TICKETS CANCELLED: BA fare error: First Class to Asia £795, Sydney £1335

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• Luke says:

  20 Aug20 August 11:17

  Raffles,

  Thankyou for the “heads” up this morning. FRA-SYD in Feb 2016 booked (2 Adults and 1 Child) 5251 Euros. I can’t even afford the shopping in Aldi this morning !

• Jerry says:

  20 Aug20 August 11:31

  I got all the way to cc security to get a system error message on Munich to Syd in Jan. Would have been able to cancel my existing 241. Oh well.

  • Gary M says:

    20 Aug20 August 11:43

    Same here, got all the way to Amex security payment screen, accepted my auth code and then it took me back to the main booking page. Checked amex and no funds reserved. 🙁

• Simon Schus says:

  20 Aug20 August 11:42

  The deal also worked for Perth.

• James says:

  20 Aug20 August 11:47

  I got in at. 07:50 BST. Open jaw FRA – LHR – HKG – PER//SYD- SIN – LHR – FRA £1230 in F.

  Woohoo!

  • Rob says:

    20 Aug20 August 11:58

    Wait until BA decides whether to honour it or not before celebrating!

    • Idrive says:

      20 Aug20 August 12:10

      Shouldn’t they do as it’s sold in Germany?

• Idrive says:

  20 Aug20 August 11:49

  Noooo just the day i am off the computer!!! Arghhhh

• Andy Green says:

  20 Aug20 August 12:14

  Legally are BA able to cancel the contract ?

  Any lawyers on line? GCSE law recollections said that there was an offer to sell and an option to purchase at an agreed rate? Deal done!? No?

  • Rob says:

    20 Aug20 August 12:43

    They can do whatever they like, as long as they cancel it within 2 weeks of departure. BA cancels flights and closes routes all the time. You only have legal protection if flying to or from the USA, and even with that they have changed the rules recently to allow airlines to cancel mistake-fare tickets.

    • Andy Green says:

      20 Aug20 August 12:46

      What’s the recent British airways history with regards to mistake fares?

      • Scottnothing says:

        20 Aug20 August 13:03

        Much to my surprise, I received the following email from BA a week and a bit after booking the OSL-USA business class fat finger fares that came up a few weeks ago. BA may do the same here, or they may not. You’re completely at their mercy. I suspect they will be very careful about setting precedent going forward though.

        “It has come to our attention that for a short period of time there was an obvious pricing error for business class seats from Norway to a number of US destinations. The correct prices have now been reinstated. Your recent booking was concluded on the basis of the invalid fare, which may have been up to six times lower than the actual fare for that journey, and ordinarily that booking would be void. However, we have decided in this instance we will allow you to travel the full itinerary as planned.”

      • Rob says:

        20 Aug20 August 13:04

        The £375 Olso CW tickets to the US a fortnight ago where honoured. This is trickier because BA F seating is limited.

        • Nick says:

          20 Aug20 August 17:54

          You are, of course, absolutely right. But does anybody ever actually pay for BA First under normal circumstances?! If I had that much money I’d fly with another airline. I just assume that the only people in the First cabins are avios redemptions, and the people who upgrade one leg of their flexible business return journeys.

          (BTW on the free upgrade for flexi business, I note that BA pay avios based on a First class one leg, unflexible CW the other. This means you earn more tier points but fewer avios than if they paid avios based on the ticket you actually paid for i.e. flexi CW both legs).

    • James says:

      20 Aug20 August 13:15

      EU261 applies, so BA can cancel the flights but even if it is more two weeks in advance the passenger is entitled to either re-routing at a time of their choice or a full refund.

    • Scottnothing says:

      20 Aug20 August 13:19

      Raffles, as usual is right.

      Under English common law, a contract is voidable if one of the parties is mistaken about a material fact (i.e. price) and the other party knew or ought to have known about it. A contract is formed, but that contract is voidable owing to the mistake.

      The email I received from BA Customer Relations (copied above) is deliberate in its use of legal terminology – note the words “obvious”, “error”, “invalid” and “void” – this ensures it is clear to the other party to the contract (i.e. the ticket holder) that from a legal perspective BA elected to honour the fare as a goodwill gesture and not because they were legally required to.

      If BA subequently sought to void the contract after I received that email from them, I would potentially have a claim in promissory estoppel by conduct and could try to seek specific performance (i.e. for BA to honour the fare).

      It will be interesting to see if BA take a consistent or different approach with this latest “error”.

      **reaches for popcorn**

      • RIccati says:

        20 Aug20 August 16:27

        It will be straightforward to provide direct comparison to the regular TK sales with ex-EU business fares of £800 available regularly (more than twice as far as I remember) and for a reasonably long time.

    • Jon says:

      20 Aug20 August 13:26

      “As long as they cancel it within 2 weeks of departure”
      Sorry, I don’t follow? (Surely they could cancel more than 2 weeks before departure?)

      • Rob says:

        20 Aug20 August 15:17

        Within 2 weeks, EU compensation law would kick in – they won’t want to pay that.

        • James says:

          20 Aug20 August 16:45

          Within 2 weeks the EU261 compensation applies in addition to the cancellation law about providing the passengers choice of re-routing under similar conditions or a full refund.

          And outside 2 weeks the standard EU261 cancellation law still applie providing the passenger a choice of re-routing under similar conditions for any time or a full refund.

      • Adam W says:

        20 Aug20 August 19:32

        I think Rob intended to say “As long as they DON’T cancel it within 2 weeks of departure”, hence the confusion.

• Lloyd says:

  20 Aug20 August 12:14

  Also booked although my wife has fairly restricted leave dates so just took the plunge and can cancel within 24 hours if needs be. I got in quite late, well after people were saying the deal was gone – I booked Berlin -LHR-SIN- Sydney return at 10.32

  I have a funny feeling BA were hit harder on this one than the recent USA fare so will be interesting to see their stance on this

• Gareth says:

  20 Aug20 August 12:26

  I found a deal… (several)… scrambled for my card… entered my number… and waited… and then sadly… got this sad message:

  We’re sorry, the fare £1,335.99 is no longer available for this itinerary. The new price is £5,829.03 (Opens in information layer) . Click “Agree and book” to complete your reservation request, or “Return to search” to select a new itinerary.
  Air total: £5,829.03

  SOOOO close yet so far!!… oh well…

  (on BA honouring this. I got a deal many moons ago, on BA… LHR – HKG for £499. They were offering a small “Christmas Discount” as they put it… but the calculations for the discount were very wrong… discount was rather large and I got my fare at £129 all in. They never questioned it at all. So for those lucky to have snatched this deal… I am hopeful… )

  • JQ says:

    20 Aug20 August 17:48

    Don’t know which class that was in, but 15 years ago LHR-HKG used to cost less than £200 in Y for most of the year

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