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United has posted a statement saying that it will not honor the mistake fares I posted about this morning that allowed one way or roundtrip First Class bookings from the United Kingdom to the United States for $100 or so. Here is the entire statement:
United is voiding the bookings of several thousand individuals who were attempting to take advantage of an error a third-party software provider made when it applied an incorrect currency exchange rate, despite United having properly filed its fares. Most of these bookings were for travel originating in the United Kingdom, and the level of bookings made with Danish Kroner as the local currency was significantly higher than normal during the limited period that customers made these bookings.
Isn’t that impressive? Several thousand tickets were booked. Good work guys! I couldn’t get my ticket booking done because Argentina.
My instinct on these is that every single person who booked one of the mistake fears knew it was a mistake, and over 99% of the people who booked one found out about the mistake from a forum or blog post that made it clear that this was a mistake. Maybe its my moral compass or maybe its my Contracts class from law school talking, but I think mistake should void a contract. Since United has cancelled the tickets within about 8 hours of their booking, no one should be inconvenienced by the bookings unless they made other non-refundable arrangements.
However, current United States Department of Transportation regulations are actually pretty clear that United can’t cancel mistake fares. That would constitute “increas[ing] the price” of air transportation after purchase, which is forbidden. (It is an increase in the price because canceling the ticket means the only way to fly the route is to purchase a new, more expensive ticket.) Check out all the legalese in 14 CFR 399.88. Based on my thoughts in the previous paragraph, I’d urge people to consider the mistake fare a free lottery ticket. If it’s honored, you win. If it isn’t, you didn’t lose, and you had fun playing. All this drama is fun.
But I’m sure a lot of people will file DOT complaints and maybe law suits. They are within their rights to take this mistake-fare saga that route, but morally they’re in the wrong. United isn’t trying to get one over on these people. These people are trying to get one over on United.
Now before anyone posts too angry of a reply, I want to clarify that I don’t think this is a small matter or morality, not a big one. If my friend said he was filing a DOT complaint, I’d say, “I hope you lose, but you’re still my friend.” It would be on the level of telling me he supported a different presidential candidate than me. No big deal.
I’ll be interested in how this all plays out, and I will keep everyone posted.
What’s your take? Did United respond appropriately? Is a DOT complaint appropriate?
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I hope too many people don’t launch legal action. I think the DOT has already signalled an interest loosening the regulations for airlines in situations like these and when people so obviously try to take advantage of a mistake, it only gives the airlines more ammunition to ask for leeway which they will abuse later on. Of course, if Airlines weren’t as unforgiving of consumer mistakes, people might not be as unforgiving in return…
It is true most airlines aren’t very flexible, but you do get 24 hours to cancel if you make a booking mistake (or just change your mind).
Good point, and United did cancel well under 24 hours.
Yes, I definitely understand why some people are mad at airlines, so they look for revenge in these situations.
Scott
Mr. Lawyer you have to have a Denmark mailing address to get that price they targeted them not the US . I wouldn’t honor the ticket and just think of all the free PR their getting .
They’d get more free PR if they honored the tickets 😉
Just to change the discussion a bit, I’m not quite sure of the instinct to find an obvious mistake fare, then broadcast it widely so that the seller will be swamped with orders and become much more likely to dishonor it. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to book quietly, maybe just let a few friends know, and see what happens? I stumbled across something like that while planning a trip to Europe. It was a very nice hotel in Norway where rooms were priced at 6 euros. That can’t be. So I went ahead and booked and kept my mouth shut. The rate was honored all the way. When I checked out, from curiosity, I asked the clerk about the rate. She said yes, they had briefly posted a mistake rate, but not many people found out about it in the time before it was fixed, and they decided just to honor it. (She added that she was glad it was her boss and not her who had made the mistake.) Certainly in the case of situations where the likelihood it will be honored is low if lots of people find out, shouldn’t one just keep quiet?
Yes your correct but I would’ve booked the room then emailed them and made sure it was they would honor it. I not going anywhere with a maybe thing . Honesty is the best policy I got a 27th floor room instead of a 8th in Vegas for doing that.
CHEERs
You may be right. But if this hadn’t been broadcast, let’s say a few people book it. Because it was, a few thousand people–according to United–booked it. Unless we decreased the chances by 1000x of no honoring, then it was better to spread the deal. Considering these deals are honored way more than 1/1000 times (see Etihad just honoring their Christmas mistake), it seems like a better move to spread the deal.
People who had to misrepresent their home address or billing address in order to take advantage of this pricing mistake should not, IMO, have their tickets honored by United. Should these people choose to file a DOT complaint or lawsuit, it will only give ammunition to those who want to change the current DOT regulations.
On the other hand, I think the airline(s) should honor those tickets purchased without any misrepresentation (ie. Danes in Denmark) on the part of the buyer.
That’s a reasonable standard.
Well, then you get in trouble with the EU, because ALL EU customers are guaranteed the access to same prices regardless of their nationality/citizenship etc. Basically, if you can by a product in DK for x in DKK, then anyone in the EU must be allowed to by the same product for x DKK regardless of whether they live in DK or not. United, as a merchant selling products and services to EU customers must abide by the EU consumer protection laws, so if UA honors the tickets issued to everyone in Denmark, it must do the same for everyone in the EU.
Very interesting !!! United could get a Big EU lawsuit . How do they get around that target a low volume route and open it to everyone BUT just that route ??
I have mixed feelings on this. Those who are saying it was immoral can do so as long as they didn’t book anything at all, not just if they didn’t file a DOT complaint. That aside, I filed a DOT complaint and I’ll state why, I look forward to the feedback on my thought process.
1) Precedent. United has not honored any such mistakes in recent memory while several have (Etihad, Delta last year, etc.) and it feels like they are above the law. The reasons for their denial are based primarily on a third party (with whom they have contracted) who made the error. If this is the case than it opens the flood gates to any company who outsources any part of their work force (everyone) and they are no longer responsible for their mistakes or actions. That’s a dangerous precedent to set and negates the good consumer protection intentions of 399.
2) Reasoning. They could have canceled the tickets for the use of the Danish website, the error in credit card country or any number of other errors that I’ll avoid going into detail on, and I would have been fine and not claimed. But they didn’t. They used, what is in my opinion the weakest argument possible, for cancelation justification.
3) Tone. Had United come out and said, “Due to a website error many inaccurate fares were purchased that will cost the company millions of dollars and we ask for such customers to cancel any tickets for which may not have been purchased in good faith” I might have dropped them all. At least one or two of them. That’s not me getting on a high horse, I just appreciate that maybe I didn’t need 3 trips and maybe I could have been okay in coach but I got greedy. It allows me to do the right thing without them lashing out at purchasers. I am a 100k mile flyer every year and I have yet to try United’ business or first class products, maybe I have been missing out. But I can’t use this ticket to try them out now, and I’m surely not going to accumulate and spend miles for a speculative flight in their deteriorated program.
Pleasant and polite wasn’t their tone. First they shed blame from themselves onto the contractors and take no responsibility, then on to consumers who took advantage of them. Wow.
What about their terrible website that has had three such catastrophic issues over the last three years? Is that to blame at all? What about their ineptitude in managing and correctly launching their new website two years ago which is still yet to go live?
Then they simply canceled the reservations without first communicating to customers before they did so. At first blush it would appear that their right to do so was murky, so to cancel unilaterally was borderline cocky. It also shows complete disregard for the DOT’s authority and ability to weigh in on the matter.
Some have suggested they worked with the DOT before canceling, and that may be true, suggesting they had the DOT’s blessing to cancel. But the way they did it hangs the DOT out to dry. A statement like this, “After speaking with DOT officials and reviewing the consumer protections in place, we believe that the nature of the mistake and other factors make these bookings erroneous and will be canceling them over the next 24 hours. If you believe that your ticket was correctly priced and wish to discuss the matter or take a closer look at your specific situation please call…”. But the way they went about it if they did have the DOT blessing led people to believe they did not speak with the agency on the matter and flooded the DOT with claims that they do take seriously, examine closely and respond to each complainant. That’s not how friends behave.
4) Reasonable assumption. The litness test for the DOT is could a reasonable person assume that these fares were valid. Everyone is saying no but I offer a couple of examples as to why that’s not crazy. Wow Air charges $200 return fares through Iceland to Europe from the east coast. Norwegian also offers really low prices all the time and United has matched those. Ryan Air routinely offers flights for £1 ($1.50). Is it not reasonable that a journey 5-7x the distance but priced at 35x the fare could be an accurate sum? I think so. United first and Ryan Air are two different beasts, but you can certainly fly coach from BOS-SAN, a distance of more than LHR-NYC for $100-150 in coach. Why would a shorter trip be more than that?
4 is such a stretch. This is First Class. Show me a non mistake First Class fare r/t from Europe to USA for under $1,000 in the last several years. That’s 10x this price, and I don’t think any exist. This was clearly a mistake.
Furthermore, I assume you didn’t assume at all. You knew this was a mistake, so talking about possible assumptions seems silly when none were made. We all knew this was a mistake.
I think La Companie (or similar) was advertising some business class fares between Paris and London to New York for that $1k range weren’t they?
Business for $1k roundtrip yes, so 10x the price and one cabin of service lower. I think the fact that this is the cheapest non-misktake fare in several years proves my point.
I am not saying that it wasn’t an obvious mistake. It was, and I knew it when I booked it.
I am just pointing out that a couple of years ago $300 roundtrips in coach to Scandinavia would have been outrageous, and now that is just part of the fare war with Norwegian. You would have never imagined $99 Boston to London and that’s routine on Wow Air now. While those are coach seats, I’m just saying that the frame of reference has certainly moved.
My issue is mostly with the precedent it sets. A few years ago there were RGN mistakes twice or three times. We flew two of them (didn’t book the third), both of which were honored and neither (in our cases) were the fault of the specific airline but rather a currency valuation that had effected several carriers. The carriers didn’t say that because a third party that they employ had made a mistake they weren’t responsible. They took responsibility, likely passed on the costs to the contractor and honored the fares. What if Orbitz makes a mistake and United doesn’t want to honor the seats? If they have a precedent that it wasn’t their direct employees so they can’t be blamed how can you enforce the rule going forward? And will it have to be a flagrant mistake of 10X for the mistakes to be honored? What about if you are shopping BOS-LHR and see a $99 fare in economy, I wouldn’t think that is a mistake but United probably charges 4-5X that price. How do I know that the price I see is not a mistake?
The issue for me is that of all the reasons to disqualify this fare for which I would not have argued with one bit (changing the country to Denmark, allowing my billing address to be incorrectly stated, etc.) they chose the one that is slipperiest of slopes for the rule generally. This rule is important because it also allows for some important changes and for airlines to have to play by some rules, though they hold the rest of the cards.
Etihad had a mistake on their website, are they responsible for honoring their fares? Delta had a mistake last year, if they employ any third parties are they responsible. They are, so for the reason UNITED listed, they should also be held to the same standard.
I personally flew YUL-MUC one way in LH F for the equivalent of $800 last year …
Enter the GIVEAWAY maybe you’ll and it will pay for the points devalue @ SW . We know that’s not rigged like the airlines are..
The morality of getting over on United? Seriously? United is a multination corporation staffed with people who constantly make decisions to maximize profits that seriously inconvenience customers. I made a ‘mistake’ booking an award the other day and United made me eat the change fees. Now I want them to eat their mistake. I wonder if you had gotten a ticket booked… your compass might point in a different direction. Especially if it was First class in Swiss.
I had Lufthansa lined up. Your comment illustrates my point about people just wanting to get even with United, which I can empathize with. But I still disagree, and I still count you as a friend JB.
[…] A few weeks ago, United’s Danish website was way under-pricing First Class tickets from London to the United States, about $100 to anywhere you wanted to go. United said it would not honor those tickets, and I sided with United while noting that United States Department of Transportation (DoT) rules seemed … […]