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-   -   BA not honouring 'mistake' F fare to Equador (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1870655-ba-not-honouring-mistake-f-fare-equador.html)

msm2000uk Oct 6, 2017 2:32 am


Originally Posted by Edgerfly (Post 28899580)
And this fare was £797 and a shorter distance then DUB-HNL which was honored. So why would I assume this is a mistake fare?

The £1,100 figure quoted was for J, opposed to F.

F Fares to the same destination would price up at a substantially higher level.

Good luck with the legal action.

M

Smid Oct 6, 2017 2:37 am


Originally Posted by Edgerfly (Post 28899580)
And this fare was £797 and a shorter distance then DUB-HNL which was honored. So why would I assume this is a mistake fare?

It was in First, which is usual at least 50% high priced than J? It is 50% lower than the lowest ever Honolulu fare, ex-EU? It was from LHR, not an ex-EU? It was roughly the same price Economy is normally?

And making up, what was it, a $600, which would be a £400 ex DUB HNL fare won't help make any points...

Some of these are clearly mistake fares. You take a chance, sometimes you get a great cheap trip, but if you're booking positioning and hotels then its your money wasted, don't expect courts or travel insurance to pay out on any good faith...

Edgerfly Oct 6, 2017 2:41 am


Originally Posted by msm2000uk (Post 28899635)
The £1,100 figure quoted was for J, opposed to F.

F Fares to the same destination would price up at a substantially higher level.

Good luck with the legal action.

M

Thank you.

Yes, but as I said, another poster flew BA F from DXB-AUS for $1200. Also, go look at the multitude of fares right now in the premium fare section that you would almost be certain are mistake fares, in much better and nicer cabins might I add, and they aren’t mistake fares.

People act as though BA F is some sort of holy grail of a product, when in fact most airline’s J cabins are better. So this notion that “well it’s BA F” doesn’t mean anything to me. Not to mention you have to remember 50% of the itinerary, whether going through JFK or MIA, was continuing on in business class. So it wouldn’t be crazy since 50% of the ticket is in J that it was only $1050.

Flame3601 Oct 6, 2017 4:41 am


Originally Posted by KARFA (Post 28898378)
Come on, they are mistake fares. Anyway, there is extensive discussion on the threads on the premium fares board about the issue.

Oh yeah one would assume that , but when BA do not cancel it for more then 48hrs+ after posting it one does think it might be set in stone. My post was purely to alert others that it was officially not being honoured by BA as i saw nothing mentioned about it being official that BA aren't honouring it ;)

Fitch Oct 6, 2017 4:57 am


Originally Posted by Flame3601 (Post 28899843)
Oh yeah one would assume that , but when BA do not cancel it for more then 48hrs+ after posting it one does think it might be set in stone. My post was purely to alert others that it was officially not being honoured by BA as i saw nothing mentioned about it being official that BA aren't honouring it ;)

Just for my information, can someone confirm the timeline on the Panama Hat fare ?

I was under the impression that the fare became unavailable within 2 hours of being loaded. It may well have taken BA a further 46 hours or so to cancel tickets issued during that first short window, but this has little bearing on the qualitative nature of the error...

indeed I would say that such a quick initial reaction strongly suggests the following sequence of events: economy fare filed as First/Business through human error, system quickly notices and sends a text alert to the relevant BA manager, manager wakes up (this is the early hours of the UK morning dont't forget), logs on, assesses the situation, then hits "Withdraw".

Later that day, RM review the tickets issued on that fare, confirm they are in error, check that no-one really important will be affected by a cancellation, probably send it up to Legal for a rubberstamp, this comes back the following afternoon, final meeting is that evening, emails go out that night - 48 hours can easily pass in this scenario...

fransknorge Oct 6, 2017 7:39 am


Originally Posted by lost_in_translation (Post 28899610)
You're talking total rubbish. I imagine 99.9% *do not* just book an F fare that's the same price as economy normally is on the route without at least considering if it could be a mistake. [snip]

This is wrong I believe. I saw the fare and talked about it to a friend who was looking for tickets to Ecuador. He did not checked this was a mistake and would have booked if I had not told him to consider it. During the good old times of the summer intern working on Thursdays, I discussed error fare with friends and family. None of them would even consider it a mistake, they would just click and could not understand how it could be wrong.
I am relatively confident that if you present this fare to 1000 random people, there will not be 999 to say "Wait a minute"

lost_in_translation Oct 6, 2017 8:48 am


Originally Posted by fransknorge (Post 28900245)
This is wrong I believe. I saw the fare and talked about it to a friend who was looking for tickets to Ecuador. He did not checked this was a mistake and would have booked if I had not told him to consider it. During the good old times of the summer intern working on Thursdays, I discussed error fare with friends and family. None of them would even consider it a mistake, they would just click and could not understand how it could be wrong.
I am relatively confident that if you present this fare to 1000 random people, there will not be 999 to say "Wait a minute"

I'm not sure if you perhaps misunderstood what I was trying to say. I'm suggesting that more than 1 out of every 1,000 people will surely wonder if this fare is a mistake, which is what Edgerfly was suggesting. I'm not suggesting that only 1 in 1,000 people would not realise this was an error, which as you correctly point out is also surely incorrect.

NWIFlyer Oct 6, 2017 11:57 am


Originally Posted by Edgerfly (Post 28899550)
There was no way to know this Ecuador fare was a for sure a mistake fare. First off, plenty of time had lapsed before they announced it was a mistake. In addition BA/AA offered flights a year ago DUB-HNL for $600 in Premium cabins. Someone posted they flew BA F from DXB-AUS on BA F for $1200. BA often releases flash F sales at this time of the year. If you go right now on the premium fare deals forum there are plenty of fares you could pick out that you would think were mistake fares and they are not. There was no reason to assume this BA trip, which was half in J, wasn’t some flash sale. It’s not as cut and dry as some people are making it out to be.

So now BA just gets to arbitrarily cancel these itineraries because people got a good deal, and BA doesn’t like the fare they got? Well they shouldn’t have published the fare then. To make matters even more insulting, they didn’t even bother to acknowledge or take any responsibility for the mistake in the letter they sent out explaining they were cancelling tickets and insist they “aren’t responsible for money lost” as a result of them booking, confirming, and issuing these tickets. So people with repositioning tickets, hotels, and fees charged by travel agencies, at least according to BA, it’s the passengers problem.

But if I had wanted to cancel or change dates on this ticket, I would have been charged exuberant fees, however BA gets to just cancel the tickets and not reimburse anyone for anything. How is that fair in anyway?

The OP may wish to consider, before commencing any legal action or complaining rather too loudly, that he also has a post in the UK & Ireland forum where he writes about not booking hotel rooms on pre-pay because he is unsure as to whether or not BA will honour a fare.


Originally Posted by Edgerfly (Post 28894810)
As the Premier Inn T4 was so cheap ($59 a night), and walkable from the terminal, I transferred all my bookings to that property. If I could get confirmation BA won’t cancel these F fares from LHR-GYE, it would be only 29.50£ a night non-refundable. That’s one helluva deal for a new hotel that’s walkable from the terminal.

Might that suggest that, perhaps, he had a reasonable inkling that the price was an error? @:-)

rossmacd Oct 6, 2017 12:00 pm


Originally Posted by NWIFlyer (Post 28901288)
The OP may wish to consider, before commencing any legal action or complaining rather too loudly, that he also has a post in the UK & Ireland forum where he writes about not booking hotel rooms on pre-pay because he is unsure as to whether or not BA will honour a fare.



Might that suggest that, perhaps, he had a reasonable inkling that the price was an error? @:-)

The posts in this thread would provide more than an 'inking':

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mile...ess-797-a.html

frenzie01 Oct 6, 2017 12:27 pm


Originally Posted by rossmacd (Post 28899572)
Will you please give it a rest, we've heard you. Now take relevant legal action should you wish, or chalk it up to experience. This forum does not need to be littered with ongoing debate on these fares, errors or not. It has been done time and time again and always results in the same outcome.

Thank you! Very much!

HIDDY Oct 6, 2017 12:46 pm


Originally Posted by rossmacd (Post 28901295)
The posts in this thread would provide more than an 'inking':

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mile...ess-797-a.html

Mmmm indeed....more bleating sheep than a Scottish hillside. :D

KeaneJohn Oct 6, 2017 2:19 pm


Originally Posted by NWIFlyer (Post 28901288)
The OP may wish to consider, before commencing any legal action or complaining rather too loudly, that he also has a post in the UK & Ireland forum where he writes about not booking hotel rooms on pre-pay because he is unsure as to whether or not BA will honour a fare.



Might that suggest that, perhaps, he had a reasonable inkling that the price was an error? @:-)

If you look at the ops blog as well it was clear he had more than an inkling it was a mistake fare. Someone who has status and redeems miles as much as he does would be more than qualified to identify a mistake fare imo.

windowontheAside Oct 6, 2017 2:38 pm

I haven't followed all the threads on this. Is the OP suggesting it wasn't a mistake or considering legal action?

sl1ppy Oct 6, 2017 2:42 pm


Originally Posted by Edgerfly (Post 28899655)
Thank you.

Yes, but as I said, another poster flew BA F from DXB-AUS for $1200. Also, go look at the multitude of fares right now in the premium fare section that you would almost be certain are mistake fares, in much better and nicer cabins might I add, and they aren’t mistake fares.

People act as though BA F is some sort of holy grail of a product, when in fact most airline’s J cabins are better. So this notion that “well it’s BA F” doesn’t mean anything to me. Not to mention you have to remember 50% of the itinerary, whether going through JFK or MIA, was continuing on in business class. So it wouldn’t be crazy since 50% of the ticket is in J that it was only $1050.

Looks like you really dodged a bullet there. BA F being so bad would have ruined your trip - I assume you're still travelling to Equador since thats where you really wanted to go anyway....

Edgerfly Oct 6, 2017 3:07 pm


Originally Posted by NWIFlyer (Post 28901288)
The OP may wish to consider, before commencing any legal action or complaining rather too loudly, that he also has a post in the UK & Ireland forum where he writes about not booking hotel rooms on pre-pay because he is unsure as to whether or not BA will honour a fare.



Might that suggest that, perhaps, he had a reasonable inkling that the price was an error? @:-)

Not the first time I’ve been stalked and attacked about my posts all around flyertalk from BA apologists on this forum so I’m use to this behavior.

Go to the premium fare deals now, BA/AA are offering a $1500 fare from CAI-HNL right now. Is that a mistake fare too? I guess it’s not until BA decides it is.

Many of you are actually missing the point here. Doesn’t matter if it was a mistake fair or not. British Airways published the fare, accepted people’s payment, and issued tickets. End of story. They cannot go back 60 hours later and say, “we’ll we decided we don’t like the price, so now we’re gonna cancel it.” If it it was 12 hours or within the 24 hour window we are provided, then I would have no problem with their cancellation.

The point is they can’t arbitrarily decide the rules. That’s unfair, and bad business. In addition they’ve taken no responsibility for the fare they’ve published, and they’re not even offering to accommodate people, who have let’s say booked nonrefundable hotels. Did you even said the egregious letter they sent out to people who’ve booked this fare?


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