I’ll be honest…I thought I had squeaked by. But no, Air France has now cancelled my first class reservation…four days after ticketing it.
While most people booked Los Angeles (LAX) or San Francisco (SFO) to Paris, I booked San Francisco to New York in Delta Business Class and then Air France First Class from New York to Paris. I also booked my trip long after it purportedly “died”.
> Read More: How I Booked My Air France First Class Ticket
While my itinerary still shows up on Travelocity, as of this morning it no longer shows up on the Air France website–
I am not threatening a lawsuit at this point, but I am deeply disappointed that it took Air France so long to cancel this. Furthermore, Air France has failed to communicate with me concerning the cancellation.
That just doesn’t sit well with me.
Unlike the SWISS First Class fare, I knew this was a mistake fare. Trying to pretend otherwise would be disingenuous. But when I make a mistake, I have 24 hours to correct it if I book more than seven days in advance. If I book less than seven days in advance, I am out of luck.
Why shouldn’t an airline be held to the same standard? More fundamentally, why should a normal consumer be penalized for not knowing the difference between a great fare sale and a fare “too good to be true”? Why should any passenger be penalized if the airline takes its sweet time in acting?
CONCLUSION
I’ll guard my words closely as I consider how to deal this, but Air France should be held accountable for failing to notify me in a prompt manner that it would not honor its cheap fare. At the very least, airlines should be held to the same standards consumers are.
Who else found their reservation cancelled this morning?
I did and I do plan to pursue, I agree if they would have cancelled promptly but I did not book the special with Emirates that came up the next day since I thought I had an Air France ticket and I did not want to have 2 tickets to Europe
Booked with a traditional travel agency. They changed the status from HK to HX in the agency system (Apollo).
The sent the agency this message on 23DEC when it was booked on 19DEC.
PNR CANCLLED PER FARE FILING ERROR
PLEASE CONTACT INSIDE AF/KL SALES FOR REFUND PROCESS
Oddly KLM Customer Service sent an email to my address (ticketed on 057) with this message on 22DEC.
Dear Customer,
Due to a system error, your ticket/s for travel on Air France in La Première/First Class which was recently purchased has to be cancelled and will be fully refunded.
We request you to contact your travel agent for further assistance related to the refund.
We apologize for this inconvenience. We thank you for your understanding.
Kind regards,
Air France
Munich ticket originates in Sydney and I have already filed a lawsuit with the kangaroo court.
@Carlos – while your case is a long shot, google “promissory estopple / detrimental reliance” for some potential legalese to include in your complaint.
Keep up the good fight. I’m too much of a coward and loser to fight this.
Mine got canceled 72 hours after ticketing. I got an email from KLM about the “system error” and then 3 follow up calls – first from the AMS offices then finally from a Chicago call center to advise of the cancellation. No effort to offer alternatives other than please visit our website when you’re ready to purchase new flights. The charges on my Amex never went from pending to actual so no harm done.
FYI, mine posted (Air France charge) on 12/19. Still has not been refunded.
Lufthansa denied hoarding for my business class from DFW to Frankfort because I had not checked in online. They had given my sit to someone else. They refused to book me for the next day flight and asked me to call their reservation. When I called (still at airport), they asked an extra $3,000 to book me on the next flight. I brought a ticket with Qatar Airways, and after the trip submitted a compliant on Lufthansa website. They have refused to refund my money saying my ticket was non-refundable. It’s been one year now, without getting a refund. Any suggestions except not to fly Lufthansa?
Wow! Was there a mandatory online check-in requirement?
How about suing the Lufthansa employees for malicious intent, acting in bad faith, and intentional infliction of emotional distress? Even if you don’t win the case, the other employees might not be so ruthless and treating you with utter contempt. If they want to make the relationship adversarial, then you should fight back.
I can’t fathom how it takes so long to find these errors and to cancel them. Delta originally told me on my fathers auckland to Oakland cheap biz fare last month that they didn’t realize for five days?!???! What the?
I work for a trading firm and we spend money having controls in place so errors don’t occur. Why can’t Airlines?
In your experience, do bank cards with travel involuntary interruption/delay insurance offer to cover part of the cost of a confirmed airline ticket canceled by the airline without contacting the pax to offer alternative arrangements? AF should have a burden to demonstrate goodwill in contract handling by having a comparable class of service itinerary in another carrier.
I used my AMEX Plat. That’s a good question. I will look into it.
… I used my AMEX plat to pay the ticket and the travel cancellation insurance … I will look into the built in AMEX insurance … so far no refund from AF!
Of course the problem is that there are no consumer protections. The airlines act with impunity because no one is willing to create or enforce rules. I completely agree that they should be held to the same standard as they pax to. I don’t see how their one-sided contracts of carriage are enforceable
Sorry to hear it Matthew. Looks like you’ve picked up quite the caseload!
“Why shouldn’t an airline be held to the same standard?”
I agree 100%. This is so wrong on multiple levels. That is why I 100% support your lawsuit against Swiss.
How about also naming the individual company officers as defendants. This is way it will make it more personal and just may be they might think twice about shafting their customers if the individual employee involved and his/her manager is named in the lawsuit. Right now the guilty employees couldn’t care less about stabbing customers in the back, but if they know they will be personally sued they may think twice about it.
Bunch of whiners. You knew it was a mistake, just move on. Larger transgressions on true paid fares happen ever day, cover those. What about the positives like getting a 1000 dollar voucher from Delta for a delayed trip on Air France. Rules are rules take advantage of those not mistakes.
Air France cancelled my flight from Chicago to Paris the day before it was scheduled without explanation .It was actually the first leg as I then flew from Paris to Tel Aviv. It was business class so they offered alternative flights Chicago to London to Rome to Tel Aviv with long layovers each segment. I found 2 business tickets on American that would get me to Paris on time to catch the Paris to TLV segment. They refused to exchange it as it wasn’t a sister company. In the end we are flying a day later on the same flights but have lost a day out of a weeks vacation. We are arriving 14 hours later than their first alternative flights. And there is no compensation.
I think there is compensation under the EU rules, EC Regulation 261/2004. Check that out.
What I don’t understand is why are the airlines giving basically a free pass and not held accountable for what they do but yet if a consumer shows up 10 minutes before or doesn’t cancel promptly we are held to a higher standard??? As noted in the article how is a consumer to know what is considered a great fare or a normal fare?
Matthew I think you (and others) at least need to complain to the DOT. Now while this is almost certainly going to be fruitless I do think it’s worthwhile in one aspect. DOT needs to rethink how long airlines have to cancel mistake fares because right now the answer seeems to be unlimited. This creates a very serious potential for abuse.
Not to mention that a customer who has booked what many would not know is a mistake fare for a trip they have to take could then end up thousands of dollars out of pocket purchasing last minute replacement seats. A purchase that unlike say a cancelled hotel room the DOT’s current rule doesn’t not protect you against.
Only when people start screaming long and loud in these kinds of situations is DOT likely to revisit their ridiculous decision.
I figured they’d bust you, but it’s unfortunately they took 4 days to do it. What REALLY needs to happen is a class-action federal lawsuit against both the next airline that attempts to mass cancel reservations by claiming it’s a “mistake”, and the DOT. Maybe that’ll finally force some sort of consent order putting forth a uniform standard, i.e. “mistake” fares must be identified and canceled within 48 hours or tough luck to the airline. Of course, who has the time and money, either on the attorney side or consumer side, to pursue such an endeavor…