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Air Canada not honouring great deal from computer glitch

Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver's News. Vancouver's Talk
Shelby Thom
August 27, 2015 03:57 pm
There was an online frenzy last night as travel bargain hunters took advantage of an Air Canada computer glitch.

The website offered a West Coast flight pass, good for 10 one-way flights, for $800, instead of the normal $8,000.

But today, ticked off customers say the passes have been removed from their accounts.

Vancouver’s David Scott says he hasn’t heard yet from the airline, but Air Canada tells us customers will get a refund.

“It’s unfortunate that there is a double standard set in place for people who have purchased these flight passes. It’s not like we can purchase them and say oh sorry it’s a computer glitch, can I get my money back please? That wouldn’t happen.”

Customers say the Flight Pass terms and conditions explicitly stated the price was “guaranteed.”


http://www.cknw.com/2015/08/27/88116/

coleworld

So your ok with Air Canada changing the terms? This is basically a consumer rights/legal issue now.

If, legally, air canada can do this (cancel the flight passes because of a human caused computer glitch) then fine. I have no problem with that at all.

But if this is not legal, then too bad for them. They should honor the passes based on the law.

Who will figure this out ? Well, send it to the media. They love to interview experts on garbage stories like this. 90% of the news is totally absurd and not newsworthy anyways.

Stranger

I agree 150% with you on that.

Stranger

They likely would not get away with it in court. However until someone tries they will get away. Actually, might be enough to file in small claims for them to relent.

"I made a mistake" won't fly in court.

canadiancow

I try to look at this based on intent. Was it AC's intent to sell you something, then jack up the price? No.

I almost sent a friend $10000 because I thought it was one of those inputs where you don't explicitly enter a decimal. Had I gone through with that, would it have been "too bad, you paid me $10k for this, sucks to be you, I'm keeping the money"? No, of course not. He would have realized it was a mistake, and even had I already made the transfer, I would have had a $9900 refund a few minutes later.

I like these types of "deals", and I'll absolutely try to take advantage of them, but I'm certainly not going to go screaming to anyone if they're not honoured.

Sean Peever

Actually, looking at this, I think AC's intent was 100% to post it at $800, then block them and cancel them (because they did it in what was a very short time they must have been prepared) and then post it back to $8,000.

I believe looking at this whole situations retrospectively that it was 100% their intent for it to be exactly like this as a media stunt, as it's already hitting media across Canada now.

So yes, from my perspective of how I see it as an outside party (ie: I'm not AC) I see it as being intentional for media attention.

Sean Peever

I also feel like I should point out:

I am without an doubt an AC supporter. I love them, I support them and I have (yes on here) even defended them and been called an apologist more than a few times.

However, my personal view on this is that under the CPA once a transaction has been made, the business is responsible to honour it.

I can also add, from my personal experience being on the other side (the business making the input error) that all the businesses I have worked at in the past have honoured the error (and it was just as big a mistake).

Also, I feel I should point out - this whole "computer glitch" thing is total BS, and it bothers me that they have spun it like this. This is, without a doubt 100% a human, it was input that way.

superangrypenguin

Agreed. There have been "uh ohs" that my employer have made when doing B2B deals that we honored simply because a hand was shook. Air Canada should have honored these fares.

Lot of pissed off AC customers now. Good job AC.

i59bravo

While I would personally enjoy purchasing fares at a 90% discount, I'm not surprised AC doesn't feel obligated to honour what is obviously a mistake on their part. IANAL but I think the common law concept is "unjust enrichment." I doubt the Consumer Protection Act provides any top cover for mistake fares where the purchase contract can be shown to be grossly lopsided between material benefit and consideration.

canadiancow

I think they said "computer loading error" i.e. data entry error

F 1

I wonder if BC's consumer protection act applies here.

http://www.bclaws.ca/Recon/document/...eside/04002_00

Section 4

(3) Without limiting subsection (1), one or more of the following constitutes a deceptive act or practice:

c) a representation by a supplier about the total price of goods or services if
(i) a person could reasonably conclude that a price benefit or advantage exists but it does not,

yerffej201

I think that if they do choose not to honour it, quite a few people will be filing consumer claims/claims with the CTA. Probably likely they'll reject it, but the legal fees that AC will incur trying to defend these are probably going to be higher than letting people fly. It depends whether they care about protecting their brand/flights/etc a la Swiss from Yangon.

I personally think though that there is a case to be made to honour these - as it was pretty mainstream you have lots of non-frequent flyers and people from Toronto buying these. I can't imagine those people flying more than 2 round-trips for the duration of those flight pass, and as long as it isn't during peak periods (i.e. if there was award availability on that flight), they'll have made money on those people and that will offset the few of us that did manage to get a pass and will use all the credits.

Stranger

But the commercial code (contract law) is clear. You accepted the payment, contract is in place. And cannot be altered unilaterally by one party.

superangrypenguin

They've already made this decision..

See:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/25338761-post151.html

Stranger

There is a previous ruling by the CTA that allowed an airline to cancel "mistake" fare tickets.