I have to admit, deep down in my heart I thought I’d be able to convince Ethiopian to honor my ticket.
After all, they honored the ticket of another persistent passenger and the path of least resistance would have been to shut me up and place me in a half-empty business class cabin. But that is now how things turned out.
I left the Park Hyatt Bangkok at 7:30p to do a little shopping. The MBK Center fascinates me and any trip to Bangkok would not be complete without a visit. By 9pm I was finished and opted to take the train to the airport instead of Uber. That saved me time.
By 9:35p, precisely four hours before scheduled departure, I stepped into the bustling departures concourse at Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK). I actually walked a lap around the concourse, psyching myself for the exchange that seemed inventible. I decided not to voluntarily share any information. Instead, I would wait and answer questions.
Check-In Starts Promising
Ethiopian Airlines’ check-in is in the far corner of the terminal. Check-in lines were already dreadfully long, but I found a priority line for business class passengers. As I waited my turn, a man in a green suit walked over. I noticed three stripes on his arms and assumed he was the station manager. He recognized some people in line standing next to me and raising his arms, empathically embraced them. He then extended his hand to me, smiled, and welcomed me to Ethiopian Airlines.
I was feeling quite optimistic at that point.
Recording these events was of paramount importance, but I wanted to be discreet about it. I brought my thin summer sport coat along which has a breast pocket. Thankfully the lens of my iPhone just cleared it, giving a fairly good view of my interactions with the staff.
Soon it was my turn to check-in. A contract agent took my passport and began the check-in process. Clearly, there was something wrong with my ticket as she typed for several moments before making an odd request.
“Sir, do you have the credit card you used for this booking?”
***Tangent alert: I was so stupid not to pull travel insurance on this trip***
Yes, I pulled out my AMEX Platinum and presented it to her.
She stated that the system would not let her “validate” my ticket but that it was just a fraud prevention issue. She took my card, typed away for a bit, probably found the “notes” on my file, picked up a phone, and then excused herself.
The Station Manager Arrives
Returning with the station manager, she explained that my ticket would not validate. The station manager, Mr. Tadesse Meskel, sat down and attempted to validate the ticket himself. He also failed. Probing deeper, he found notes on the reservation that were identical in nature to the email sent to me.
But he was confused. He eventually invited me to sit down and wait while he sorted it out. So as not to block the check-in counter, I stepped aside and stood waiting for him.
I have all of this on video. At least for now, I am not going to post this portion because my narrative above essentially transcribes what the video shows. Thus, I see no need to put a check-in agent’s face all over the internet.
45 minutes passed. The crew showed up. The station manager welcomed the crew and had a nice conversation with the captain before coming back over to me.
“Head office says you must fly economy class or take a refund.”
A back and forth ensued, politely of course. I staked out the position I have in previous posts—namely the unlevel “tails I win, heads you lose” playing field that adversely impacts consumers. I pleaded to his sensibilities, reminding him that if I had made the mistake and wanted the refund, Ethiopian Airlines would have laughed at me. He agreed.
Meskel had a printout with him: the e-mail exchange I’ve shared with you in multiple posts. He started reading it to me. I stopped him and told him that I read it and that the solutions were simply unacceptable. I asked him to make an exception for me, heck, to rebook me in economy if he had to but at least look the other way as I sat down in my originally-assigned business class seat on the flight. He shook his head and said that he was not empowered to and was required to follow the word of the “head office”.
He begged me to take a seat and told me he would keep working on this. I pleaded with him not to let me down and his response was “I’ll pray.”
Prayer Answered: Still No
I sat and waited for over an hour. It was now after midnight, less than 90 minutes before departure. Finally, Meskel returned, sitting down to next to me. He told me there was nothing that could be done and reminded me of my choices. You can listen to our exchange below.
Meskel encouraged me to take the flight in economy class then contact Ethiopian Airlines customer service for compensation. I bristled at the idea because Ethiopian Airlines’ concept of customer service is to unilaterally cancel a paid ticket weeks after it was issued and keep the money.
I asked to speak to someone in Addis and he nodded in agreement, but simply called the general reservations number. Perhaps the reservations agent I spoke with was the one who responded to my emails, never addressing the point. His tone (listen for yourself) was insincere and apathetic. He was unwilling to even entertain a discussion, dismissing my points with hollow apologies and simply repeating that there were no other options possible.
Exasperated, I asked to speak to a supervisor. Meanwhile, the station manager had left me with his phone while he tended to other tasks. The agent readily agreed and placed me on hold. Mr. Meskel returned and sat down. The telephone agent came back and said that his supervisor was busy and she would give me the same answer as he did. I told him I wanted to speak to her anyway. Somehow, conveniently I suspect, the call became disconnected.
Last Call
It was now almost 1am. Boarding had already begun. I made one last plea to the station manager, but he once again simply encouraged me to fly economy and then write customer service.
I had fought the good fight, but lost.
We shook hands and he apologized again for what happened.
An Unexpected Surprise
Not really expecting anything, I mentioned that I had no hotel booked for the evening and asked if he could authorize a hotel voucher.
He thought for a moment, then nodded his head in agreement and instructed one of his colleagues to set me up with a room at the on-site Novotel. I sure appreciated that gesture. Rates were over $200/night at that hotel so I probably would have looked for a cheaper place offsite like I did when arriving at DMK had I been left to pay for it.
A third colleague escorted me to the Novotel desk four floors down where I was promptly invited into a van and driven over to the hotel. I did not even have to present a credit card and was given an 8pm checkout.
That touch meant a lot to me. It demonstrated empathy and even if implicitly, an admission that penalizing me for their mistake wasn’t fair.
Lest you think I take Mr. Meskel to be a fool, I’ll share this with you. We exchanged telephone numbers and have been chatting on WhatsApp about the incident. Should he ever take Ethiopian’s Dublin to LA flight, he has an invitation to dinner at my house.
The station manager was an honest, courteous, genuine, and kind man: everything Ethiopian Airlines could hope for in an employee. It is just such a shame that his hands were tied and he was strictly forbidden from seating me in business class.
CONCLUSION
Sadly, my story has a tragic ending. I failed and now have to determine how I am going to get back to LA. But this story isn’t over. Don’t worry, I won’t be writing about it each day. I also will try not to hold a grudge against Ethiopian Airlines. But I do intend to follow up with Ethiopian corporate about this. The powers that be at Ethiopian must understand that unilaterally canceling a ticketed reservation weeks after issuing it is dangerous. They must articulate how a consumer must grapple with the fine line between a “sale” and “mistake fare”.
That line is blurry and that is exactly the point: with impugintiy, Ethiopian can claim any fare was a mistake. That’s scary.
You know, the ironic thing is that Ethiopian has offered me a free flight before. The marketing team likes bloggers. They want us to write about their new A350s and Dreamliners. I could have taken a free trip, but wanted to provide an honest review for you. So I booked this instead. Not sure if the offer still stands, but maybe now I’ll just take the comped flight as a final stroke of irony.
I’m not sure that any of this experience in any way reflects negatively on Ethiopian Airlines for me…or most experienced travelers. You were well aware that you booked a mistake fare, despite pretending that it theoretically could have been a very good sale fare. You and everyone else is aware that “when it sounds too good to be true, it usually is” yet proceeded to try and take advantage. That is your right, of course..,but it has (usual) consequences.
Ethiopian was polite, appropriate, and pretty consistent. They knew it, you knew it.
The ongoing saga description just makes you sound entitled…which I think you already know you are. (I am entitled, too.) This entire exercise is more about you trying to game the system than anything else…and you lost. I’d recommmd less of the bitterness over your loss and more of the reviews and information for which you are appreciated.
I didn’t know that Ethiopian honored the J ticket of another persistent passenger. I’m curious whether he/she dealt with the same station manager? How did that person get this ticket honored and you did not?
Overall, thank you for sharing your experiences and it sucks that this did not work out. It does seem to me that the head office simply would not budge for whatever reason. If Mr. Meskel approved the hotel voucher, I think he would have honored your J ticket as well if he had the authority to do so.
Lastly, I’ll admit I was hoping to see a selfie photo of you and Mr. Meskel at the end of this blog article! 🙂
The only evidence of another ticket being honored is a purported scan of part of an email posted to Flyertalk – not by the passenger himself but by his “friend”. I consider that uncorroborated at best.
1. Not much known about this airline even existed. Not a bad PR eventough you are a blogger with much readers.
2. Maybe you were targeted because you reject their invitation. Third world people sometimes think themselves as BIG no matter how SMALL they actually are, thus are easily offended.
3. Meskel / station manager response was a very logical thing. He left a good impression on you, as a customer. Significantly increased by the way of Ethiopian treated you. He is afterall, stationed far away from homeland and would not miss an opportunity to build a better future.
In fairness to to Matthew, Ethiopian botched this situation. They needed to refund and cancel the ticket ASAP. By holding on to the money, they lose the morale high ground. That seems like a clear ploy to get the person to the airport and then try to downgrade them to coach.
It was a mistake fare and Matt knew it. If it was cancelled right away, I would hope he would have accepted it and moved on. However, by holding the money, Ethiopian displayed incompetence or malice.
The only reason they didn’t refund the money yet was because Ethiopian had given Matthew three options – refund; fly the ticket in Y; apply the amount as a credit towards another Ethiopian flight. As the blogger chose to instead not select one of those options and fight it, the money had not yet been refunded…really not Ethiopian’s fault as Matthew chose to delay.
http://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2017/05/11/ethiopian-airlines-customer-service-response/
I believe that you were well aware after the posts of the email exchanges that took place; I also believe that your video recording of others without their permission or knowledge is disgusting and disappointing. You waisted both the ticket counter and station managers time, shame on you. And then because you didn’t get your way, you even had the audacity to ask for a free hotel!
For this I have no sympathy and I will stop reading your posts.
SHAME ON YOU!
100% agree… Not wasting my time as well in the future.
Not following the story from the beginning so apologies if I am missing anything but if this was a mistake fare that they would not honor why didn’t they just cancel the booking so you would not have anything to even try to check in?
They contacted him and said they couldn’t honor it, and asked if he wanted to have it refunded; or apply as a credit to another ticket; or fly the ticket in Y.
You missed nothing in this sad soap opera….
I hope that other travel bloggers decline free flights from Ethiopian, too. Their flights aren’t anything special. Perhaps you could lead a boycott? You should email Star Alliance customer service about this issue to see what they have to say.
FWIW, I have flown Ethiopian twice round trip and got food poisoning the day after both of the flights out of Addis. I also had to endure a six hour mech delay at Addis to no apology or offer of compensation, even as *G.
in response to Bill’s comment above – I don’t think Matthew is trying to frame this as it being unfair that he couldn’t “game the system” as you call it. I think the point here is that the system is broken. The way the system is now, there is absolutely no protection for the consumer that the airline couldn’t simply monitor revenue for sales for a flight, decide that they won’t make enough profit and cancel everyone’s tickets saying the fares were “a mistake” and then raise the price. There *is* protection on the flip side – a consumer can’t simply purchase a ticket (mistakenly or otherwise) and then get a refund weeks later because they found a cheaper fare on another carrier. Matthew’s argument is that the protection should go both ways.
sadly our laws always seem to be grossly in favor of the business. For example, Wells Fargo lost one of my accounts with $15,000 in it for 14 months as I called and wrote them constantly trying to retrieve it so I could access needed funds. There excuse was that there was a system error during their merger with Wachovia… When they finally did find my account there was no apology or compensation, just a letter detailing how to access my account. Now lets pretend I owed Wells Fargo $15 – not $15k, just $15. And lets say I owed it to them for 14 weeks, not 14 months – they would have slapped all kinds of fees on me and reported it on my credit and I would have wound up owing them many times the original $15. In my mind the laws should be bidirectional – they cant do anything to me that I cant do to them, but unfortunately that’s not how the laws are written.
I’d like to see these airline ticket mistake laws be bi-directional. They cant cancel something on me as “a mistake” unless I can cancel on them for “a mistake” after whatever given amount of time, or for whatever financial penalty. I think that’s Matthew’s argument here. Not whining because he hoped a mistake fare would be honored just to make a quick buck.
What does it tell you the airline preferred to fly an empty seat rather than build goodwill with a customer in a matter of opinions? I don’t see how accepting the economy seat assignment would have prevented a station manager from wait listing you for space available upgrade to J. A gate agent can always hand write a boarding pass for last minute changes.
you picked the wrong company(Africa) and location(Asia) to fight, had this mistake was in EU or US, there would be no issue at all.
Scott: your comments clearly showed you don’t understand the whole story but comments nevertheless. The shame is on you dude… lol. Perhaps you were jealous to the blogger or you were Ethiopian employee?
Choi: if it happens in US, they will allow you to board the flight. But after boarding, you will be beaten by cops, bleed, and dragged off the plane.
Interesting side note about trip insurance — wonder if they’d find a way to weasel out of covering anything in this situation…
Nice one. For those snide remarks, many moons ago, we had the famous RGN fares which thankfully were honored. Ethiopian could have garnered positive reviews out from this. After all, an empty biz seat will earn nothing.
Matthew, couldn’t u get a refund with Amex?
If you are still in BKK on 24th, would love to hear more about the trip!
At least you get a free night complimentary from ET. It is too nice, isn’t it.
Matthew, I cannot, in words, express how proud I am of you. You handled this the right way, your requests were reasonable, and you fought a winning fight that unfortunately didn’t win. Such unethical actions are not acceptable, and you stood your ground yet did not act in a way that was rude or disrespectful to anybody at all. As a plus, I think you just made a friend in this agent. He might be able to help you in the future if you need him to. Good for you in handling this with class yet persistence, and I’m sure that little Augustine will be waiting proudly for your arrival home.
I’m glad you keep fighting this.
At a time when airlines constantly promote $1 or free fares (while making money on ancillary revenue), there is no such thing as a “mistake fare”. I have several bookings right now that are less than $1 plus taxes and fees! You can’t reasonably expect a customer to figure out wether a fare is an intended loss leader or a mistake. Nobody would accept if you walk into a Best Buy to pick you your Black Friday 60in TV and they tell you sorry, it was a mistake, but we’ll give you this great 32in TV at the same price! Why should airlines get away with essentially breaking a contract?
Keep fighting and let us know how it goes.
Matthew, sorry to hear of your issue. It was interesting to read your adventure and most travellers would probably not have the knowledge you have picked up to allow themselves to attempt to try this. Can I suggest however that you spell and grammar check your articles as reading it was very frustrating with them in.
Have they refunded your money now?
No.
Based on the Alitalia cancellations in December I don’t think that your really so protected in the EU either. I have to agree with Matthew that it should be a two way street normally if I canceled or moved a flight I would be hit with an exorbitant fee so why does the airline get to run roughshod? In the case of Ethiopian it’s clear that the station manager isn’t empowered to do anything relevant to the situation.
Personally I don’t think Matthew wasted the Ethiopians staff time as for sure they wasted his by not providing the product he paid for!
I think next time this should play out on one of the US3 to see how that works out also.
Error fares are definitely a bit tricky so don’t underestimate the pain if you really need to go somewhere. If you have flexibility in your travel then by all means go for it. The root of these issues is typically shoddy pricing uploads or shoddy IT systems, either item is easily and cheaply fixed, the airlines should be held accountable too! For sure if you made the mistake you would be held accountable by them!
As another idea.
Matthew as you seem to have some time on your hands why not pursue this in the courts? I’m curious to see how it would play out….
If the RGN saga is any indication LX won in every case be it small claims or CTA. In fact CTA mentioned that bloggers spread the information about that fare and also people knew that the final leg on LX would not be honored. If they chose to fly it was on them. I wonder if Matthew would have made such a fuss with LX and their employees and station manager. Probably not. LX would not put up with that nonsense and they never would have given him a hotel.
I think awareness should be raised here, on the non-level playing field between airlines and passengers.
We get all sort of fees slapped all over, for any mistake we make, and the airlines are usually more than happy to take the money from our hands.
When they claim they made a mistake (now is selling too cheaply a mistake? how much is “too cheaply”?), they can unilaterally change the terms of the ticket. This goes against the principles of contract law. And it is unfair contractual terms if they add a clause that the airline can change any terms that they want, at any time. Where does it stop?
If say, ET offered a full refund, plus a token of some discount vouchers towards another flight, maybe that is still something decent, if offered early upfront.
But let’s give the Station Manager full credit. He gave lodgings for the night. Very humane for him to do so.
(Really, you should have bought travel insurance, and got the letter of denied boarding from ET. And let the insurance house put pressure on ET for your travel claims.)
And finally, if the seats are empty, they really could consider honoring the fare.
If you were able to get onboard the plane, we might be reading the review such as the following link: http://flight-report.com/en/report/24535/Ethiopian-Airlines-ET672-Hong-Kong-HKG-Tokyo-NRT
You are one lucky fellow to have lived such a blissful life that this totally superfluous incident with Ethiopian could be called a tragedy.
Oh good grief. He was joking. 😉