Price gouging for frequent flyers ?
Jan 16, 2021, 1:29 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2021
Posts: 1
Price gouging for frequent flyers ?
Tonight, I discovered a nefarious business practice from AF that really shocked me and motivated my registration on this forum that I read regularly. Maybe this practice is already well known by your community, but as I did not recall reading anything related to this, I wanted to share it with you.
I needed to book a one-way domestic flight (BOD-CDG) for next Thursday. The fare was €225. As it is common knowledge that AF overcharges one-way tickets, I went outside for a smoke and searched on my smartphone round-trip fares with 2 or 3 different return dates, and found a nice €91 departing + €49 return, totalling €140, thus 40% cheaper than the one way with a free return flight in case I need it someday.
Back home a few minutes later, I searched for the same flight on my laptop. The departing flight was not €91 anymore but €156. This seemed too much of a difference to be caused by reservations between my two quotes, so I opened a private navigation window and searched for the flight without being connected to my AF account.
Surprise, the €91 fare was still available, but not offered for me ! (cf screenshot below comparing private navigation tab and tab connected to my AF account).
Being offered only the most expensive faring classes : what a great token of gratitude for beeing a loyal customer...
As there are slight differences in services between the faring classes offered by AF to me and to an unidentifed curstomer, this practice is most likely legal, but it remains nefarious and infuriating. Even more when COVID policies give almost the same flexibility to all faring classes and SkyTeam Elite status grants free checked luggage on any fare...
The design choice is also unforgivable as there is clearly enough space on the right tab to display more faring classes (they even had to enlarge the display of the expensive faring classes to hide the affordable ones...)
I wonder how much I lost on previous reservations with this dark pattern of website design.
Have you noticed this "feature" of the AF website before ? Do you see any rationale justifying it besides tricking frequent flyers into overpaying their tickets ?
--I cannot post screenshot as this is my first message on the forum so i'll update this message feature and will add the image on this post if i can modify it or in a subsequent message if i can't---
I needed to book a one-way domestic flight (BOD-CDG) for next Thursday. The fare was €225. As it is common knowledge that AF overcharges one-way tickets, I went outside for a smoke and searched on my smartphone round-trip fares with 2 or 3 different return dates, and found a nice €91 departing + €49 return, totalling €140, thus 40% cheaper than the one way with a free return flight in case I need it someday.
Back home a few minutes later, I searched for the same flight on my laptop. The departing flight was not €91 anymore but €156. This seemed too much of a difference to be caused by reservations between my two quotes, so I opened a private navigation window and searched for the flight without being connected to my AF account.
Surprise, the €91 fare was still available, but not offered for me ! (cf screenshot below comparing private navigation tab and tab connected to my AF account).
Being offered only the most expensive faring classes : what a great token of gratitude for beeing a loyal customer...
As there are slight differences in services between the faring classes offered by AF to me and to an unidentifed curstomer, this practice is most likely legal, but it remains nefarious and infuriating. Even more when COVID policies give almost the same flexibility to all faring classes and SkyTeam Elite status grants free checked luggage on any fare...
The design choice is also unforgivable as there is clearly enough space on the right tab to display more faring classes (they even had to enlarge the display of the expensive faring classes to hide the affordable ones...)
I wonder how much I lost on previous reservations with this dark pattern of website design.
Have you noticed this "feature" of the AF website before ? Do you see any rationale justifying it besides tricking frequent flyers into overpaying their tickets ?
--I cannot post screenshot as this is my first message on the forum so i'll update this message feature and will add the image on this post if i can modify it or in a subsequent message if i can't---
Jan 19, 2021, 7:47 am
#4
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: CPT,AMS
Posts: 4,410
Never seen it, what I did see sometimes is that prices for a r/t can have a negative number on the return portion, e.g. if you book a flight that at the end costs 500€ it can be displayed as multiple options:
- Outbound 250€, return an extra 250€ (or any other mix of positive numbers)
- Outbound 500€, return 0€
- Outbound >500€, return negative amount (e.g. €600, and -€100)
- Outbound 250€, return an extra 250€ (or any other mix of positive numbers)
- Outbound 500€, return 0€
- Outbound >500€, return negative amount (e.g. €600, and -€100)
Jan 19, 2021, 7:59 am
#5
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: New York
Posts: 453
Whenever I buy a ticket I do a regular search, and then another in an incognito browser without being logged in to verify if there's a difference. It's not just Air France, many travel companies do that especially if you repeat a search in a short time frame (I regularly have hotel rooms pricing slightly higher if I re-do a search I did an hour ago or something).
