carbonaddict

I have benefited from several mistake fares in the past and booked the Czech Air flight BKK-PRG last week. I soon realised though that there wasn't much chance of this being honoured when it went viral on the Internet. I am experienced enough not to book any further flights, hotels etc around such fares for a while but obviously many are not. I therefore think it would be useful if the mods could post some boilerplate text once such fares come up to help newbies avoid expensive mistakes, and to reduce the total no of bookings to those who understand the risks (which slightly increases the likelihood of fares being honoured). The key points to be made it seems to me are:

1. Legally and practically it is difficult or impossible to challenge cancellation decisions relating to mistake fares by airlines or agents in most circumstances.
2. The only reason serious mistake fares are likely to be honoured is reputational - but now that there are plenty of examples of mistake prices not being honoured the reputational costs are less to providers. They also know that mileage runners are not representative of flyertalkers as a whole so they probably won't alienate the big spenders.
3. Willingness to bear costs to protect reputation is related to their scale - mistakes which go viral and/or are open a while so that there are many bookings are extremely unlikely to be honoured. Economy mistakes are slightly more likely to be honoured than business class ones.
4. If people want to take risks they should book well ahead to allow time for argument, not book any other non-cancellable add ons until their travel is certain, and make a record of all screens showing terms and conditions etc for reference.

tcook052

While I appreciate and applaud the concern for others caution is already counselled in the MR forum sticky on this matter:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...rums-work.html

What about all those $0.00 fares I’ve heard about in this forum? Generally, when an airline loads a mistake fare, it probably isn’t caught. However, if a Flyertalker is lucky enough to catch the mistake, he or she may post it here for others to “get in on the deal.” More often than not, recently anyways, airlines have been honoring their mistake fares. Travelocity has been known to honor the fares & work out a deal with the airlines or hotels even when the airline or hotel isn’t interested in honoring the fare. This is partially why Travelocity has become a recent favorite third-party booking engine. Michelle Peluso, the CEO of Travelocity even joined & posted here on Flyertalk – but do remember, that as always, your mileage may vary and sometimes, the travel companies will not honor the fare or rate if it was clearly a mistake. If you’ve booked a flight somewhere or a hotel somewhere on the basis that you plan on going due to a mistake fare – until it’s confirmed that people have gone or the company is honoring it, we wouldn’t recommend booking non-cancelable reservations.

If you accept that not all newcomers may not absorb the information contained in this resource thread, and I do, it follows that any reminder post made may similiarly be ignored or go unread in the heat of the deal.

It has always been incumbent upon readers and posters alike to educate themselves on the deal in play and decide whether they can take advantage with a minimum of exposure and so don't feel more preventative measures are required to remind folks to conduct their own deal due diligence. Newcomers and veterans alike are as always welcome to contact any of the forum moderators should they want input or advice about a particular deal in play as it relates to arranging other reservations.

tcook052
MR Moderator

carbonaddict

I take your point but it's obvious from the Czech thread that most people don't read it. I also think that highlighting the risks at the point of mistake fare publicity would result in fewer bookings and therefore slightly increase the chances of those willing to take the risk. Also I think that it's worth highlighting that the odds of mistakes being honoured seems to have reduced over the last year or so as more people are picking up on them more quickly.

TPJ

I do not have too much experience with mistake fares, but my golden rule is:

if this is on airline's own metal = book it

otherwise = don't book it

My recent mistake fare was on SN to AGP (from VIE, SN metal all the way in Flex H-class) and the fare was honored.

tcook052

Sorry but I have long watched the dramatic rise in the popularity of this forum and the corresponding drop in the number of deals being honoured and don't believe it is a recent trend within the last year.

Like it or not thses days this forum plays to a wide audience and further reminders aren't IMHO likely to alter the tide of members and readers alike grabbing at the increasingly rare but tempting deals. At the very least however this thread however will serve as another reminder to newer members that caution is warranted when they are chasing the elusive deal.

tcook052
MR Moderator

janetdoe

Do we have any evidence/experience of how the recent DOT regulations will impact mistake fares? My understanding is that the regulations forbid post-purchase price increases, which I think would have some bearing on mistake fares.

I know the recent USA-BRU mistake fares on Air Canada were honored. The mistake occurred shortly after the DOT regulations went into effect. But since it was essentially a travel agent mistake on a single website, I don't know if that really counts as an example.

Obviously, it's harder to apply US DOT regulations to Czech Air flights between Europe and Asia... but I will be curious to see how this works out for mistake fares on a US carrier, or mistake fares originating in a US city.

why fly

airfare mistake are now being corrected by cheapoair.ca 4 weeks after they have been booked. Its a bad idea to let anyone after you have purchased something to say they want to change the deal.

So after you go into a supermarket and buy a product a week later they call you tell you to pay more or return it? Not sure that's fair.

Essentially some people are saying that its OK for an airline to do that? After you have purchased a product, ask you to return it or pay a new higher cost?

Shareholder

Quite agree. (OMG...Me agreeing with a Mod?! What's the world coming to?) Though right at the top of this forum perhaps the proviso CAVEAT EMPTOR should be posted. LET THE BUYER BEWARE!

Shareholder

You missed the word GENERALLY in the first paragraph of the DOT press release announcing these changes. I think in the cases discussed around here, that would be the justification for permitting ticket price increases.

janetdoe

I didn't miss it, I just wasn't able to find the actual regulations to read the exact language for any exceptions. I'm assuming it was never legal for the airlines to raise the price of a ticket after it was issued, and I don't know of any airline who used this practice outside of mistake fares. So I assumed the regulation was directed at mistake fares. I'll keep searching...

skiwindham

Read section 399.88 of the reg at
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text....1.6.69.1.24.1

Gorgon

From http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text....1.6.69.1.24.1

§ 399.88 Prohibition on post-purchase price increase.

(a) It is an unfair and deceptive practice within the meaning of ... for any seller of scheduled air transportation within, to or from the United States, or of a tour..., to increase the price of that air transportation, tour... to a consumer, including but not limited to an increase in the price of the seat, an increase in the price for the carriage of passenger baggage, or an increase in an applicable fuel surcharge, after the air transportation has been purchased by the consumer, except in the case of an increase in a government-imposed tax or fee...

orbitmic

I'm also not in favour of spoon feeding. The warnings exist, request to read the sticky exist, etc. Ultimately, many FTers do things without reading either stickies or upthread for that matter so I'd rather leave it as it is. Moreover, while I have no doubt the OP's suggestion stems from entirely good intentions, bear in mind that most mistake fares are reported in more general threads (e.g. good deal premium fares, etc) which are already clustered by tons of discussion which most of us (who really only want to use these thread to post and hear about specific good deals) find irrelevant. Re-posting about whether the fare is mistake or not and what should and should not be done will only serve to multiply the same arguments over and again (and for that we already have the 'why can't I find this x to y fare when I try to book y to x?; is the zz airline seat real business class or is it more like Premium eco which calls itself business?; I don't have time to do the calculations on how many miles this deal will get me on MY FFP so can anyone do the maths for me and post it preferably including my status bonus and using yellow highlights for the important parts? )

So as others have said - while FTers come with all levels of experience from the most inexperienced to the most travel savvies and we all try to provide information that is useful for all such types (and indeed treat all FTers and questions with utmost respect) we can't just repost already existing info everywhere in case the least experienced of our friends didn't find it first time round.

If anything, in many ways, you could argue that one of the best 'natural regulators' for mistake fares overuse is not to discuss them more than necessary once they have been posted. My perception is that once the fare has been posted in the relevant thread and validity/purchasing instructions hinted at, further discussion is typically useless.

I think a newer/more useful question would be to perhaps have a thread compending information on FTers who have successfully led airlines (or hotels etc) to honour fares (or at least find acceptable compromises) on itineraries the provider originally wanted to cancel including both effective negotiation and the use of legal or informal arbitration channels.

IAN-UK

I think not. The spirit of the regulation was to prevent airlines and tour operators from recovering from passengers any increases in airline operating costs through the implementation of fuel charge supplements, compulsory insurance surcharges and the like, post-ticket purchase.

SFflyer123

I think anybody would any reasonable semblance of a having reality check would have realized that this mistake fare (business class BKK to Europe in Business class for $250) was beyond a mistake. This was simply ridiculous.

There is an old saying, "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is."

I think that anybody with any common sense would realize this. It's like seeing an ad in the newspaper selling a Mercedes benz E class for $5000 brand new. It's a $50,000 car, and if you walk up to the dealer, hand over $5000, and expect to drive away in a new 2012 E class mercedes, you really need a reality check. It's a decimal point error, and it's not that hard to figure something like this out. No Mercedes dealer is going to sell you a 2012 E Class mercedes for $5000, no matter what their newspaper ad says.

This Czech air mistake fare was just so ridiculous, I don't see how anybody could have believe that any airline would ever honor this.