drvannostren

It's a couple things...

1) The OTAs have so many outs. Lots of them will just kinda play a game with it. I'm not saying it's malicious, but I've had this happen multiple times. You find a "mistake" or maybe just great fare, you go to the OTA, go to book and it says there's a problem with your credit card. You try another one, same thing. You KNOW the CCs are good but they just can't/won't process it. They email you after like the one I had yesterday saying "we'll call you within 24 hours to confirm the whole booking". They called me, confirmed everything, I did a digital signature for the CC (which I've never had to do with ANY purchase online before) and then they still didn't get the job done. He told me I'd have my e-ticket within an hour, then about 3 hours later I get an email saying there was a problem.

2) The airline has a responsability to things purchased directly from them. They MIGHT cancel, sure, but they can't just screw around as much as the OTA. They don't have any grey excuses like "the airline reservation system isn't communicating with our payment system" and stuff like that. Because it's all in their hands.

3) In THIS case, maybe it's just me, but I thought the corporate culture of a Virgin brand company would have them honor the bookings directly with them. I had a feeling ANA would honor their mistake business class to AUS, just because they're classy like that...and they did. If this had been United...honestly, I bet they would've honored maybe a handful of them, IF THAT, but certainly not most. Not picking on United, I'd say the same for all the US majors.

Any time you're pretty confident it's a mistake, like this clearly was (I wouldn't ever suggest this was just a sale, which I do feel ok doing on some other ones) it's always worth buying directly from the airline if you can get it. Even if you have to pay up a bit. For one thing, you'll get the functionality of their site, like seat selection and stuff. Then you get a bit of extra confidence as I've stated above. You'll also get a refund MUCH MUCH faster if cancelled. These OTAs with random call center employees working for 10 different OTAs that don't know how to process a payment etc, all the tiny OTAs have horrible reviews online about people taking forever to get a refund. As much as I might hate United or their call center, or their IT, I bet I could get a refund in a situation like this, pretty quickly.

That said it's not ALWAYS true. I booked a fuel dump directly from Ethiopian, which they cancelled, but never told me. I found out just by obsessively checking my seats. I remember reading a OMAAT (I think) post about a story of an ET booking being cancelled half way through the trip and at a downline station, so I'm glad I didn't get all the way to South Africa then have the thing cancelled on me. But so simply booking from the airline doesn't guarantee anything, but it does help, and in the end I got the refund from that ET booking in less than a week which was pretty reasonable.

angra

Thanks for that explanation! It helps deepen my understanding. I bought from VA direct for many of the underlying reasons that you bring up - intuitively, not because I expected better outcome with a mistake fare. I'm normally a Delta flyer, and I *always* book on dl.com if I can. In fact, I tried buying this fare on delta, but it never priced out via ITA powertools, so I switched over to VA.com manual entry. I did end up paying more (about $300 for the ticket, about $220 for seats), but for a 15 hour flight, not being able to pick my seat is a deal-breaker.

We'll see what happens. I'm intrigued by this whole process.

Still no charge on my amex.

VladQ

I cancelled my ticket (same story, booked directly on VA website at $303) about an hour ago right before the 24-hours window was to close and, despite the fact that the Amex has been showing no pending charges from VA, the agent told me it's definitely been charged and that the refund will go back to the card in 7 business days. I had to call VA Call Center because the VA website cancellation link for the booking did not work (nor did the one on their mobile app). Both informed that cancellation needs to be done by phone.

TYSDoc

Well... no cancellation email from PL.
PL got their $21 “fee” (pending), and VA have a $920ish charge pending too. DL segment seats are selected.

Still can’t pick VA seats online, I had the sweet talking and softly spoken lovely MrsTYSDoc call and see what’s up. Apparently seats are assigned, no mention of fare issues.

this is our first error fare so I’m unsure of what to expect. Naturally, this board is awesome. And i’m trying not to get hopes up because a lot of friends and family live in MEL. So... anyone else so far successful with PL and or PL+VA?

CDKing

The fare was low enough to just not show up if a better deal came along

mc73

No, I bought two tickets on priceline yesterday, and they are ticketed and confirmed on VA's site as well as on PL site. No cancellation emails/ whatsoever. The only issue is that I cannot select/change seats without calling VA.

nk15

True, if you got the ~$100-300 fare for one person, and no other nonrefundable expenses.

durod

interesting language on their twitter 'we can't honour the fare unless...' etc..

i booked via VA website - to contact or not that remains the q!

soccerguy0322

Checked this morning and my credit card was charged by Virgin Australia. I booked via Priceline. Have confirmation numbers on Delta and Virgin, but am not able to manage my booking on Virgin without calling customer care. Do we think my tickets are going to be honored since the charge is no longer pending? I'm nervous to call! Haha.

6foot7

Looks like my ticket has gone through, no longer blocked out on VA and can select seats and all that.

If I'm reading correctly, looks like Delta Gold Medallion has no seat benefits on VA? Is this correct? I guess Econ X will have to do.

ldubin

Could try to reach out to their social media people...I would think they would have have like read-only access and call center people read-write...

drvannostren

Unless you're scheduled to travel really soon, just sit on this for a while.

If you can SEE your booking on VA that's a good sign, not being able to manage it can just be a symptom of booking through an OTA.

Sit on it for another 2-3 weeks and then if you're still in the same spot you can call and ask for a simple seat selection or something.

Calling is a bad idea EARLY on. It can alert them to the mistake closing it for others. Calling them a month after booking does nothing IMO. You're not gonna ruin anything for anyone. The phone agent isn't gonna see your booking and go "WOW, I better alert my boss that a $125 fare was out there". They're not even going to go after your booking. To that phone agent, it's just another booking, regardless of what you paid for it. Just don't call and say "hey I got a mistake fare and I'm wondering if the airline is gonna honour it?"

soccerguy0322

Sure makes sense. Thanks for the comments. Just logged back in to the VA website and see I'm now able to manage the reservation and seats have been assigned!

citrusflyer

normally I would 100% agree, but for this particular instance the cat is already out of the bag... the fare isn't there anymore and VA's social media platforms are full of people either mad that their itinerary was cancelled or asking if it will be honored.

I messaged VA's official twitter platform where a lot of people have been asking questions, and asked if my booking would be honored and they said it WOULD be honored.
To be clear - my tickets were purchased through VA's website and they were ticketed almost immediately.

I think there's nothing to be lost for asking them at this point. They've already made the decision, and I'm guessing that if your ticket isn't cancelled already it probably will be honored (IMO).

Good luck!

angra

Charge finally appeared on my amex sometime during the US day! I take that as a good sign. It's not showing up on Delta for me like it is for others.