SK AAR

As quickly as practical and reasonably possible. For travel in 2 months time we are nowhere near that. For travel this or next week, it should have been communicated by now.

palmanfr

Maybe I am naive but one of the benefits I see with filing a claim with the AESA is that the airline will have to give them a proper, documented reply (and they don't typically provide this type of reply to us, customers) so there may be less bs in there. At the end, nobody forced them to sell tickets at this price.

SK AAR

Yes, I would also assume this. The problem is that once properly explained by the airline the CAA/national body like AESA is likely to side with the airline. There are several examples of this with previous fare mistakes; in fact I think we have yet to hear of a national body decision in favor of the passenger when it comes to fare mistakes. A pax trying to rely on and to enforce a contract/ticket that most would view as "too good to be true" is likely to fail; sorry.

bimbonello

There was a court ruling in the Czech Republic back in 2019, involving error F fare sale by BA (2015). The court uphold the consumer's rights and ruled that there was a valid contract and the consumer was not responsible for checking whether the fare was valid or not (BA argued there was no contract of carriage as it was a clearly error sale). However, the price wasn't crazy low as this one. It was around €1200 first class to Malaysia. So it also depends on circumstances.

palmanfr

Do you have a link to this ruling ? I am interested to read more about it, especially if it does jurisprudence or not.

Scottyrocket

Can you provide us with links to back up your claims? I'd love to see copies of the rulings that fell in favour of airlines when made fare mistakes

SK AAR

No, I don't have links. You can view the various threads about other fare mistakes in this forum where pax has filed complaints with the CAA/national body (not courts) about airlines voiding fare mistake tickets.

I recall a fare mistake (probably 3-4 years ago) where DOT in the US decided in favor of the airline (which was quite surprising as the DOT is known to be a very passenger/consumer friendly body) - sorry, I can't remember which of the many fare mistakes from the past, it was.

ComandantePuchinetta

There was an interesting precedent in Spain back in 2011 with Etihad. (lavanguardia.com/economia/20111106/54237592746/etihad-cancela-300-billetes-de-alta-gama-que-vendio-a-bajo-precio-por-error.html)

I have been told by a legal advisor specialized in the industry that this ended up as joint demand and that the company (few years later) honored the tickets. I been unable so far to locate more links.

It could be an interesting precedent in the event of a joint demand in Spain. Pending further information.

bimbonello

I don't have the link to the ruling, as I don't know where these are stored in the Czech system (or even of they're in English).

Here's the article which got reported in the news. That was the initial decision which BA unexpectedly appealed to. The final hearing then confirmed the judgement too. The law firm later gave update on that, but wasn't in the news.

But you also get the opposite ruling as reported on flyertalk here (from post #252 onwards). Never a clear cut.

FrankTalk

Maybe a short primer is required here. A ticket is basically a receipt of payment for (future) services rendered, a proof that you're entitled to travel on the services that are on printed on the receipt. The issuing entity has control over the ticket as long as they are the ones re-/issuing it. As soon as an airline messes with it and reissues in whole or part the agency loses control and can't make further reissues, can't revalidate or refund either. There's some debate whether the agency still has a responsibility if it's a wholly unflown ticket. In my experience not necessarily and they often dodge by saying the airline took it over and it's their problem from that point on - and more than a handful airline agents do agree on this and will continue to service/refund such a ticket. Also, "airport control" as such has no meaning here. The pax checking in can hinder an agency to service or refund a ticket but it's a fairly easy thing to solve and check in status doesn't change control of the ticket.

Another element of your travel is your reservation. This is nothing more than a confirmation from the airline they accepted your seat reservation request on a specific flight(s) in a specific class(es) on a specific date(s). That's it, nothing more and nothing less. Anyone messing with the reservation alone will have zero effect on the ticket status and barring some rare exceptions an airline butchering an itinerary (ie reservation) has no effect whatsoever on the agent's ability to service the ticket itself because these are separate items. So when IB asks LA to remove a segment that has zero effect on the issued document (ie ticket) - at that point they only changed the reservation, not your ticket, which is still under the agency's control. For travel you'll need both of these items, a reservation confirming the airline accepted your travel plans and a receipt (ticket) that you paid for it.

In any case, I'd say it's hogwash: 99.99% that PL still has control of your ticket.

This is not only for you but to all the people going on about EU261. The most important terminology is the one in the actual EU261/2004 regulation which you probably never have read. You should, it's not long and the language is fairly easy. Article 1 defines very clearly the applicability of the regulation:
"This Regulation establishes, under the conditions specified herein, minimum rights for passengers when:
(a) they are denied boarding against their will;
(b) their flight is cancelled;
(c) their flight is delayed"

Cancellation, which you think is an important terminology is defined as:
"‘cancellation’ means the non-operation of a flight which was previously planned and on which at least one place was reserved."

So please tell me, how is an airline being unwilling to accept your reservation/ticket falls under: 1) denied boarding, 2) your flight not being operated (aka "cancellation") or 3) your flight being delayed? When EU261 was worded it was beyond thought for the lawmakers than airlines will be refusing transportation of pax on flights they have enough space because of [insert reason] and as such it contains exactly zero provisions for such cases. Or maybe they did not intend to cover this particular possibility, who knows. In any case this is not the regulation you're looking for if you want to fight this.

SK AAR

That is indeed very interesting. Thanks for the input.

Admittedly, I did not check the wording under the EU Reg. on what is actually considered as a cancellation.

freed0m

Then the airline should at least notify the passengers and process refund promptly.

Shl

Many thanks for taking the time to provide all the detailed information, this is very helpful indeed.

In the meantime, I have asked LastMinute to -re-confirm the ticket and flights with LATAM.
I asked them to either tell me if the ticket or any flights are canceled and confirm the refusal of my re-route request or confirm that I can fly the ticket as booked. Same communication also to LATAM and IBERIA.

Let's wait and see. This time things are different since my flight is next week. If I do not board the flight they could argue that no refund is applicable because of a no-show. So it is critical. And I am not willing to cancel the ticket from my side. There is no reason for this.

Shl

SK AAR - Neither Iberia nor LATAM nor my TA has ever communicated any price mistake to myself or any other party involved. So this is not about a price mistake. Things do not just become true when you post them over and over again. Also, my ticket is not canceled but just changed. Let's switch the discussion to the usual price mistake legal discussion when it is communicated as such. This case is different from the others.

Flying Machine

in the United States it’s 120 days from the transaction date:

What Are American Express's Chargeback Time Limits? In most cases, American Express cardholders have 120 days after the transaction occurs to file a chargeback. However, for chargebacks related to damaged or defective items, the deadline is 120 days from the day the item was received.