AF has acted quickly here. In previous error threads people have complained the airline did't take action fast enough. They said 'if only the airline notified us in two days rather than two weeks it would have made things better'. Now AF acts in 2 days and people still complain.

The bottom line is very simple. If you have genuinely purchased a correct fare, it will be honoured. Either by the airline voluntarily, by contract law, or by consumer protection law. If you have purchased a fare which you suspect might be an error, your chances of being protected might be rather less. And that's fair enough. It's exactly how the law is supposed to work. It's there to protect and enforce rights, not to punish an airline.