Comments on: Sorry, those $40 fares on British Airways weren’t for real

By: Delta wins tarmac delay hall of shame in latest month as airline complaints skyrocket

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:02:04 +0000

[...] covered the BA debacle extensively on this site. Sad [...]

By: British Airways – US – Bombay $40 ticket error « Words fail me…

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:37:02 +0000

[...] To read more about the fiasco, and BA.com’s reply, click here [...]

By: SC

SC — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:10:34 +0000

This is a pure marketing gimmick that BA is into… Today when I got a call from a customer relations personnel, he was more than just rude. All he can say is BA is not honoring the tickets and we are free to start from scratch.

I even complained saying that I lost chances of selecting another airlines at a lower price and this action is ridiculous.

Further more I also happened to speak to a customer servise person soon aftert I made the booking, and I was told that the prices were for real. However in this scenario they claim to have booked over 1000 tickets and considering just that more than $6,000,000 are in BA’s pocket for 10 days after October 2nd (that is till the money is refunded back to the people).

This is ridiculous if they still continue to dishonor the fares, count me in, and I am ready for a case action.

By: Huzefa Chithiwala

Huzefa Chithiwala — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:12:56 +0000

Here is some interesting info. I got a call from a person that his reservation has not been calcelled and he had purchased it directly from the BA web site. So I thought about it and came to the conclusion that people who called to confirm or make changes have been PROFILED for cancellation. This makes sense. All these reservations span a year on different dates, times and flights, it would impossible to find hundreds of these reservations so how do you solve this problem, when someone calls you tag their record and cancel. This is sneeky, unethical and downright a dirty corporate game. That is why the silence from BA. Lets eliminate 70-80% of these reservations and minimize the loss.

By: harry

harry — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:48:45 +0000

I have and know 6 people who booked and will joine the action.

By: Huzefa Chithiwala

Huzefa Chithiwala — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:47:31 +0000

I just received an email from the passangers rights group with phone# of attorneys who are interested in helping and the email address of the head at the department of transportation. I will be calling these attornies and keep you all posted. I need a count of how many of you want to participate and standup for your rights? I will keep you posted. In the meantime go to this web site http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com/ and make the call and also fill out a report on the dept. of transportation web site. We all need to do this.

By: Huzefa Chithiwala

Huzefa Chithiwala — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:29:28 +0000

Chris, someone has to take responsibility and it should not be the customer. In today’s Corporate greed and fraud it should be the corporations. We all rely on technology today to process information and make decisions based on this information. I had set an alert on BING.COM using a tool that analizes airlines and sends alerts to buy tickets, I had set this alert 5 months ago for the exact destination and date, a co-incident you can call it, based on this alert I purchased the ticket directly from BA web site. We all do stock trading what would happen if the BA stock would “by mistake” sell for pennies, how would this be resolved, some would loose millions and some would gain. Would this not be brought to the attention of the Security and Exchange commission? Lets go back to the simplest form of trading I been to flee markets sometimes prices are miss-labeled my experiences has always been that the vendor always give me the lower price. It is than clear that a individual is more ethical than a corporation. Corporation hide behind the curtian of leagal mumbo jumbo and do not even have the guts to face their customers and to top it of they are outright rude on the phone, I call them corporate robots, they should know this if BA ever has a layoff the management will not know or care if that employee defended off our requests and inquiries they will go down just like all of us. THE BIG CORPORATION WINS AGAIN, are we going to stand by and let this happen? I am in for the class-action law suite count me in. If there is a BA employee reading this and feel this to be unjust contact standup now and help us blow the whistle like so many did in Enron and other companies. Lets us know the real scoop. Be annonomous.

By: Scholar in Training

Scholar in Training — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:42:25 +0000

I support small claims action against British Airways on this matter. I would encourage everyone who was ticketed, and then canceled, to pursue this to the fullest extent of the law.

By: Christopher Elliott

Christopher Elliott — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:13:20 +0000

@AKT, I think your argument is confused. Just because we have to pay when we make a mistake with an airline reservation doesn’t mean it’s right. You are, in effect, arguing that because BA makes us cough up a change fee for an erroneous booking, it should honor its fare error. This isn’t logical. In fact, I would argue that this “tit-for-tat” mentality is what has lead to the rise of customer-hostile, low-cost carriers that take advantage of customers at every turn. Come on. We are better than that.

By: AKT

AKT — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:05:25 +0000

Chris, you wrote: “don’t you think that by taking advantage of a company when it’s made a mistake, passengers are behaving as badly as the airlines?
I mean, the way I see it, when you knowingly book a fare that is a mistake, you are basically stealing”. I am sorry but this shows confused thinking. When we make a mistake, we pay for it, by losing some of our money. Why is it a bad thing BA has to live by the same rule? Why is it stealing if I accept BA’s offer, below but around the general ball park of low fares ($650 instead of $750). Businesses routinely clear out inventories for their own internal reasons – am I supposed to feel guilty about buying low priced items? I have bought $100 items marked down to $1 without anyone accusing me of stealing three days later.

By: PM

PM — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:10:02 +0000

People started receiving mail as below:
————————————————-
Dear Mr XXXXXX

On Friday October 2, 2009, British Airways updated its air fares between
North America and India.

Unfortunately there was an error and the fares that resulted were
incorrect. This error was corrected within a few hours.

Due to the error, British Airways is unable to honour your booking.

If your credit card was charged, British Airways will refund in full the
cost of your ticket and apologies for any inconvenience.

Please contact British Airways (on 1-800-AIRWAYS or 1-800 247 9297 in the US) at
your earliest convenience for further information.

British Airways

By: SC

SC — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:57:37 +0000

Do let me know if any mass action is being planned. I will also join. I am consulting a legal counsel tomorrow anyways. Guys, do update, lets not give up on this turmoil caused by BA.

By: T.S. Babu

T.S. Babu — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:57:16 +0000

I sent my story to cnn. The following is the link
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/tips/index.html
When spoke with travelocity customer service agent, they are not very helpful. They kept telling me they are refunding the money without any penalty. They do not want to hear any arguments and they are just asking ” is there any other questions or is there any thing that we can help.”. If we make a mistake in our booking or they allow us to cancel or change? No. They charge us hefty amount for change. Now, they make a mistake and they do not want to own up that. I have asked about the travelocity guarrentee. It is mentioned in their website. It appears we will not be able to win this.

By: Bhargava Ravoori

Bhargava Ravoori — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:27:00 +0000

I have spoken with representatives from British Airways and orbitz.com and neither seemed to have any valid explanations. The representatives were rude and impolite and hung up on me without answering my questions. I have subsequently filed a complaint with my local BBB office against British Airways. With sufficient force we should be able to get BA to own up the mistake it did. It needs to understand that it cannot unilaterally cancel tickets without any intimation to the passengers.

By: T.S. Babu

T.S. Babu — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:20:15 +0000

I’m with you all. I booked the tickect on travelocity website for BA flights. They already charged my card on oct 2nd. Travelocity sent me an email today (10/06/09 5:17 PM) to contact us with 48 hours, otherwise they will not honor the original booking price. I contacted them and they are not honoring the original booking price. We should all act together.The following is their email to me.

Please call us immediately regarding your flight reservations.
*********************************************************************

We have learned that the airline did not confirm the flights you requested. Unfortunately, this means that we are not currently holding air reservations for your trip to Bangalore, India.

Your immediate action is required.

Please call our Customer Support Center right away to review your available options and to confirm a new flight schedule for this trip. You must call us back within 48 hours or we may not be able to honor your original booking price.

We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Your Trip ID is: xxxxxxxxx78
———————————————————————–
CUSTOMER SUPPORT

In the USA: 1.888.756.2749 24 hours a day/7 days a week
Outside the US: 1.210.521.5871 24 hours a day/7 days a week
En Espanol: 1.866.828.3933 7am – 10pm CST
TDD/Hearing Impaired: 1.800.555.7585 7am – 10pm CST