Happy New Year! I went to bed just after midnight last night in Germany and woke up with a flood of texts, tweets, and emails about cheap Cathay Pacific business and first class fares out of Vietnam. It was already too late for me, but did you get in on it?
As I write this now, at around 10:00A.M. in Germany, the fare is long gone. The fact that Cathay Pacific has zeroed out all business class and first class transpacific space suggests the carrier took drastic measures to stop more people from booking the fare. After all, it is difficult to resist such a great fare even if it requires a positioning flight to Vietnam…
Cathay Pacific’s actions do suggest this was a mistake fare, but I am not willing to rule out this was just a particularly sweet fare sale. Let’s not forget Qatar Airways’ Golden Sale which also originated out of Vietnam. I was able to enjoy Qsuite business class for $672 round-trip on that fare and Qatar made no indication that it was a mistake fare. There were no sudden currency fluctuations with the Vietnam Dong.
> Read More: Booked! Over 20K Miles in Qatar Airways Business Class for $672
I maintain that consumers should not have to ascertain whether a fare is “real” or a mistake. As a public policy compromise, I would give airlines the same cooling off period that consumers have: up to 24 hours as long as travel is more than seven days away. Under current U.S. law, airlines can cancel tickets they deem a mistake but must reimburse travelers for any non-refundable travel costs made in reliance upon the cancelled booking.
It will be interesting to see what Cathay Pacific does with this. The fact that so many major travel blogs picked this up yesterday suggests that a lot of tickets were booked.
My prediction is that Cathay Pacific will honor the tickets booked. Should that not be the case, we will have some fun analyzing the reasons Cathay Pacific provides for trying to wiggle out.
CONCLUSION
What a nice New Year’s treat! Congrats to those who booked this. I hope Cathay Pacific will honor the fares.
Should Cathay Pacific fight you on this, are you prepared to fight back?
I’ve booked a return in Jan for First. So I certainly hope Cathay honour the ticket. But I am interested in why you think Cathay will honour those fares?
Because business/first class fares do tend to be cheaper out of Vietnam and the fares are not so outlandishly low that they are clearly a mistake.
$1500 for round trip CX HAN-JFK doesn’t seem outlandishly low to you?
There’s only one financial problem with that equation, too many cheap first class tickets were booked. Sorry, we barely have any 1st class capacity left between HKG and North America in 2019.
I agree that the fares should be honored, for the same reasons you cite. I’ll add that as a matter of principle, I believe airlines should be held accountable for their mistakes, exactly as I would be if I sent a client a fat-fingered fee quote and they agreed to it. My guess is that CX doesn’t honor them, though.
We are planning to go to Delhi India via Dubai (transit stay about 15 days then go to Delhi ) with business class on November 2019 and return will be the January 2020.
What is the best time to get a good time and good deal for the business class.?
Thanks in advance.