poohfighter

Dramatic much. What is the purpose of having the agency if not to enforce and provide guidance on this issue? NZ has already verbally refused to reimburse me for my out of pocket expenses. The DOT complaint line exists to force the airline to respond to my complaint.

brooding

Here is the response from Air New Zealand after I sent them an email requesting re-instatement of the ticketed fare.

Dear XXX,

We’ve considered our position very carefully.

We’re clear that this was an error. We can clearly demonstrate that through human error, fares were loaded into the system whereby online travel agents (such as Expedia) were able to access the mistaken fares, while our own online channels, had those same fares available at the correct price.

We’re not aware of any airline offering return, business class fares, between NZ/AUS and the US at the mistaken price that we listed (circa 1,000) when standard fares are in the order of 10 times that amount. For that reason, we don’t believe that consumers have a reasonable expectation that fares should be available at this price.

We have processed all refunds now, and you should confirm with your travel agent as to the status of that refund. We’ve also offered to honour the booking for the same price in our Economy Cabin, or honour the booking in Business Premier for our lowest available rate (circa AUD4,500). Both of which are present significant discounts from standard (or even our special pricing).

It appears from your email, that you consider that you are entitled to benefit from the mistaken pricing. Unfortunately, that isn’t a principle that is well established at law. Consumer Protection legislation isn’t designed for consumers to take the benefit of obvious mistakes made by a retailer.

We’re not the only airline to have found ourselves in this position, in Australia or the US and the alternative arrangements that we’ve offered are in line with our legal position.

We note that you propose to escalate your position to a dispute, and that is your prerogative. We have tabled reasonable offers and an offer to ensure that consumers aren’t left out of pocket if they can provide verifiable receipts for costs incurred in reliance on to the mistaken fare. Our view is that consumers should not be out of pocket for our mistake. This is the position too under the relevant US Department of Transport guidelines.

We regret the actions that we’ve had to take, (and the consumer sentiment that we’re experiencing as a consequence), but we consider that we’ve tabled our best offers to affected consumers.

We understand that you may well disagree with our position, but unfortunately, we’re not re-instating those agreements with affected passengers who consider that they are entitled to benefit of a material mistake on our part.

Air New Zealand is a publicly listed company. Our contact details are available online.

Nāku noa, nā

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Maybe not you personally, but this could be the type of case airlines are looking for.

Unfortunately airlines may want to challenge the 'reasonable expenses' provisions, and this (or something like it) would be a good case to do it. This is not connecting flights from say ORD to LAX to pick up a mistake fare to Tokyo. They're 'connections' where passengers are claiming they need to fly half way around the world for no other reason than to pick up a fare to return home. Airlines could lobby DOT to say this is not 'reasonable' and was never intended when the DOT clarified its position.

nk15

Who would fly their weirdo business class with those inward seats facing each other for $10k, are they for real, I would do them a favor flying this for $1k, sheesh...These people live on another planet...like down under or something... $10k is the outrageous and manifest error, if you ask me...

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

That's the going price ATM. Doing a search for the next couple of weeks returns a couple days at ~$6000 return, the rest are in the $10K-14K range.

NZ does discount their biz class fares, in line with UA and QF (all around $5-6K on sale), but equally matches the high prices in the 10-12K range outside of that. Is QF or UA also worth 10-12K? Almost certainly not. But that's the price some people pay.

TerryK

Mostly passengers flying on OPM (Other People's Money). Airlines business is booming. So many business flyers travelling on OPM those 5-digit fares are often sold out.

nichojo

what about the clowns that critique people for doing this in a MILEAGE RUN FORUM where some of these trips are made possible by MISTAKE FARES?

hirohito888

Thanks for your update. I submitted my claim for my positioning flight from the US. Waiting to see they refuse or what.

kodawg9

Let me know how that goes and what channel you contacted Air New Zealand through. I took my positioning flight last week from the US so would fully expect that they reimburse that.

UA Apologist

If you read my posts carefully, you should know that my problem is not with people taking advantage of fares that are low, or may even be mistakes, but with people who continue to push for "compensation" of expenses even though it is obvious that the expenses were incurred in bad faith.

Croupier

Surely people know the situation when they book these fares, the likelihood of downgrades, cancellation and delays in refunds.

Why anyone would book these fares for a departure within just a week of the mistake and spend on non refundable positioning etc is beyond me? Next time book at least a few weeks out, wait for the dust to settle and see the airlines response if any.

If it's to good to be true it often is, don't get me wrong I love a good bargain and partake in some of these amazing deals, being what they are, if and when they fall through such is the nature of the game.

Be grown ups and stop crying about NZ,
Get your refund and better luck next time.

TerryK

+1.^:-:

To be fair. Some mistake fares were cancelled after a few weeks. Some were able to fly by being the first.

If you are a risk taker, you should be able to face the consequences.

nk15

This is a reasonable approach, booking a next day flight on a sudden cheap fare, if it works out for you, but it should not require extensive positioning, because it increases the risk (time and money)...

SqKiwi

Air NZ is a public company and its TSR (google it) is in the top 3 of all airlines globally over the past 3, 5 years.

This was a mistake, but in general, Air NZ is exceptionally well run; well respected by stakeholders, very high staff engagement and high customer satisfaction. Not perfect, but as good as airlines get.

And no, I don’t work for them.

AndrewT84

Has anyone booked through Orbitz received a refund yet? I've been waiting but nothing yet -- called Orbitz and they wanted to charge me a $300 fee to refund. When I HUCA another person said 8-12 weeks for a refund. Should I just dispute the charge?