[Anonymous]

[peter19]

This morning some great fares appeared for Oz out of Frankfurt – first class for £1300! Amazing fares if you had an excuse to go..maybe didn’t even need an excuse at that price.

I’m just wondering these have happened a few times recently and some airlines honor the fares and some have not.

Does anybody know what the legalities are around a ‘mistake’ fare? Is it purely at the airlines discretion whether they honor them or not?

[MartynSinclair]

If you search BT forum for the last year there have been 2 mistake fares… one that was allowed and one that was withdrawn and cancelled after ticket had been issued.

Who were these tickets with??

[peter19]

Hi Martyn,

it was with BA. There were some options on the routes including KUL on the way out and HKG on the way back. Not only was it Frankfurt The same was avail from France.

It was available on ba.com/AA.com and other sites.

check out the link : http://www.headforpoints.com/2015/08/20/ba-fare-error-first-class-to-asia-795-move-quickly/

The fares were available for several hours until they were eventually pulled before lunch (UK time)

[FDOS_UK]

I’m not convinced these are mistake fares.

[AMcWhirter]

Really it all depends on the airline, the route, the class of travel and how many passengers bought the “error fares.”

One of the last major incidents of error fares involved SIA business class tickets sold in Australia.

Here is the Forum thread:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/Haff-price-SIA-biz-class-tickets-to-Europe-sold-in-error

And here is our news report:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/101120/sia-to-honour-half-price-business-fares

[FDOS_UK]

“Does anybody know what the legalities are around a ‘mistake’ fare? Is it purely at the airlines discretion whether they honor them or not?”

The airline can repudiate the sale, so long as it does it in reasonable time.

[MartinJ]

There is no hard and fast answer to this question as it all depends in which country you would pursue a legal challenge. With airlines, you probably have a choice between the country in which the airline is registered, your country of residence or the country of departure of the flight in question. Chances are you would choose the location that has the most customer-friendly laws.

[MrMichael]

I read somewhere the legal position depends if the offer looked reasonable or was obvious to any reasonable mind to be a mistake, like Tesco selling iPads for 95p. Going by how crap many people on this forum say BA First is, one might come to the conclusion it was a reasonable fare for a crap product.

[Senator]

BA has had a bad string of luck. Two weeks ago, Oslo was wide open for six hours to America with error fares.

In my travel community in Stockholm, I know of at least 30 people that we able to get £375-400 Club World tickets to NYC, MIA and SFO. A good friend of mine is taking his wife and two daughters to Florida for about £1,200 with child and infant discount. BA has notified these travellers that they are honouring these tickets. One chap, booked 15 and I think cancelled about half all for business. His clients will be delighted by the savings which he is passing on.

The text in BA’s email left some room for interpretation: possible monitoring of skipping the last leg back to Oslo is how we read it.

You could however, look at it as a customer aquistion strategy. 2/3 of these travellers have limited experience with BA, nor status. Many optimised their routes to gain BAEC Silver. So perhaps BA now has 20 new customers for the future if they delight them on-board.

I was sound asleep in America and missed this. However, I was awake today for a stellar €1,100 BA First ticket to KUL. A dear friend got €1,800 to see the F1 in MEL next year. I booked KUL for Easter from Berlin-Tegel (TXL). I had two bookings but dropped one this evening. I was even able to get routes via SIN and HKG to sample BA’s A380 in First.

I like a good bargain, and €1,100 in First to KUL is certainly one to have.

[onajetplane]

I was lucky enough to get one of these fares (they didn’t last long). £1320 Berlin – Sydney (BA) with London – Sydney segment in First. Peak December flights for Christmas and New Year. Eticket confirmed and seats chosen. 930 tier points for this one itinerary. Absolutely delighted 🙂

[1nfrequent]

I know I’m too late for the mistake fares (and they wouldn’t have worked for me anyway) but I am considering a journey to Oz next September/October/November. Does anyone know what the typical ex-EU fare would be on this for CW? Am hoping to get something for EURO2000 – EURO2500 but don’t know if I’d have better luck hitching a lift on flying pigs. (I know that ex-OSLO fares came in under EURO2000 but don’t know if that’s typical or not).

1F

[LuganoPirate]

I seem to recall it was Singapore Airlines that refused to honour an error fare. I think it highlighted on this forum.

[MartinJ]

1nfrequent, I’ve been monitoring ex-Europe fares for the last year and the current Norway sale is the lowest I was able to find on BA. Never seen it under the current 2,500 Euro. If you are happy to fly Qatar thex very occasionally do flash sales of around EUR 2,000 from various places ranging from Paris to Barcelona to Sofia. Air India are consistently offering year-round ex-FRA or CDG for EUR 2,500 on their new 787s with decent fully-flat seats (certainly more spacious than CW). Finally, there’s a current China Airlines fare ex AMS for EUR 2,100. Best to set up a fare alert on Kayak or other sites.

[StephenLondon]

For the BA Fare, it was pointed out on FlyerTalk that business class and first class had been inverted by accident. Indeed, Head for Points even called it an error fare, so many people, when they heard of the fare, knew it was an error.

For the ex-OSL fares, I believe BA were quite lenient in letting people fly. For those that got Silver, etc., it might be a good way to encourage new business. But the ex-Germany fare of Thursday may be another issue, as some flights (like the BA380 / BA787-900) had much of their First inventory sold over peak travel periods when BA could easily maximise revenue for these seats. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if BA cancelled the tickets that have been issued. Permitting them twice in short succession would admit setting precedent.

Were I to have bought one of these fares, I would wait some time before booking any non-refundable hotel accommodation down-route.

[Author]

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