I’ve kept you updated on my “saga” with Ethiopian Airlines concerning a $776 round-trip ticket from Bangkok to Toronto in business class. Now I need your help.
With the travel date quickly approaching, I’ve composed the letter below in response to this letter received from Ethiopian Airlines.
Dear Ethiopian Airlines,
I am in receipt of your note dated 30 April 2017 concerning [record locator redacted], a round-trip business class ticket from Bangkok to Toronto purchased on your website on 29 March 2017.
In your letter, you assert that my reservation is invalid because the “ticket was done with wrong fare calculation”. Nevertheless, you also concede that this was only determined “upon careful assessment” and indeed, my ticket sat for several weeks untouched.
These two facts undermine any argument that this was clearly a mistake and cannot excuse the unreasonable delay in communicating your decision to unilaterally rescind our contract. I have made plans around these flight. Please find outbound flight booking and hotel reservations attached.
Your three alternatives are not acceptable. I paid for a business class ticket from Bangkok to Toronto and kindly ask you to honor the booked reservation as ticketed. Flying economy class is not acceptable and fare have risen dramatically over the last month. Your cancellation would mean I would be stuck paying significantly more for my journey home.
Please consider working with me to find an acceptable solution. I wish to work with you in good faith toward a compromise we can both accept.
Thank you,
Matthew Klint
CONCLUSION
I’ll be honest — I do not think I will get an answer. Nevertheless, barring any particularly strong feedback from you, I will send this letter later today. Should Ethiopian be willing to meet me halfway, I am happy to forfeit my return to Bangkok (which I did plan to use) to secure business class.
This offer should be viewed on my end as wholly a gesture of goodwill, not an admission that my fare was too good to be true.
I am confused as to what you mean by forfeiting your return to Bangkok. Do you mean forfeiting the money, ticket, or trip altogether? I would support you if you decided to forfeit the ticket or the trip altogether, but do not forfeit the money. That hands a victory to Ethiopian that they simply don’t deserve. I agree to work with them to find an acceptable solution but if that cannot be reached, I feel it appropriate to ask for a full refund of your ticket, knowing full well that you may be loosing money or miles on the other airlines. Such customer service on the part of Ethiopian is despicable and there is no price tag on your sanity or reputation.
I’m willing to say I’ll just fly one-way…you can keep the return and sell it to someone else. I think it is a generous gesture.
Hi Matthew. I am in South Africa and I was and still am refused a refund for a ticket from Cape town to Dublin Airport. The ticket I signed stated in its agreement that a NO refund policy would apply in case of a NO SHOW or a CANCELLATION. However my passport was taken from me by the flight controller due to external damage to the back page. I went to home affairs and they said the passport is valid, yet I was refused to board the plane, and refused a refund. Perhaps you would like to publish a story about this as I can show you the contradictory emails as part of my communications with Ethiopian airlines – the one employee said they could not calculate a breakdown of my ticket price and yet three weeks later I received said breakdown in a tabled form. Obviously this company is highly unreliable and untrustworthy.
Hi Matthew
This airlane is a joke and something should be done about them. In November they ripped my bag into pieces and I never got any refund from them. They dont respond to messages
When you bought the ticket you knew it was a mistaken fare. You were playing Russian roulette. Most times you will succeed but once in a while you won’t. You should have bought insurance. I think whatever extra airfare you have to pay now is the cost of doing this type of transaction, the cost of doing business.
Spot on
No. If the airline publishes a mistake fare, I believe that it is reasonable that they must honor that. Its a professional business and there are ethical standards with regard to integrity. It is unethical to break your word for what you say. You can fix the fare for future purchasers, but if someone puts down a deposit they have made a contract with the airline. It is a binding one at that. Matthew agrees to forfeit the published amount, in exchange for the right to be served in the way that is told to him.
Matthew, your generosity is appreciated, but comes across as soft. By being generous with this airline, you have forgiven their mistake. I personally believe that you are not wrong in saying it is offensive. They don’t deserve your forgiveness. I can tell you right this very second. If I was the CEO of Ethiopian Airlines and you let me keep the money for the mistake fare, I would want nothing more than to take advantage of other customers like that. I wouldn’t do that, of course, but you get the idea.
The thing is that Matthew’s got two courses of action is he gets told “pound sand, our offer is our offer”: suing Ethiopian, or involving the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA).
The last time the CTA ruled on a similar mistake fare, it was the Swiss F/J fare out of Burma. Here’s what they wrote in their ruling for Swiss:
“The Agency has considered these arguments and finds that a reasonable person ought to have known that a total cost of approximately US$1000 for first and business class travel from Yangon to Eastern Canada is not simply a low ticket price, but a mistake.”
So my guess is they may well argue similarly for Ethiopian. So lawsuit it probably is.
I was one of the lucky recipients of that CTA ruling, except I was one of the few who were actually mid-flight when cancelled. I don’t feel that your letter is going to gain you much of anything, but it is worth it to try. Best to make alternative arrangements in case you are left stranded.
This letter is far too soft and I would not expect you to even get a response to it.
You have a valid point about the time it took to cancel the flight and I think you just need to give it a bit more omph.
All that said, if you knew that it was a mistake fare then perhaps you should accept the inevitable and move on. After all they have given you a lot of notice before cancelling the ticket.
I would send it, doubt you’ll get a good outcome. Small thing but I believe “Flying economy class is not acceptable and fare have risen dramatically over the last month” should be “…and fares have…” or “fare has”
Don’t want them to think you are a Nigerian prince
I’m torn on this issue. If it were me, I’d fight to the death. But I’m not a rational person so…
How soon is the flight? That should determine your level of violence (LOVE). For example, I once had to scream and shout at a poor UA rep who downgraded me out of F the day of flight! I knew that if I couldn’t convince her, I’d be flying in coach and complaining to DOT later.
Anyways, there’s a typo: “fare” should be “fares.”
He should send it. Anything harder than what he has right now will simply result in their backlash and is very harsh and disrespectful. He doesn’t have to settle for anything less than what he ethically deserves, but he also doesn’t have to be rude about it. If he gets no reply, then Ethiopian management, and I mean this, are cowards.
They guy blogs about his “gotcha” fare snags. I understand that he purchased it but he unarguably knew it was a mistake. I actually applaud the airline for being strong enough to take a stand against the premeditated exploitation of what he knew damn well was a mistake.
Would also be recommended that you actually take a minute or two to grammar-check your letters. A little less time mirror-kissing wouldn’t mess you up too much.
The Ethiopian regime knows howto lie and cheap. Watch yourself this regime might put you in jail.
Sure, send the letter. Just don’t expect any results, except perhaps for the personal satisfaction of having vented your displeasure. I think Ethiopian is in the wrong, but I’m highly doubtful that they’ll actually care about your predicament, based on their past reactions to similar situations.
@matthew Contrary to what many people call as soft, I think your gesture of goodwill is very refreshing. Another way of saying this is that you are showing grace, undeserved kindness, which is increasingly rare. Though as a corporation, I don’t know if Ethiopian cares or even would notice. But props to you anyways.
@BC So when airlines purposely oversell seats because they know people will get sick, change plans, get stuck in traffic, etc. so they’ll at they can maximize revenue, is that unethical? The way they pull off passengers, as has been highlighted in the news, may be done poorly, but their desire to maximize profits within legal (and largely ethical) means by overbooking is not wrong.
Same thing for Matthew and others to book mistake fares. If the airline discovers and cancels within a few hours, I think that’s fair on the airlines side. However in Matthew’s case, it took the airline weeks to contact him, that’s totally unacceptable.
How about asking the airline to allow the economy ticket to be placed in a space available upgrade request list to an empty seat day of flight? If refused, there’s a better case to be made in civil court showing lack of goodwill.
Ethiopian Airlines from experience, is one of those businesses that really do not care about goodwill, corporate impact or ANY customer service niceties…Yet, somehow still manage to get customers come through their doors. It is short term though.
Like some commentators here, I have had one very very poor experience with this sad mistake of an airline. Very silly problem where my duty free items bought were refused because they insist i had too much!
Cost of duty free purchases including the takeaway meal (sandwich, soda and packet of crisps) came to £130. After weighing those (yes! Plus meal), i was charged £100+ or threatened with being removed from flight. I chose to jettison duty free as i had a meeting to catch. Connection flight in Addis Ababa was delayed!
The meal on board was appalling and my seat and i think 8 others had no functioning entertainment on board.
Just my luck i said. But complaining or feeding back to customer service, even up to the wretched CEO was probably akin to chat with my street lamp.
Took them to court. Won but bitter experience later, I simply banned all my staff from even using Ethiopian NO MATTER how cheap they are. There’s a reason they are cheap!
I also advice customers to READ THE SMALL PRINT ABOUT ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES FOR YOUR SAFETY RIGHTS etc. I saw it during the small claims. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Ethiopian airlines is a crap airline I got my flight delayed they knew about it but never told it’s customers and they don’t care. Something should be done about this air line .
For me, the Ethiopian airline stinks. I had a similar experience with them last year on my return flight from Tokyo to Enugu. Bottom line, they place no value on their customers
Any update on this case, Matt? I got a super cheap deal too and hadnt i checked online i wouldn’t know that my flight was cancelled. Wonder if this happens often to their customers?
Hi Hans, many updates. Just click on the Ethiopian Airlines tag at the top of the article for several additional follow-ups on this sale fare.