Dear Alex,
On May 5, I purchased a £2,232 British Airways return business class ticket to fly from London to Vancouver in early July. At the time of booking, ba.com flashed the message “only two seats left at this price”. A week later, BA announced a summer sale and I found the same flights had been reduced to £1,949. Is this legal practice?
I later phoned BA to check the status of my flights and staff told me business class was “wide open” so that’s why the airline had decided to run a seat sale. Do EU passenger rights cover this eventuality? Could I challenge British Airways for a refund of the price difference?
Mike van Gerven, Riyadh
Alex replies:
If it’s any consolation, there must be tens of thousands of travellers around the world who are similarly affected. That’s because in the economic downturn every airline has been forced to offer a business class sale of one sort or another to fill their empty seats. Prices have typically been cut by between a few hundred and a couple of thousand pounds depending on the airline and the route.
I sympathise, but the hard truth is that no refund is due. No EU passenger rights cover this eventuality. The thinking is that an airline seat is like any other consumer product. Just as you could lose out if an electrical store cut the price of a laptop or a television a few days after purchase, the same scenario applies to a flight ticket. If you were to complain to BA, I am sure the airline would offer a similar excuse.
As for the matter of seat availability, behind the scenes staff constantly monitor flight loads and allocate seats into the different price bands. When you booked online there were probably fewer seats allocated to the particular excursion rate you had chosen. But later, after the seat sale had been announced, staff would doubtless have increased seat allocations to the cheaper price tiers to provide more availability for passengers.
The issue of seat availability among the different pricing tiers is something that is impossible to prove. Such information is held by the airlines themselves and is not publicly available.
In today’s volatile market, people looking to book a business class ticket should shop around. Be wary when booking far ahead – the only reason to commit yourself to a trip months in advance is if you plan to travel at a busy time, such as the festive season, when discounted rates may not be offered and when you must be at your destination by a certain date.
