Brussels Airlines "Guaranteed lowest fare" - help
 

Hi all,

I'm looking at a flight with Brussels Airlines. However Expedia/Orbitz both offer the same flight for cheaper...

Here's the dilemma:

Should I:

1- Buy the cheaper fare. End of story.

2- Buy the more expensive fare at brusselsairlines.com, and then send them a screen copy of Expedia/Orbitz and have them implement their "Lowest Fare Guarantee", making the ticket %10 less than the Expedia/Orbitz price.

Anyone ever use Brussels Airlines' "Lowest Fare Guarantee"? Any luck?

http://brusselsairlines.com/en_us/lo...uaranteed.aspx

Not sure about foreign airlines, but I have never, ever seen a US airline make good on their "best fare guarantee." Caveat emptor.

Thanks for the warning. That's exactly what I'm worried about.
Airlines (or any company for that matter, will) always manage to find some fine-print as to why the guarantee is not valid in a particular scenario.

However, here it's the exact same flights... And They're offering a %10 discount on the lower fare, not just a voucher or %10 on the difference (which obviously wouldn't be that much).

Decisions, decisions.

I would just book it on Expedia/Orbitz. Less hassle than making a claim, and the 10% is probably not worth the risk of getting it denied.

I was successful number of times with BRG for hotels (Expedia, IHG, Radisson, Wyndham). Once was successful with airfare on Expedia (got $50 hotel coupon and rate adjusted). I heard people got UA vouchers with UA BRG (look in UA forum).

Expensive mistake - learn from it
 

Fti, you were SO right... Unfortunately I did not follow your advice, and learned the hard way. A mistake which cost me more than eighteen hundred dollars!

Hope others can learn from this and avoid the LFG ploy at Brussels Airlines.

Long story short. I printed out all the fine print of their "guarantee" and sat with a few friends and family to study the t&c thoroughly. After we were sure that we got each and every point on there, I went ahead and purchased through them.

Turns out the whole "guarantee" is, what appears to me as, a ploy!

I had a friend write up about it and post it to a blog he created. It's too long to copy and post here, but check it out:

http://snba-scam.blogspot.com/

I personally will never fly with them again, and neither will anyone of my friends and family.

Their guarantee may be or may not be scam, but all your blog post proves is that you don't quite know how to use a computer…

You tried pasting a screenshot into a word document… maybe pull the resulting word file into a database afterwards and import that database into CAD for good measure?…

OK, joking aside, just take some basic computer literacy courses…

Brussels Airlines scam
 

All joking aside, I can give computer literacy courses...

The point on the blog is simple: They request multiple files, and then appear to rig their own system to accept only one. (While obviously not mentioning ANYWHERE on their site that only one file gets to go through.) Had I known that they'll only put one file through, it wouldn't have taken me more than two minutes to have that done.

The copying and pasting into word, is just another side point to, what in my opinion is, their ploy. It is "their" instructions on how to take screenshots.

Read the blog again. It was written as if someone would be doing everything the way Brussels Airlines is asking for it...

The better question is whether it's worth the 10% discount to purchase through a third-party vendor. If you do, make sure that you read every single word of the t&c for the website through which you purchase. Those are in addition to the air carrier's t&c (and COC). Sometimes third party sites are acting as ordinary TA. Sometimes they are bulk purchasers who are reselling seats they bought.

None of this matters if things go smoothly and the vast majority of itineraries work out just fine. Where the problems arise is when things go wrong (schedule changes on the carrier's part or your part, IRROPS and the like). When you deal with one business, they've got nobody to blame. When you deal with more than one, you get finger-pointing while you sit at the airport.

Most of these things get worked out in the long run, but in the short run, you are stuck somewhere. Since we don't know the total fare and therefore what 10% means in real hard currency and we don't know your personal circumstances (what does that amount of money mean to you), only you can evaluate whether the deal is worth it.

People who refer to contracts as "fine print" need to buy a magnifying glass. It's not an excuse for not reading them and whether the contract is written in 72 point bold or 2 point italic is of no consequence.

I don't think you did read carefully enough. When reading the T&C, did you notice this:

The LFG will not apply where:
the cheaper online fare is not available to the general public. Such fares include, but are not limited to, corporate discount fares, staff fares, consolidator fares, wholesaler fares, student fares, closed user group fares

Most tickets sold on third party sites are consolidator fares and not eligible for these guarantees. I've never read of anyone ever receiving money back for this type of purchase. Your fare has to be EXACTLY the same (same fare code, etc.).

Yup, noticed that, and made sure that the fare was a "regular" one. I printed out the t&c and sat with a few freinds and family and studied it thoroughly. I was sure that I had all the bases covered. (didn't think for a second that even after following through with everything, they'd still find a way to con me.)

Anyway regards fares etc., that's where googles matrix.itasoftware.com comes in handy. It shows you the fare code of the tickets you are looking at, which can be compared to the fare codes on the other sites.

Hope this serves as a lesson to others.

btw, blog was updated slightly. http://snba-scam.blogspot.com/

Bittul, why don't you give us some more details? On what grounds did they deny your request for a guarantee? What exactly did you send them, and what did they say?

You have to have a "bittul" to expose it :)))

Just 1/64. :D

Seriously, you think that "most" fares sold by Orbitz, Expedia, etc. are consolidator fares? Priceline, sure, but not by those guys. The vast majority of their sales are the exact same tix you could get directly from the carrier.