ggomtel

My ticket (950 euros fare bought directly with Iberia for direct flights) is still showing perfectly fine in the website. Do you think it is safe to buy positioning flights now? Departure is for September and prices are quite high already.

ecgz88

Got an email from Priceline: We were notified recently by LATAM of a fare filing error which resulted in invalid fares being ticketed for certain cabin class inventory, including for the fares that you recently booked through our site. We have been advised by the airline that they will not honor your reservation as booked, and your reservation has been cancelled.

PbodyPhoto

Considering there has still been no official communication from any of the airlines I wouldn't count on any rational action

SK AAR

Yeah, you can buy pos flights now (if you are prepared to cancel them or throw them in the bin!).

For travel in Sept. (low season) wait for fares to drop 2-3 weeks before departure. Currently you are paying a significant premium for any tickets in advance.

bimbonello

Oh come on man, your logic and examples are completely off and missing the point. The airline never DECIDED to sell the tickets at that price. You can pretend as much as you like but that doesn't change the fact that there was a human error with combination of OTAs dropping YQ. The airlines never LIKED the price. It wasn't valid pricepoint which they wanted to be selling for a week and then DECIDED that it's not the ideal price. Don't play dumb pretending that it was all intentional and now they reverted their decision. Nothing like that at all...
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If you like examples, try some which are more reflective of the situation, when there's a genuine error or mistake. Like if you went to an ATM, selected you wanted $100 but it errorneously gives you $500. You will then keep it and insist they decided to give you $500 and you're not giving anything back? Good luck.

Ridiculous. You all fill your boots spending time, money and effort fighting. Where you have potentially 4 parties involved, dropped YQ and 3 jurisdictions. Easy win.

patvd

The airline didn’t sell the ticket for 300, Iberia was selling them for 1k (300 plus taxes), and it still looks like they are going to honour the majority of those.
The OTAs managed to drop the taxes via a combination of intermediate stops and the use of different carriers. Good luck in convincing a judge that you bought the ticket not knowing there was an error in the pricing.

bimbonello

Scale people, scale! I don't know if was covid or this is just a new generation of people.

I'll tell you why. You're not processing thousands of tickets a minute. Your mistake affects only you and will not bankrupt you. How do you prove you wanted a different date a week later and it's not just you want to move your holiday? Do you still believe if an airline sells thousands of tickets deeply under their cost, they should honour it - even if it would bring the airline to the knees, cause layoffs and what not?

Just to be clear, I'm not defending the airlines. However, the examples and justifications being used on here so far are lacking any logic and are missing the wider context.

palmanfr

Hi, I basically went to the English version of the LATAM Spain website (My spanish is not so good...), selected help center on top of the page, then scroll down and on the right side there is a button called "create a case". Then, "I want to file a complaint" and selected the category "cancelled and delayed flights by LATAM". Add your email address (which is used by LATAM to track your cases and fill up the other fields on the next page.
My message to them was quite basic, feel free to reuse it by adding the information which is pertinent to you case (see below). In bold are the parts you would need to customize for your particular case.

"Hello,

On June 15th 2022, I booked a business class flight between MAD and SCL, issued on a 045 "LA" stock. Today, June 23rd 2022 (so 8 days after ticket 045-xxxxxxxxxx was issued), I received a notification that my booking was cancelled due to a "system/faring error", and that I will receive a refund. Considering this reservation is departing from an EU-airport, I would like to remind you that regulation EC 261/2004 applies on this booking and that in the event of a cancellation with more than 14-days notice, the airline is supposed to leave the choice between (1) a full refund OR (2) a rerouting in similar travel conditions to destination. I was not given this choice and I regret that my rights have been wiped away by LATAM for this ticket issued at publicly available prices at the time of booking. The airline, like any other company, is entirely responsible in defining selling prices for their products. Therefore, I am requesting you via this message to reinstate the ticket with the original origin/destination, fare conditions, same travel dates and conditions. After a one-hour phone communication with the travel agency "priceline", acting as intermediate between LATAM and me, they confirmed that the cancellation was deliberately issued by LATAM and that they were forced to issue refunds, thus in contradiction with the established regulation EC 261/2004. You will find attached my SABRE eticket receipt captured on June 21st 2022, together with the eticket receipt retrieved on the Finnair website. I keep available upon request the 1-hour long phone conversation record I had today with priceline if needed.

In the unwanted event I receive no successful reply within 14 days, I would like to inform you that I reserve the right to pursue legal action and/or action with the AESA to have my legal rights respected.

Kind regards,

(your name)"

The message sent for my case (fully cancelled booking) is slightly different than for my girlfriend (where only the flights MAD-GRU-SCL were removed and the IB PNR is still active as I am writing those lines). In both cases I attached the SABRE eticket confirmation from trip case and the finnair eticket receipt, indicating the date when those were downloaded. If you have screenshots from the MMB section of the IB or LA websites, or other things to support your case, I would recommend to include them. I just forgot to indicate on the message that both airlines (IB and LA) were aware of my contact details (phone number, email address and emergency contact details) as I added those to the respective bookings a day after the booking was made. If this applies to you, I would add this to ask them to explain why they never contacted you.
After submitting the case, you get a reference number, also by email, I just saved the message sent on my computer, but seems like you can also retrieve it on the LATAM website using your email as identifier. (I have to say it was quite easy to send them a message compared to other airlines who deliberately make it almost impossible to contact them)
Let's be honest, I am pretty sure LATAM will (1) never reply to me or (2) reply but without a "satisfactory outcome". The point of doing this is that before starting any procedure with AESA or a legal action, you must seek contact with the airline. Having a case receipt in hand (by email) and if no reply in a month, you can start the proceedings with the AESA (https://www.seguridadaerea.gob.es/es...a-reg.261-2004)
Let me know if you want other details on my case, I am not based in Spain (i am in the Netherlands) so I am not sure about the legal route there, that's why I am more a fan of the AESA route (at least for now...)

One last thing, I am sure some posters will say that none of those actions will not lead to anything etc... If that's the case, I don't think you should waste your time and energy to read and comment all the messages regarding this case. I am voluntarily sharing my way of doing this, it might be successful or not, time will tell, it's a first for me as most of the good deals I booked in the past I managed to fly them (and the only one which was cancelled, I got something out of it and the cancellation occurred less than 48 hours after booking, not 8 days). If you believe that the airline is rightfully doing what they did, fine by me, but I am not sharing the same opinion than you so you need to respect that. After all, it would not be the first time an airline tries to minimize their responsability (to say the least) in regards to EC 261/2004 or any other regulation. This is why regulatory bodies are overwhelmed with customer requests, who prove to be, most of the time, in their right.

palmanfr

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gas-stati...155126416.html.

Although the context and industry is different, but do you think the gas station owner or the authorities will go to visit each customer that day and take back 90% of their gas tank because of "improper pricing" ? Although I feel sad for the employee who lost his job on the way (who btw was able to refund the losses due to this mistake thanks to crowdfunding I understood), this is a business responsibility to check the prices on display. This type of stories happen everyday...

danger

If, as some have asserted, the OTAs are the ones that made the alleged mistake by dropping the YQ, why is all the communication saying 'LATAM cancelled your ticket'?

What part of EC261 refers to cancelled bookings?

palmanfr

Because the OTA indicated to me that LATAM forced them to cancel the tickets. And since LATAM told me before hand to contact the OTA, I have no reason to believe that the OTA lied to me. As one person wrote before, "one of the 3 parties punched us in the face, not sure which one". I will let the regulator decide who (if any) did wrong here. Right now, I just want to get a formal, reply from each of parties, maybe this will lead to a solution, but it will for sure generate documentation for an eventual future action.

danger

But what part of EC261 refers to cancelled bookings? I see no reference in EC261 that covers cancelled bookings.

patvd

From PL’s T&Cs:
“In the event that a service is listed or provided to us at an incorrect price or with incorrect information due to typographical error or other error in pricing or service information received from a Travel Service Providers, we retain the right to refuse or cancel any Requests placed for such service, whether or not the order has been confirmed and/or your credit card charged.”

YQ not charged is clearly an error, the sale can be invalidated, no ticket, no EU261, end of story.

palmanfr

You may have a point here, but I will let the regulator or any authority decide. Also, it might be bound to commercial law (or something of that sort) in Spain. Again I am not a lawyer, just trying to use the tools I have available.

palmanfr

That's because LA does not charge YQ on their tickets. See fare structure of the examples below. Exactly the same dates and flights. One on IB stock and the other one on LA stock. See the difference? No YQ on LA. Confirmed when looking at the price details when trying to make a booking on the respective LATAM and IB websites...
So the fact the OTA did not charge me for a YQ on a LA-issued ticket is therefore normal. Booking on the same OTA a IB-issued ticket would have costed me the YQ on top of the fare. I don't think LA and IB are in a joint-venture on the South Atlantic routes (unlike AA/AY/BA/IB on the north atlantic - in that case YQ is always charged whatever the issuing airline is).