zak_aviation

Today I booked a roundtrip journey from ATH to JFK for 6 days in October, flying with Air France(one way was with an A380), for only 209€ . I booked via rumbo.com, which was the only one which was offering this ticket at such a low price. Anyway, after payment, within seconds my ticket had been issued, and by using the booking reference I logged in to Air France to check that everything was ok.

4 hours later, I got an email from rumbo, saying that there was some kind of mistake on their side, and they had to cancel my ticket (which they already did by the time they sent me the email). I have already reached out to rumbo replying to their email (being the "upset/angry" passenger who got his ticket cancelled) , but i haven't get a reply yet.

Is there something more I can do? Should I keep pushing them? Is there a chance to get my ticket reinstated? They promised they will refund me the money (but obviously that's not what I want). Should I contact Air France?

CDKing

If the fare is a mistake all they are required to do is refund you. That's how these mistakes work, Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't.

Mauibaby2008

Yeah... short of some DOT intervention I wouldn't expect to get those flights back

beckoa

Please follow the redirect as we move this to the Air France forum.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk

SK AAR

You knew it was a fare mistake. No chance that you are going to get tickets reinstated once cancelled.

Get over it and move on. Some time you loose, sometimes you win with fare mistakes.

WorldLux

I don't think so. This seems to be a pricing error by the OTA (Rumbo). Always be on alert when a single OTA has a considerably cheaper ticket for the same flights.

irishguy28

Exactly.

If there is only one OTA showing a significant discount, then your alarm bells should be ringing.

Air France will not want to talk to you about a third-party booking for a flight several months hence. If you want to talk to Air France about future bookings, you should buy from Air France directly. All queries regarding your bookings must be directed towards the agent that made the booking (the only exception to this rule is if you are experiencing disruption on the day of travel).

In this case, I would advise you to just accept the error, and move on.

RTW1

Same here.... mine got cancelled as well.

But what makes it debatable was that the correct airfare was shown (and is also displayed on the AF booking) but they clearly posted a discount/promotion of something like €200 to get to the price they charged.

irishguy28

It's not that unusual for OTAs to offer some form of discount such that they appear higher up in the lists of price comparison sites. (It is not that unusual to find that the same OTA will only offer this price when you click through from the results of a price comparison website).

In some cases you will find that they add a big processing fee back to the total price dependent on the method of payment - such that the fare is valid only for one particular type of payment.

While many OTAs may be willing to "share" part of their commission from the airline for selling the ticket with the passenger in this manner, expecting an OTA to eat that much of the taxes/charges is unrealistic.

A "pricing error" that originates with the airline is one that the OTA may decide to chase up (but usually only larger, more reputable OTAs would even attempt such a thing). When the "error" was in the OTA themselves, and they end up subsidising the cost of your ticket to *that* extent, you can forget about getting them to "help".

RTW1

But it's still rather crappy that an OTA can advertise any rate they want and then later decide if they want to honor it....
Again something that confirm that as a consumer you have very little rights when it comes to airfares and OTA's.

irishguy28

I agree. And when you've been burned, you learn to be more cautious.

I had a fight with a member of that same travel group as rumbo.com - they also now own the "lastminute" business - where a Delta domestic flight I bought as business (or "First" as they call it) class was issued as economy. There was nothing I could do to get them re-issue the ticket in the correct class.

As a result, I now avoid all companies in the lastminute.com group portfolio (lastminute.com, Bravofly, Rumbo, Volagratis and Jetcost)

zak_aviation

Exactly, there was some kind of -200€ discount from rumbo