Gabrca

Just received a call from Air France saying due to a system error the flight had been cancelled, in addition to a full refund they gave me a number where I could call to claim any reasonable expenses made in regards to this booking.

I think they have handled this very reasonably

palmanfr

Let's imagine one minute that you book a hotel room in a big city for one night in a couple months from now. You book a room for 100 dollars. A couple weeks later, the price surges to 300 or 400 dollars (because nowadays, all hotel companies uses the same yield management technique as the airlines, with dynamic pricing). Since you have a booking where you agreed with the hotel to pay 100$ a night, you should expect to be accomodated at the d-date for this price and not for 400$ because there was a sudden price surge due to a higher demand. It happened to me many times, and in different countries.
Just like AF (and airlines in general) dont make any nice gifts when you arrive too late at the airport, make the mistake of confusing 12.01am with 12.01pm, attempt to check in a luggage a couple pounds too heavy, or figure out after making a reservation that you misspelled you name or choose the wrong travel dates, they apply their rules and most of the time you have to pay. Here it is the same, they made a mistake, they corrected their error swiftly but some people took this opportunity, in good faith, based on the conditions which were provided to them at the time of the reservation. Airlines like AF or DL have teams in charge of defining the pricing of each flight. This is their job. Period. Those bookings were no result of any hack or manipulations outside of AF/DL.
If the airline suddently gets so cautious about issuing such fares, then they should review every ticket they emit to ensure no mistakes were made. They can still issue a booking reference right after reservation and issue the eticket once the reservation has been checked - automatically or not. I am by the way surprised that this is not the case for all First class tickets, as I don't think that the amount of those issued daily are impossible to manage). Tickets were issued by the airline under conditions offered by the airline and the customer agreed to those, so just like the customer must stick to the rules, the airlines as to take its responsability also.
"The Ticket evidences, until proven to the contrary, the existence of the conclusion and content of a Contract of Carriage between the Carrier and the Passenger whose name is shown on the Ticket."

Server

Okay did some digging, one of my itins was flagged on the system with the 'Error in Fare Calculation'. The origin of the flag was LAX. Thus if anyone here has or had the 'Airport Control' on the side, they were flagging the itins.

There won't be many, if any, to slip through the cracks.

Rowyourboat

Mine were canceled. Received a call from AF/KLM desk and a very polite agent explained the circumstances. Very helpful and I told her I understood and thanked her for the info.

When we (on FlyerTalk) were booking this fare, we knew it was a mistake. Maybe some of you didn't, but the majority knew that paying 10% of the ticket price is a mistake for a cabin that is notorious for being small and private. The bloggers propped it up as a mistake, and lots of people booked knowing this was an error fare and not a "sale". I know the DOT rules around this - if the airline can prove it was a mistake, then they're off the hook except for non-refundable expenses related to travel. So no shock here.

I think the right course of action is to lobby the DOT to start enforcing mistake fares. There was a cool USA Today article a while ago about how most people felt mistake fares shouldn't have to be honored, but those were the days when airlines were relatively friendlier. Now it's all about revenue optimization and squeezing any penny possible out of travelers, so we should be equally adamant in squeezing the airlines when we can.

When I book these fares, I know most of them will be overturned. I was upset and filed a DOT complaint at the VA fare because they took over a week to cancel it. AF was prompt, called, and did quite a bit in a short time to rectify the situation. So I'm not going to whine about what happened, but I'm not going to defend the airlines either. I want to figure out what it takes to get the DOT to change their policy and try to make that happen.

irishguy28

Which system is that?

invalyd

DL stock? Any idea how one can verify? I added the trip to Amadeus and do not see any notes on the ticket.

irishguy28

no harm in lobbying, but it appears that the regulatory winds are blowing in favour of the industry rather than the consumer these days.

cardinalkid1891

Got a call from Delta (went to voicemail). Didn't say what office or department she was calling from, but said my Delta ticketed flights will be canceled. She cited my travel dates. Said that they'll all be refunded "consistent with DOT guidelines", and that any prepaid expenses can be refunded as well. Wasn't hopeful, but was hoping they'd take a while (I had a flight booked for this weekend), but alas. Maybe next time

Server

https://classic.checkmytrip.com/plnext/XCMTXXNS/CleanUpSessionPui.action?SITE=XCMTXXNS&LANGUAGE=GB

Booked through AF stock- Enter in your info and on the linked page, check the 'misc' sections

Global321

Someone on another thread had a reasonable approach the DOT should adopt. Tie fare commitment to the time consumers have to cancel non-refundable airfare, typically 24 hours. Air France canceled within 24 hours, then no problem. If they waited beyond 24 hours - like BA does sometimes - then they must honor. If they want more time, they can change the cancelable time of all non-refundable fares to 48/72/96 hours - whatever they want. (These are big airlines that can run data analysis continuously to spot errors. We know they typically catch these fares within a few hours.) And to be fair to airlines, DOT could relieve airlines from having to pay any ancillary non-refundable travel expenses. Consumers would need to wait until the cancelable time passes. Right now it would 24 hours. Book early at your own risk.

Fair to both sides.

irishguy28

Tickets booked on the AF and KL websites, while made in the Amadeus GDS, are not open to third party sites such as that one.

AndrewT84

That link doesn't seem to work -- how do you access the Classic version of the site? The new version doesn't seem to have a "MISC" section

AndrewT84

Never mind...Found a working link in Google:
https://classic.checkmytrip.com/plne...&SITE=XCMTXXNS

Mine says "RETENTION" in the MISC section. I wonder what that means?

mills1090

How do you find the Amadeus PNR?

mills1090

Nevermind. Just found that I have incorrect fare pricing under my Amadeus itinerary. I'm guessing I will get the axe soon enough.