Originally Posted by
honzeek_cz
I woud love to be wrong, but knowing AZ, I hihgly doubt they will honour. And remember LX, stance in RGN case. Cancelling now is not the easisest IMHO, because they might have to deal with nonrefundable bookings etc. If they downgrade at checkin, they just return part/all of your money (and they can keep it until you fly) and thats it. Remember they can downgrade you even if you buy legitimate ticket and there is nothing one can do about it.
Circumstances in which they can downgrade without much consequence are pretty clear, mainly in overbooking situations.
AZ was aware that this fare was mis-coded within 24hrs. That was the time for them to react. A week, maybe even two weeks after. And they could have done that absolutely legitimately with likely a few complaints from regulators that they would be able to weather. They chose not to - IMHO because probably a very limited amount of stock was affected,
If it was a fare code error - in that the fare code for bookings is actually an economy class fare code but mis-coded as 'Business' - they could have a leg to stand on downgrading at check in but even that would be dodgy ground.
As it stands - fares sold direct via AZ, over a month since AZ aware of the situation, fare code a bona fide Business Class fare, a very large gap between selling the tickets and the first passenger flying - I think that in all likelihood people will fly as ticketed. Sure, they might choose the crazy option of downgrading people at check in. But that will just cause them regulatory grief if it's not due to overbooking especially given the gap between people booking and flying.