IkeEsq

In legal terms, a unilateral mistake is not the basis for voiding a contract unless the non-mistaken party can be shown to have known that the mistaken party made a mistake and then took advantage of that mistaken fare. This means that it is up to the airline to prove that each person who purchased a ticket knew that the fare was a mistake before failing to perform on the contract.

For all of the airline apologists stating 'it was obviously a mistake,' the simple fact is that airline pricing is about the most bizarre and unfathomable in any industry.

On any given plane different passengers pay widely varying prices for the same class of service. Prices change based on what day of the week and time of day they are purchased, fare class, what browser you use, how far in advance the flight is booked, what booking engine you use, and any number of other factors about which most people can't even begin to guess. Add to this taxes and surcharges that the vast majority of airline passengers are wholly oblivious to.

As shown previously, a base fare of $2 can result in a fare of hundreds of dollars. In addition, flights in one direction can cost far more than the same route in reverse. A flight from "B" to "C" can cost more than a flight from "A" to "B" to "C" including the same "B" to "C" flight. When airlines get into little wars over routes, ticket prices can plummet. I have seen Business and First class domestic fares in the US cost the same as economy or just a few dollars more. And it goes on and on.

What all of this means is that as long as airlines continue to make pricing incredibly complex and nonsensical to consumers, they are going to issue mistake fares and those mistakes will not always be obvious to the public. Airlines have the ability to standardize fares and put controls in place to catch mistake fares before they are posted or determine that a specific route is suddenly selling out. It seems that at the very least consumers and airlines should have the same 24-hour period to declare a mistake, especially since most consumers don't even know that they can cancel a ticket within 24 hours and AA cancelled held tickets on the DCA-PEK flights, even though they should not have been able to.

izzik

I sincerely doubt any airline would put down in writing what they consider a "mistake" fare, as it provides too much detail for their competitors. Even if they did, does it matter?

Example: Airline X states that all fares < $5 base are mistakes and had the right to cancel tickets booked at such fares (with the appropriate travel reimbursement for passengers). I assume they would still continue to sell $2 base fares.. but simply honor the fares - who said all mistake fares had to be canceled? I don't think it's worth arguing over what constitutes a mistake fare. DOT is only providing guidance on what happens when the airline does not honor the fare.

I am still clinging to some comfort about the "reimbursement" penalty that exists when the airline cancels a mistake fare. That's a fair decision that places a financial burden on the airline in a way that forces them to think twice before canceling anything.

izzik

Controls = software = additional cost.
It makes sense for airlines to have controls in place (some do), but not all airlines are looking to spend the money. As for having individual/manual approval for fares.. there are a LOT of fares out there. Fares change often as well.. imagine trying to implement such a solution?

GrayAnderson

That's why I suggested it only in "out of whack" situations (and that control could obviously be suspended on occasion). Some cases are obviously a "fat finger" problem while others have fares more or less zeroed out.

Of course, another worthwhile question comes to mind: Even if the DOT won't enforce the rule (under prosecutorial discretion), what about private enforcement actions (i.e. lawsuits)? The proliferation noted in the letter suggests that a particularly enterprising lawyer could simply troll around picking up "form lawsuits" and it's anyone's guess how either small claims court or a local court would handle the matter (particularly if the airline can't be bothered to send in a lawyer to reply).

izzik

..... going off topic here..

stephem

Funny to see the focus only on mistake as to fare pricing. In reality, as many of my best bargains are not actually based on decimal points being moved or surcharges being dumped, but being able to do something with the fare that maybe the airline didn't intend. I find well priced fares, carefully scour the fare rules and then hammer away at them with booking tools. While some of these show up on FT from time to time, the vast majority don't. There are fares from A-C that allow a huge detour to C, fares where MPM is left out, where there are no flight restrictions or ones that allow use of more preferable metal on another carrier, fares missing a HIP restriction, etc.
Are these errors? It's often tough to tell. Case in point, I've frequently found that OW cheap-o business class fares will specifically exclude BA LCY flights, but almost without fail one of the carriers will file a fare that allows them (I used to covet these for the extra BA TPs on those flights). Look back at the JFK-CDG fare thread from recently. For the first 24 hours many of us were able to book LCY or LHR connecting flights, but suddenly the routing rules were signficantly tighetened up. Error? In retrospect I suspect the airline thought so, but my mindset at the time was "hey, maybe this time they meant to allow this routing." Could these carriers claim mistake and ask for the roughly $1.5k differential to a fare that "properly allowed" those connections,or threaten to put us on an AA 757?
The A-C-B examples are similar, Etihad or some carrier had one that was Asia-ME-Asia instead of Asia-Asia and canceled these to reroute A-B direct. But there I've booked other fares out there that allow for some sort of "boomerang" including a stopover in C. Pre-NW merger, DL used to allow DFW-ATL-IAH on an DFW-IAH fare and I flew that a few times when there was an F sale for around $125. It's never been clear to me at what point this is an error vs just an odd permitted routing.
How about a missing HIP restriction? I've flown several of them that allowed long stopovers at an intermediate point, only to see the HIP clause added the next time I went to book that same fare.
Or an entirely blank "flight restrictions section"? That to me was the real value of the most recent BA good deals fare. I can find F for $3k roundtrip, so the price wasn't really astounding, what was a particularly good deal to me was the ability to fly just about any metal I wanted for the ME-EU segment.
What concerns me is that DoT provides us some leverage and complete abandonment of the rule would thrown this back over to the unilateral whim of the carriers. Combined with the recent mergers and the growing market power of the remaining carriers, I don't think that is the right outcome.

skunker

What about the F fares on AA last year (?) that allowed routing via the 3-class 321 if you took the early morning flight? All other 3-class flights were not allowed according to the fare rules.
Or, the AA fares for YYZ-NYC that allowed 6 segments around the US? People ticketed 3 transcons on a regional fare.

In both of those examples the fare paid was correct. Could AA come back and say "well, you paid the correct amount but it was an error so we need to change it"?

Paul4Travel

Just curiosity: how many people moved the issue on a legal field here (even if at any initial stage)? I mean, how many people raised their hands up after the DOTs decision?

18sas

Similarly I purchased a business class ticket in Feb 2014 for travel around Christmas 2014. The date restrictions in the fare rules were written something like this:

VALID FOR TRAVEL:
20DEC thru 04JAN
01MAR thru 30APR

I didn't think too much of it, though I thought is was a little strange that they listed Dec before Mar. It wasn't until much later that it dawned on me that they must have actually published this before the previous Christmas (of Dec 2013), but since they didn't write in the year, the booking engines also interpreted it to be valid for 2014 as well.

Is this a "mistake fare"? Should the airline have been allowed to cancel this several months later if they discovered the error? The fare was good, but not unusually so. After all, it was apparently in effect for 2013 and most certainly was in effect in Mar/Apr of 2014.

For another scenario to ponder: What would happen if an airline published a leisure fare that was intended to include a Saturday night stay, but they forgot to put this restriction in the rules? Would they be allowed to come back and say that they intended that all along so that they were voiding any tickets that didn't conform?

After all, a leisure ticket for a weekend could be $149 r/t, whereas that same route for midweek travel could be $700, resulting in a significant loss of revenue.

AA_EXP09

or an AA D fare (similarly) that allowed routing on CX that was cheaper than CX would sell by itself on an I fare.
That fare was over CAD 4000-could AA still say it was a 'mistake'?

GrayAnderson

This is the first I've heard of the issue...but then again, my first flight in a long time was last year. This is one of those classic "had I been aware" things.

zoonil

I don't think the following fares would have been honored if not for the prior DOT ruling enforcing airlines to honor mistake fares:


1) 2013 Post Christmas super low fares across the US ($50 JFK - Hawaii in First Class)

2) 2013 United System wide $0 fare

3) 2014 Christmas day JFK - AUH/ India/ South Africa/ HKG $200 - $300 fares


The new DOT revision will cause the airlines with some of the mistake fares similar to the above to be cancelled.

skunker

I don't think EY would have canceled those Y fares. I just think they would have moved everyone to their metal (which they did for a lot of travelers) and enforced the fare rules of no changes and no refunds. EY has been pretty good with honoring cheap fares that don't touch the US, they just play games to try to get cancelations.

GrayAnderson

"Moving everyone to their metal?"

Often1

Presuming that the final rule looks a lot like the temporary Enforcement policy:

1. Burden of showing a "mistake" falls on the carrier.
2. Burden of showing reasonableness of consequential damages falls on passenger.

If #1 is found out quickly as most seem to be, #2 won't be much of a problem.

Will carriers void all mistake fares? I doubt it. Smallish glitches, if caught quickly, won't have high volume and shouldn't be far off the mark.

One real product of this will be that people who find a mistake fare won't trumpet it on FT or elsewhere. The fewer booked, the more likely the fare is to be honored.