skywalkerLAX

Well, most of the airlines nowadays keep it for a while because of their grace period for free changes / cancellations.

It makes it easier for the accountings if not every single charge goes through right away, just in case the ticket will be changed for whatever reason.

dan1431

Just an FYI, you are not actually speaking with SWISS, rather you are speaking with Enhanced Customer Care Solutions which is SWISS's outsourced Customer Care in the USA. That is why the Supervisor was totally unaware of the situation, they were simply given instructions on how to handle X reservation and that is all they are allowed to do.

The 877 number and the Melville address are for Enhanced Customer Care Solutions.

I called LX back and after speak to a very nice but useless agent, she told me that she works for Enhanced Customer Care Solutions and that they know something is wrong, but were only given the remedy of re-faring or refunding/canceling the reservation. She said that I should try and contact SWISS North America to further my complaint as that is the only escalation available.

Dan

airoli

Any further word on the alleged offer by LX to honor this ticket in full Y?How about dealing with LX reservations in Switzerland? Those people are employed by LX directly AFAIK.

SuperFlyBoy

Well, I still don't believe that they allow this, but I have never tried recently, and ex-India LH manually tickets their online reservations.

divrdrew

I got two on Saturday to ZRH around 4:30-4:45 pm. Never received email confirmation of the first, but did on the second. Have screen prints of res number on both. Got two calls but didn't answer them. Just checked my credit card and no charges yet, not even a hold. Booked at swiss.com directly with ns AC YYZ-ZRH both ways. Looks like I'm screwed...never got charged, no ticket numbers issued. I do have a ticket TPA-YYZ to catch my flight though. Not quite sure what I should do...still wait and see how it resolves? Call NYC Swiss HQ? Any suggestions?

f0zzyNUE

thanks for this very entertaining thread ... don't all booking engines state that the fare price is not guaranteed until the ticket is issued through the carrier?

so when the (error)fare was retracted from the system - how can a ticket be issued (without a valid fare) ???

szg

We do our best !!

SuperFlyBoy

In my experience (limited), they are not any better in CH...

However, what is the consensus that they should accept the bookings to augment their operating costs? Isn't it better than flying empty?

airoli

No, but they might have more decision power than the outsourced US agents?Not at all, because

• With a base fare of zero, they earn absolutely nothing, not even to cover fuel & meals
• What makes you think that they would fly empty if not for us? I'm sure they could sell those seats anyway. And even if they sell them for $1, that's $1 more towards the cost they incur. As long as the achieved ticket price is lower than the variable cost per pax, it's better to fly (that seat) empty.

SuperFlyBoy

That's assuming that the variable costs are more than the "charges" they have stipulated on the ticket.

GVA

I'm sorry but that simply is not true. A number of LX's base fares in Europe are 2-5USD. The taxes are often 100-130CHF. EI for example have many flights with 0 base fare.

Fact is, fuel surcharges DO make money for airlines and there is proof that European airlines charge different amounts on airport taxes, pocketing the difference.

This fare would not be a total loss for LX and would be quite similar to somebody flying non-revenue. Base fares these days are often irrelevant in the whole spectrum of things.

SFO777

Exactly. Think Ryanair whose business model seems to be zero/near zero base and make money on the taxes/surcharges.

airoli

I have not seen LX base fares in the 2-5USD range for quite a while - care to provide a few examples? EI has a different business model in that they rely much more heavily on ancillary revenue made from pax while they travel, so that is not a valid comparison.

Also, we are talking here about long-haul travel and not short hops, where I grant you that airlines probably make some money out of "fuel" surcharges.

The difference between a non-rev and this fare is that the non-rev only travels when the seat really would go empty otherwise, whereas a pax on this fare might obviously displace another pax willing to pay more. And even a non-rev frequently pays something like 10% of the real fare, which still consists a contribution towards the variable cost.

Mind you, I don't try to defend LX here and think they should come forward with a better response than just "we cancel on you". But I am pointing out that this would certainly not be a profitable course of action for them.

GVA

I booked a LX flight from LON-IST which had a base fare of 8USD earlier this year. LON-MUC on LH at the same time was 5USD.

With fuel surcharges coming down, airlines have transferred these back to the base fare. The result though is the same on the final amount for most fares.

That's why seeing a base fare of 0 for LX, isn't that surprising for me and anything below 20USD isn't a rare occurrence. It becomes hard to distinguish whether or not it should actually be zero for a typical consumer who has a limited amount of awareness of how airline fares work.

Similarly, when booking this fare. Swiss.com did not put into evidence the base fare of zero. Instead all receipts and amounts show the final fare which is far from being zero. It's a hard one for LX to convince any judge that there was not mutual consideration in the contract (price has no effect in countries following British law principles).

f0zzyNUE

well - there is a HUUUUUGE difference in a 0$ base fare between a short inner european economy flight and a business class fare including two intercontinental sectors one way.

btw, there are NO 0$ revenue fares - they have to be at least 0,01$. ryanair never gave away tickets for free (= 0$) but the ticket cost 0,01€.

BTW, i am still entertained by this thread