The Department of Transportation (DOT) seems to have discovered consumers after decades of pandering to the airlines. Recent enforcement actions are unprecedented — fines for misleading advertising, fines for tarmac delays, new directives on lost luggage compensation, closer inspections of maintenance and now DOT is telling British Airways (BA) to pay expenses passengers incurred because of a BA advertising mistake.
Last week’s DOT ruling dealt with an early-October $40 advertised fare to India. BA left the fare up for a couple of hours before discovering the error. During that time, 1,200 passengers booked the fare that added up to about $560 after fuel surcharges and taxes were added. Then, three days later, BA canceled the fare, noting that it was obviously too good to be true.
ConsumerTraveler.com was one of the first to protest BA’s actions as travel agents were notified about the airline’s response to the error. Even to airfare experts, such a fare might have been a special promotion. And the Consumer Travel Alliance Director was quoted in London newspapers,
… airlines generally exhibit no sympathy if the boot is on the other foot, when passengers make a mistake by booking non-refundable tickets on the wrong dates, or under mis-spelt names. “They will hold our feet to the fire for even the tiniest of mistakes, even if passengers call immediately to try to correct their booking,”…
BA did make some basic compensation, “The airline issued a $300 voucher off any published retail World Traveller fare from the US to India booked between now and Nov. 12.”
Many affected passengers didn’t feel BA’s offer of compensation was fair. Since the airlines penalize passengers for making changes to their itineraries, it seemed only fare that BA play from a similar rule book. Besides the airfares many had booked other airline tickets, hotels and rental cars, some without the possibility of refunds, in conjunction with the planned trip to India.
After studying the situation, DOT’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division stated that the BA decision “has caused financial harm to a large number of consumers.”
The letter to affected passengers continued, “We believe that all airlines should accept some responsibility for even the erroneous fares they publish. Thus, we believe that British Airways should compensate affected consumers to make them whole.”
This entire episode is a “good news, bad news” scenario.
The good news is that DOT is forcing BA to remit additional compensation to affected passengers. The bad news is that BA, in the universal airline way of conducting business, is lacing these refunds and vouchers with plenty of restrictions and paperwork.
Affected passengers should start collecting receipts and noting items such as connecting airfares where cancellation charges and penalties will be significant factors. Many of these expenses won’t be evident until new tickets to India are booked using the BA vouchers.
Act quickly, these vouchers are only good for the original passengers and must be used by midnight December 3, 2009 (EST).
Here’s what British Airways has put up on its Internet site:
British Airways is prepared to reimburse you for penalties imposed by an airline or ground service provider as a result of your cancellation of air or ground arrangements in reliance on your cancelled British Airways booking. British Airways will also reimburse those passengers who necessarily incurred added air fare costs in restoring a pre-existing booking or reservation from the United States to India if that booking or reservation was abandoned as a result of making the cancelled booking on British Airways. Further, if you have incurred any other out-of-pocket expense, British Airways Customer Relations will make appropriate reimbursement to you in circumstances where the losses were caused by reasonable reliance on a British Airways flight booked between the U.S. and India on October 2, 2009 and its subsequent cancellation. British Airways will also assist you in properly documenting your claim so that it can be processed in short order.
Please note that these offers apply only to customers whose bookings were cancelled as a result of our pricing error. If you have any question about your eligibility for these offers, please contact us at 1-800-AIRWAYS with your original flight details so that we may assist you.
