Keter

We are trying to create a case in Russia that this will not be tolerated by consumers, the business has to accept their business risks. We have lawyers in our group who confirmed Russian law will apply to tickets originating in Russia (and this will leave airlines with very poor options). At least one court case initiated already and more are to come. I plan to do this too. The EY routing glitch FT link is below.


And those residing in UK and Czech Rep/ Poland must ask aviation and consumer protection authorities that having so many mistakes and such a behavior are simply not acceptable. Ridiculous are not fares but the way BA mamages those That's just a joke, really.


http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...w-2000usd.html

Keter

Unfortunately this will apply only for tickets with departure points in Russia with potentially some more restrictions (a buyer may have to be a Russian resident etc).

Single_Flyer

I reached out to AA on Twitter about the canceled ticket. They have twice said they are looking into it.

Seems AA is figuring out how best to communicate regarding this.

https://twitter.com/single_flyer/status/638172761819611137

maclover

So dramatic!
In 20+ years of flying no airlines cancelled a ticket to me, but few mistake fare I was already aware they might have been cancelled (this one included)

kevinflyaway

Also canceld. So next time actually make a booking and then fly within days after Several Flyertalk peeps actually flown on these fares.

Well to bad...glad I didn't book my trips to PRG now just need to cancel all my BRG claims with Starwood (A)

analyzer

I have book via Expedia, after call with Expedia they have no clue why airline cancel the ticket. They don't get inform by AA at one point Expedia think that i am the one cancel the ticket.

Expedia say that they will not handle the refund process and airline will be in touch with you over email to sort this out !@#$$??

YuropFlyer

Is it just me or is BA acting like a headless chicken?

First Special Fare, Ex-OSL, was honoured and emails sent - good behavior, people knew what to expect

Second Special Fare, Ex-Germany, was not honoured and NO emails sent, some CC charges only partially recovered, generally no information about what is going on.

Third Special Fare, Ex-PRG, apparently some could fly (early birds..) and then they decided to cancel, again, no proper information and total chaos..

BA, have you lost it?

nldogbert

Same thing happened to me albeit it being a BA-ticket. The way they handled this is as appaling as BA, but you would expect them as your travel agent in this situation to have better way of handling this - but in my case they just played the blame game and told me to do my discussion with BA.
They even went as far as to tell me that I gave my credit card details to BA - which I asked on whose website I entered my details and they had no answer. I submitted my complain to the BBB because I was just so irritated with how they handle the situation as my travel agent rather than because it was invalid fare.

El Puerco Volante

I can't understand how AA can handle the situation by simply cancelling.

The customer is not under an obligation to be an expert in airfares. An attractive fare is shown on AA own website. Customer books it, regularly pays with CC, gets charged, ticket is issued.

So at that time the fare was in the system and perfectly valid.

The airline retrospectively decides to call the fare invalid and cancels issued tickets. The fail is aggravated by the fact that the customer is not informed.

Unfortunately customer protection rights in Europe are quite weak, but not so in US. I am surprised by not seeing some affected fellow pax from US with enough self-respect to get a US lawyer attention to Dougie's games. Hope it's only because it's early morning

Regards,

El Puerco Volante

Culture Guru

I am sure a few of the FT'ers will complain to DOT.

It is just the begining. Many of the FT'ers have booked tickets for later travel and are just checking what their options are and how it will pan out (thats what I am doing). However, if things do not turn out well I definitely intend to file a DOT complaint.

danam

I see the AA Twitter feed has a lot of people asking the same question about cancelled tickets this morning.

I certainly agree there are better ways to deal with these errors.

We are not criminals attempting to defraud an airline, it is not as if the seats are being given away for nothing or that they are paying us.

I like the 24 hour window idea, they can cancel, we can cancel, but beyond that time 'confirmed' should be just that.

I buy one of these tickets, if it works then great, if not then we move on. I still buy a lot of other tickets and of course I want to pay the lowest price every time.

El Puerco Volante

I'm quite sure few DOT complaints won't bother AA. A proper lawyer in US, possibly initiating a class action would. Would I have been from US, I would have started this myself. Hope there will be some US-based fellow traveler who is not used to accept spits in the face.. I'm sure quite a few people that bought this tickets will join such action.

Regards,

El Puerco Volante

mario

My tickets issued by an OTA on 125 stock are still there and confirmed...

I wonder for how long though

Keter

Such cases have been discussed many times. What changed for me is that the involvement of a lawyer to EY case (routing glitch ex Russia) changed my understanding of such things.

Now that I look into what I learned i no longer perceive DOT regulation as contradicting the law (those original, from 2012).

What we have in Russia (If Russian Law applies of course) is that the contract that have not been entered in good faith can only be considered void by a court! And it is the airline who will have to prove that the passenger knew this. And believe me it will not be easy
Moreover, the Supereme Court in Russia has recently reviewed the cases and confirmed that technical mistakes are clearly a business risk.

The revised DOT regulation is actually saying the same: you can cancel, but its your obligation to prove it was a mistake and you have to compensate for any costs already incurred.

Now if we think of so different countries (US vs Russia) we can see that common law grounds are actually not very different.

Hope lawyers can take this further. To courts, of course

Paul4Travel

Glad to see that someone finally recognize what I've tried several times to highlight in a past EF discussion. And I've been accused in every possible way to misknowledge legal matters etc.
In many civil law countries, only the court can void the contract. And what the airlines do (to unilaterally void the contract) is literally unfair, and not allowed, contractually speaking.

Anyway I'm not intended to re-open a discussion (in particular with some people that prefer to revile instead to discuss on the merit; in particular with the ones that pretend to be lawyers - I would say - "in utroque iure" just because they have a remote idea of what legal dynamics in a specific country are).

That said, it seems to me that BA is managing the issue in the worst possible way.