It has been 10 days since I booked a cheap Air France first class ticket on Travelocity and six days since Air France cancelled it. I still have not received notice from either party concerning the cancellation.
Lack of prompt notice is the primary reason I have trouble accepting why airlines should be able to cancel so-called mistake fares.
Without rehashing the argument here, I’m open to giving airlines the same 24-hour period to void a reservation as consumers are, provided (like for consumers, per U.S. Department of Transportation [DOT] rules) there are at least seven days prior to travel.
It’s an imperfect solution, but far better than current DOT guidelines which appear to give airlines an open-ended wildcard to cancel fares at their whim they deem a mistake. Since the DOT has provided no guidance on what constitutes a mistake fares, consumers are left in the dark and airlines are left with far too much wiggle room.
But let’s take my Air France First Class example. It was not a $0 fare, but $671 for a one-way first-class ticket to London is far below the norm. As I stated here, I would not have protested had Air France promptly cancelled and informed me why, namely that the fare was improperly filed.
But here we are 10 days later and I have yet to receive any phone call or email from Air France. Oddly, I can still pull up the reservation on Travelocity and it shows ticket numbers and all flights confirmed.
CONCLUSION
All I’m saying–even for those who love to attack people who take advantage of these fares–shouldn’t an airline be expected to provide notice by now? Had I not been monitoring my reservation, I would have no idea Air France cancelled it. And shouldn’t Air France be held to account for failing to notify passengers?
Let’s assume for a minute that you show up to fly an Air France does not honor your reservation, can you take them to court? If yes, what is stopping you from going to a small town in the middle of nowhere?
@ Matthew — I wouldn’t expect a call or email. The Queen is requesting your presence at the Downtown LA Ikea.
I booked a Aeromexico flight ORD/LIM rt for my wife and myself. Business class was $569 pp rt on 12/15. The reduced fare was there for about 12 hrs.
Next day we went in and picked seats.
2 days ago I went in to add FF’#s. Low and behold only my wife was on the Resv. We called Chase travel and they took care of it by booking me a $1901 ticket no charge to me. But the price showed up on the Itn. They said they would deal with Aeromexico. Thank you Chase travel.
So I know how you feel. If I hadn’t gone in to make a change I would have never known about the change.
I’m not familiar with intricacies of the law but in these situations, who is the responsible party to notify the cancellation? The airline or the middleman (i.e. OTA) from whom you bought the ticket?
Your spot on and this is exactly why this makes a great case to highlight how bad the DOT’s decision was. Under the current rule you could book a legitimate first class fare months in advance only to have it cancelled just before travel because the airline decides it can sell your seat for more. What’s worse is that they are not in the least responsible for what it will cost you to secure last minute seats should you be required to do so.
This is a fight worth fighting and you have a great test case here given their lack of communication.
Simply show up at the gate on the day of the flight and see whether you get your seat or it has been given to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee because you mysteriously “canceled” it.
completely agree with the post. separately, the comments so far are especially dumb.
That is interesting. I booked through AF and they sent email and called at least 3 times (I missed the calls and they didn’t leave message) until they got hold of me. The call was from KLM, and was nothing special only said the ticket was cancelled and call AF if you need further assistance.
I wonder if it was because you booked through Travelocity?
Have you checked the AF website to see if the reservation is still listed there? Would seem that this is more significant than the travelocity website,
It’s not. It no longer showed up four days after booking.
Wish I had booked with Chase…