The Wolf

A little addition to this highly interesting thread:

We have often skipped the last section of a return leg with stopover, this has never been a problem as we informed the airline in advance during check-in.

In the conditions of LX:

As we informed the airline in advance at check-in and as they were willing to ticket and check-in the luggage only to the stopover point of the return leg, they agree to maintain the same fare and cannot calculate additional costs / revised fare afterwards. Of course, chance that this happens will be quite slim if the whole return leg is skipped, unless you hold some status and/or can give a decent explanation (health/family issues etc)

carnarvon

Fair enough.

Now, tell us again, because the day one of us goes to court, better have the best arguments possible.

1) In case you do not fly the rerun leg of an r/t ticket, an airline cannot do itself justice and debit your credit card without your consent, right?

Unlike when you are trying to skip one leg other than the last one, so they still hold you by the family jewels (aka the short and curlies) and can tell you : pay or stay here.

2) They have to go to court and establish they sustained a financial loss be cause of you not using a service you had paid for.

They will argue that the so called loss is the difference between the ridiculously high price of a o/w ticket and the price of the r/t you paid. Correct?

Now, what do you answer to the argument put forward earlier, that a full fare o/w was flexible (often in the forward cabin with enhanced services and increased luggage allowance) and you did not fly a flexible first leg.

So the airline is not entitled to claim the price for a flexible o/w (with often enhanced on board services and increased luggage allowance) when you flew an inflexible first leg. @:-)

johan rebel

My flying career is somewhat longer than yours, and all I can say is that had you flown F, not Y, you would have come to a different conclusion.

Johan

orbitmic

On (1) I tend to agree: in most countries, charging a person's credit card without their consent on the specific amount is illegal (problem for hotels which often rely on that for people who leave with unsettled bills!)

On (2) I disagree: they would not need to show a financial loss. Just breach of contract should suffice to claim compensation and the CoC which explicitly say that in case you do not fly (1) all segments (2) in the order specified they will recalculate your fare according to what you flew. While the exact settlement will depend on a court's decision I believe that they will have no problem getting this (as well as court fees) from you pretty much everywhere

On the unnumbered (3) [that the one way full fare is flexible] I don't really get your argument: it seems to me that precisely, you did fly a flexible one way fare since this is not what you had originally booked (you had originally booked a return ticket) and you transformed it into it (e.g. it seems to me that otherwise it would be like having a flexible one way ticket changing, and then, claiming that you effectively flew a restricted ticket) so they will have no problem charging for a one way flexible ticket in theory.

So again, in my view, their legal position is strong. As both NickB and myself mention above, it is not frequent to airlines to enforce that if you do not make a habit of this. Even if you do, it is more frequent for them to punish you differently (e.g. by cancelling your FF account) but should they change their practice (they have on a number of neighbouring issues) I think they would have a strong chance to win.

carnarvon

No, the one leg I flew was not flexible. I could not change the date, I could not get refunded, I could not use priority lane (which is what full fare o/w entitles you to in many cases).

So the full fare o/w that the airline would like me to pay for is not the service they provided.

Anyhow, this is all pure theory and let's hope that common sense (or more likely competition) will prevail.

AF actively sell r/t tickets with dummy returns when we ask for o/w, so if they change their policy, there will be some problems on the way for them.

AB sells reasonably priced o/w; let's hope others will follow.

orbitmic

I'm unclear which AF full fare Y allows you the use of priority lanes? AFAIK none nowadays (they never did on long haul and on medium haul, Y and co do not offer this advantage any more which only A, W, S do and they are not economy class fares nor are they what you would be charged in the context of a repricing). And the whole point is that you did not use your inflexible ticket at all because it would have allowed for NO change whatsoever and certainly not for the transformation into a hypothetical one-way restricted ticket which on most routes simply doesn't exist. Asking for it would be like going to the restaurant and asking for a half portion of steak which is not on the menu. You cannot force the restaurant to calculate its 'virtual' price just because this is what you want to eat (or to take an example closer to airlines, booking a 'classic' ticket and asking for a €15 discount because you were only interested in the miles and changeable ticket but did not end up checking in a suitcase). What you used was the cheapest available fare that would have contractually allowed you to transform your ticket into a what you actually flew.

carnarvon

Go to AF website. Enter CDG/LHR, o/w, chose "economy (cheapest fare)".

The only offer you will have is for premium economy ticket which give you better service than discounted Y.

You seem to like the restaurant parallels. Maybe we could agree on food matters

In your example, I would order a full chicken (or full steak, but chicken is healthier provided it is free range or organic) ) and only eat a portion of it.

Only an airline can have the audacity to tell you that not only you have to pay for the service they provide (which is normal), but you have to use it in full, otherwise they may feel allowed to ask for more money, despite the zero disruption this no-show will cause to their operations (only the "had I known you were not flying back, I would have charged you triple").

Only airlines would behave like this, because of the remnants of their arrogance and disdain for customers dating back to the old duopoly days.

If you purchase a train return ticket and not show up for the return, nothing will happen.

If you buy 3 nights in a hotel and stay only two, the hotel will to try to charge you extra.

If you prepay a rental for a car and cut the rental short , nothing will happen.

And more.

P.S. One word about competition that may finally put an end to this.

LHR-CDG, o/w, 26 February.

AF : € 328
BA: £ 65.

This may be slightly OT, but the cost of a business ticket on the same route at the same date is € 387.

NickB

Sigh. The absence of "disruption to their operations" is entirely irrelevant. It would not cause Microsoft a "disruption to their operation" to let you download a copy of Microsoft Office for nothing or only nominal cost. What it would do, though, is severely upset their pricing model.

The issue is the same with airlines. Airlines pricing models/fare structures are premised on selling a certain number of seats on a flight at a given price point, another number at another price point, etc... in other words, it is based on yield management. Part of that equation is the number of seats that will be sold at expensive oneway fares. Many airlines (almost all of them on intercontinental services, and a majority of full-service carriers on short-haul international services) choose not to offer cheap one-way fares to achieve a certain level of sales to protect the sale of more expensive tickets. If they do that, it is perhaps to be expected that they are going to adopt rules that prevent circumventing the tariff structure. This is precisely what the German BGH recognised and accepted as legitimate in the case I referred to in an earlier post.
That issue simply does not arise in your restaurant example and this is why your analogy is entirely fallacious: there is no issue of circumvention of the pricing structure of the restaurant menu. The nearest equivalent in a restaurant would be insisting on substituting a dish on a set menu by a dish which is nominally less expensive if you were buying à la carte. Some restaurants will allow substitutions but others will not allow any substitutions, even if the dish you want to substitute is a "cheaper" dish. They are perfectly entitled to do that to protect their pricing structure.

This is nonsense and factually demonstrably wrong in so far at it asserts that only airlines do this. As explained above, this is NOT a practice which is exclusive to airlines. You encounter it as well in cross-channel ferries and with Eurotunnel. You can hardly blame "duopoly arrogance" on cross-channel ferries as it was a very competitive environment and the differential pricing structure for day trips were something initially devised to boost their competitive position by enabling them to offer cheaper fares for short visits without cannibalising their normal fares.
This is exactly the same logic that applies to airline fares: the aim is to avoid fares offered to entice another segment of the market (primarily leisure market) from cannibalising fares designed for the business segment of the market.

True. But trains have only relatively recently moved towards a yield management system and had a culture of linear pricing ingrained in them. This is true even in the UK where yield management in the train sector has been used rather more intensively since the 1980s/1990s. There have, however, recently been similar disputes in relation to not using the ticket in full and leaving at a station earlier than the one specified on the ticket and people have been fined for doing this on certain type of heavily-discounted but inflexible tickets. If you want a flavour of the FT discussion on this, see this. I know this is not a return ticket issue but one of skipped segment. But the nature of the argument remains the same (still an issue of undermining the tariff structure) and, second, the issue simply does not arise currently for trains since return tickets are invariably more expensive that one-way tickets. (unlike ferries or airlines). There are also issues of identification since train systems are generally not capable of identifying whether the return portion of a ticket has been used or not nor can they necessarily identify who the purchaser was (since tickets need not be nominative).

Actually, some car rental contracts have a "saturday stay" requirement and reserve the right to charge you extra if you return the car too early.

And funnily enough, try to buy a one way business ticket with BA and compare to the price of a return ticket: yes, BA does play the "we discount return tickets only" on business fares even though they do not in Y.
Note that BA competes heavily with LCCs in Y but not really so much in C.
IIRC, AF experiemented for a while with cheap o/w fares on UK destinations and went back to its more traditional pricing. They must have found that, notwithstanding competition, it was still worth their while to stick to traditional pricing.



You are on stronger terrain, here, imo, as you are generally with the points made in post #107.

On credit cards, yes I agree that collection may be difficult in at least some jurisdictions without express authorisation of the card holder, which means that collection may required legal proceedings, which is probably enough to create a disincentive for airlines to bother doing it.

It is true, as orbitmic as pointed out, that airlines may try different strategies that do not involve legal proceedings, such as taking measures in relation to your FF account or ADM to TAs.
As to the former, I must confess that I have rather serious doubts on the legality of such measures. A breach of a contract of carriage is not,at a rule, the same as a breach of the FF programme T&Cs. While I can see how the miles for a trip where not all the segments were flown might perhaps be denied under the terms of the FF programme, I doubt that more general measures in relation to the FF account could lawfully be taken.
As regards TA ADMs, I do not know enough to take a clear view on the legality of such practices. I suspect, though, that many TAs will not, in any event, prejudice the relationship with the airline and might pay even if the appropriateness of the ADM might be questionable from a legal perspective.

On the not using a service such as not using flexibility, fast-track etc,... and being charged for the higher fare nonetheless, I would tend to broadly agree with orbitmic, subject to some caveats:
- as regards things like fast track: this is not a contractual entitlement anyway so you could be denied it in any event.
- as regards things like not benefitting from flexibility: as orbitmic says, the fact that you did not use is irrelevant: the fact that the cheapest tickets has features that you cannot use does not create an obligation on the airline to create a ticket type that suits your desire. If I buy a flex ticket for immediate departure, it is no objection to say, well, I don't need flexibility and can't use it since I am getting on the very next flight.
Ditto for luggage if you did not have more than the lower allowance. If you had more and you were charged, then conceivably the charge could be deducted from the differential (although whether it is deductible would depend on exactly what the rules say).

What is more problematic, it seems to me, is where you flew in a cabin that is unavailable as a oneway ticket, which is an issue with AF given that oneway fares are only available in premium eco rather than in plain vanilla eco. I think this opens up a rather nice conundrum legally speaking and I would not want to bet on the outcome were the issue ever to come to a court: they would be entitled to charge you for the journey made, except that they have no established fare for that journey....

orbitmic

On the first point, the strategy used by most airlines is to include in their FF T&C an article stating that the airline can withdraw a member's FF card at its discretion in case of misconduct.

For example BA's phrasing for EC is the following:

21.1. In addition to any other rights or remedies it may have British Airways reserves the right at any time in its absolute discretion to terminate the Membership of any Member and/or (if applicable) the right of any Member to use the Card if a Member commits Fraud, Misconduct, is given a banning notice or withdraws their consent under Clause 4. British Airways must write to such Member stating their Membership is being terminated for this reason. British Airways may in its discretion suspend such termination and impose a reduction in tier grade and/or remove Avios Points and/or Tier Points and/or request undertakings in respect of future conduct.

On the second point note that the point that no one way economy is available is only valid for medium haul flights (it is available in both short haul and long haul) and not for medium haul that include the mini fares (soon to be all of them). Even if it were, I'm not sure it would invalidate the airline's decision anyway: to go back to your example of a menu, at the end of the day, if you want something which is off the menu (a one way flight) you cannot impose to the airline to create a menu price just for you. So again, in my view, the fact that you (the passenger) could have just bought a new premium one way and flown in premium at least for the same price is irrelevant: you simply did not do it so it seems hard to claim that you were expecting that the airline would then create a special price just for the service (one way in Y) that "you" tailor made for yourself without asking the airline for its opinion.

NickB

Highly debatable that this would allow the airline to take measures merely for no show on the return.
As a matter of interpretation of the contract, it seems to me difficult to argue that not showing up for a return would normally constitute fraud or misconduct, as defined in the contract (certainly not fraud and arguably not misconduct either). The gist of the clause is to cover situations where you endeavour to obtain avios/TPs by deception for yourself or somebody else or obtain services through inappropriate use/misrepresentation of your membership (eg: giving your Gold membership card to so. else to let them in; let more guests than authorised into a lounge by coming in several times, .... neither of this would apply here.

Even if it were, it is debatable that it would survive the unfair contract terms prohibition.

Agreed. I was thinking medium-haul.It seems to me that there is a difference between using a service and not using all the bells and whistles that come with it and quite another to make you pay for something entirely different. If they carry you in Y and you do do not use the extra baggage allowance or the flexibility, you are still using the same service. If you are put in a different cabin, you are not using the same service. IMO, it is rather less straightforward than you seem to think and I certainly would not want to pre-judge how a jurisdiction would react in such a situation.

JOUY31

I have had to remove comments of a personal nature that have no place in a civil discussion, which is the norm here. Thanks.

Jouy31
Air France/KLM co-moderator

carnarvon

Downloading a software and not pay for is is theft.

Back to the competition thing and the absurdity of the situation:

- BA, AB and SN (I have no checked with others) now offer restricted o/w fare at reasonable prices (i.e. more expensive than half of return, but less expensive than return ticket itself).

- I was faced with the absurdity of the situation quite recently, when I wanted to fly CDG/MAN, then LHR/BRU, hoping that CDG and BRU would be considered as in the same zone and this would be considered as open jaw. Que nenni as we say in French. Ticket cost was a whopping € 1,600. today is € 2,700! Utterly ridiculous.

Funny enough, the CDG/MAN was operated by Flybe, that offers o/w fares... Then LHR/BRU (I was contemplating LHR/AMS as well), was easily done with BA or SN or Eurostar.

When such configuration happen more often, the last dinosaurs will eventually stop this practice.

Which in fact in the case of AF, since they themselves sell you r/t tickets when you want a reasonably priced o/w.

NickB

Read again: I was speaking of MS letting you download a copy of Office for free or at nominal cost, not of you unlawfully downloading. The point I was making is that "disruption to their operations" is simply not the issue; disruption to the pricing model is.

Well, the "dinosaurs" include LH, AF, KL, IB, AZ, LX, OS, TP, AY, ... so, really, the majority of European legacy carriers. The only full service carriers to have moved to oneway pricing system-wide on short/medium-haul are BA and SK (and even then only in economy).
SN does it on a few routes where there is strong competitive pressure to do so but keeps a classic pricing model otherwise. Most others either do not do it at all or do it on very few routes where there is strong competititve pressure to do (typically on UK-bound routes).
None (other than EI, AFAIR) do it on long-haul apart from some isolated routes.

OTOH, LCCs invariably offer oneway pricing as do quasi-LCCs like FlyBe or EI. It is pretty clear that the move to oneway pricing by legacy carriers is a direct consequence of LCC competition, hence why all UK airlines have adopted one-way pricing on short/medium haul, given the strong LCC competition on the UK market. AF is moving to oneway pricing on its semi-LCC products.

irishguy28

Actually, in the UK, there have been numerous instances where passengers leaving the train early have been charged penalties (in this case the penalty was roughly equal to twice the one-way fare for the route travelled).

In fact, many hotels do.

Hyatt - early departure fee
Hilton - Early Departure Fee

carnarvon

hi Irishguy,

Do you travel much?

This early departure fee does not apply to a prepaid rate. If you pay for 3 nights in advance (non refundable) and leave one day early, no hotel will ever want to charge you anything extra.

You will simply lose your third prepaid night, same as you would lose the return leg of you prepaid r/t ticket.