DanTravels

Running with that, if the same item DeltaMart is suddenly selling for $0.79 instead of $7.99 shows up priced at $0.79 in FreshExpedia and OrbitzFoods too? And if the shelf tag that always used to say $7.99 says $0.79, and it rings up as $0.79 at the register, and there's no way you can get them to take the extra $7.20? Do you refuse to buy it until they fix their pricing? (No, I didn't book any - was asleep anyway!)

I see nothing "vague" about the meaning of "vagaries" - I'm not sure whether tcook052 is misusing it, or bubbashow is misunderstanding it.

xliioper

I don't really blame people for taking advantage of these (I bought a couple myself), but your strawman is pretty absurb. You'd have to be living under a rock to not realize these were mistake fares. I was messing around with Google flights on Thursday morning when these fares started popping up and I was sure it was due to something broke at Google and was wondering how long it would take to fix. Sure they were published everywhere, but that's how the GDS works. I was never under any illusion that DL actually meant to publish these rather than someone at DL making a big, big (possibly career ending) mistake.

TheRoadie

Delta made a corporate decision to underinvest in IT testing and pricing oversight. Decision tradeoffs have consequences. They could have easily invested in a zero defect pricing update process, but chose to cheap out and take the risk. They gambled and lost, similar in concept to Target's underinvestment in credit data security and oversight.

HongKonger

In a free market people make mistakes all the time. One person buys options and makes a killing, the person who sold the options takes a bath. And so on. It's not theft to accept an offer made on a company's web site. GMAFB.

HongKonger

Certainly "better" people frequently call others trash, refuse, gluttons, and the like. It screams class.

cmd320

This has nothing to do with Delta's customer facing employees. As said above, this has to do with DL's penny-pitchers cutting corners with IT, rolling the dice, and losing. When you gamble, sometimes you lose and that's exactly what happened here.

This isn't stealing or thievery in any way. Those who intentionally manipulated the United website and tricked it into giving them 4 mile fares you could call thieves. Delta knew it would have no leg to stand on in this case because it made a mistake, and that's why they were so quick to announce they would honor the fares. Everyone makes mistakes and even large corporations aren't immune to that, it's just a part of doing business.

bubbashow

Another thief said it did that it was tit for tat. There is no justifying anything to people like this. Eyes filled with gluttony and greed can't see anything else. Good day. ... When you go to Ruths Chris tonight be sure to steal the silverware. After all, they were the people who made the mistake of leaving it on the table

DontYouKnowWhoIAm

Class
noun
noun: class; plural noun: classes

1. The system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status.

bubbashow

Found a sweater at Macys on which they didn't put a security tag. .. Take it. Just the cost of doing business. I stick by all my comments and am amazed at the level of PM I am getting that support my stance.

davetravels

I believe - that YOU believe - everything you say, but, THIS:

I simply don't believe!

There's absolutely NO REASON anyone should be afraid to post their views directly in the forum!

bubbashow

Defer. Attack. Defer again. My comments on here are generic. If the shoe fits, I'm sorry. Eyes filled with gluttony can see nothing else.

itsaboutthejourney

With well over 25K posts on FT you should know that airlines never release proprietary info. Especially info they don't want competitors or press to have. @:-)

I'm guessing this was more human error than anything, so I wonder if they have some sort of insurance to help cover the losses from this?

DLdweeb

As a publicly traded company, if the error has a material affect on revenue, they have an obligation to disclose it. Whether the error is material, I have no idea.

DanTravels

I've heard of a kind of insurance called "errors & omissions" which might cover that sort of thing, although I think I more often hear of it in cases where people are suing you over your errors or omissions.

DanTravels

...or someone who isn't an FTer, doesn't read the MR board, doesn't follow @DansDeals, or is looking at a route you haven't flown before and aren't familiar with the "right" price for, and not looking at enough different routes to see that there were freakishly low prices across the board.

I used to work for one of the big 4 air ticket dot-coms, and know from experience that airlines would occasionally slash prices on one route or another to boost load factors or poke their competitors in the eye.

I've flown between the east coast and Honolulu enough that yes, $100 each way from NYC-HNL is "oh $#!+, someone better be polishing their resume." To Pa Kettle, it's "pack yer bags, Maw, Delta done got us a Christmas sale!"

But that DTW-LAS you picked up for about $73? I'm with the Kettles on that. Never flown the route, and I know trips to casino cities tend to be cheap because you're going to lose your money there anyway - free motorcoach rides on the east coast, etc. So $73 from somewhere in the midwest to Vegas would not raise any red flags for me.

This does have me wondering whether all the times back in the day that EK wanted $800 for something everyone else wanted $2400 for were errors.

"Sure they were published everywhere" does, I remind you, equate to "You couldn't find anyone willing to take more of your money even if you wanted them to" if you happened to be booking an affected routing on Delta at that time.