Back to Back ticketing declared "illegal" by CTC
 

The National Post is reporting this morning that AC has won a case brought before the CTC by a Regina man who challenged the carrier's right to refuse to sell him back-to-back tickets:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/nat...3/1020610.html

It appears AC monintored his purchase habits in "a regular audit of passenger buying habits", according to the ubiquitous Mr. Laura Cook, AC spokesperson.

The man involved, a Richard Zucker of Ottawa, flew to monthly mid-week meetings in Saskatoon. To avoid paying full fare, and having to stay through Sunday, he began to purchase Back-to-Back tickets.

The CTC responded that it was not unreasonable for AC to maintain the prohibition, because its fares are designed to serve various market segments, and provide differentiated pricing for them. This makes for an interesting argument, as it essentially says anyone travelling on business should pay high fares, and only liesure travellers should pay low ones.

The foregoing logic may well shed some additional light on why AC has raised the bar on upgradeable fares for its elites. It obviously feels that these perks are intended for business travellers, and thus should be only available to them. To benefit, one must fly higher fares, the ones AC considers are designed for business travellers rather than leisure travellers.

I will try to find the full CTC ruling and post a link later this morning.

But as we've discussed many times before, I thought they said explicitly that back-to-back was okay as long as one used all the coupons?

andrew

"They" say a lot of things. Just read your 2001 program guide.

He should have just purchased a one way to his destination, then a series of roundtrips. Perfectly legal, and saves tons of $$$$.

CTC Ruling:

http://www.cta-otc.gc.ca/rulings-dec...-A-2001_e.html

See what happens when there is only ONE carrier to choose from?

"Air Canada countered that it must be able to segregate its customers into different market segments, including those made up of consumers willing to pay high fares and consumers who will only travel at low fares."

Very interesting! Although always suspected, I still find it hard to swallow they actually do this.

Fly WJ, its not like AC has non-stops YXE-YOW and strangely enough WJ does!!

So what's the problem? Zuker obviously fits into the segment who will only travel at low fares. Just because AC pigeon-holed him into the wrong group...

EXACTLY my sentiments, Ken. AC screwed up and the passenger got screwed. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Is reverse home office ticketing legal/permitted/sanctioned (as hinted by zrs70 above)? I don't know if it's been covered before.

Supposing Mr. Zuker bought a one-way ticket to Saskatoon. He could then buy round-trip tickets from Saskatoon to Toronto at the discounted fare without having to use back-to-back ticketing.

Anyone actually do this on AC?

Tom

I don't see why not. You are using the ticket coupons in order.

I'm doing it this week, and booked through an AC agent, told him up front what I was doing and he said no problem

I have a one-way Y fare to YVR, a one way V fare to YYC, and the I purchased a return H fare YYC-YYZ, returning to YYC in March some time, and I'll pay the change fee, once I have dates for my next western trip.

Actually, I was going to book this in PTO, then read the following in the Fare Rules section...

PROHIBITED TICKETING PRACTICES

Air Canada prohibits the practice of back-to-back ticketing, throwaway ticketing and hidden city ticketing, and may cancel without refund any ticket purchased in contravention of applicable tariffs.

...so when booking with agent, I asked what these were. He had to ask an asociate, and assured me that what I proposed was no problem and he would book it for me.

What was a problem, was that my company appointed TA wouldn't book it. Which is why I went to PTO, and the AC. On that note, my boss had no problem with my ticketing process, signed it off and I've already received my expense money for the charges, which doesn't sound significant, but my company also monitors airline ticket purchases, as they don't want to get in bad with the airlines. We have gurus in the payables department that know this stuff and raise flags when they see 'illegal ticketing'...so far nothing from them either.

Anyways, it worked for me.

What's illegal about this? You are just doing an end-to-end ticketing which is totally legal and most fare rules state that it is allowed. I don't think what you're doing is anything close to being back to back especially with one of your segment being full Y