On Friday it was possible to book transatlantic business class award tickets on Air France for as little as 13,500 Flying Blue miles each way and in fact in some cases for just 1,500 points (!).
This was an error in pricing. Flying Blue meant to offer discounted awards at the actually spectacular price of just 37,500 points each way (as part of their Promo Awards offering). However, mostly where connections involved codeshares for train travel, the awards were being offered for (much) less.
- Sometimes deals like this are honored.
- Sometimes deals like this are not honored.
- The best approach is to jump on them, and then if people are getting to travel for 1,500 points across the Pond in business class one of them gets to be you!
- And if the deal is not honored, but dealt with promptly by the travel provider, move on to the next deal.
In this case, the head of the Flying Blue program says the offer was a mistake but some people will get to travel on it. Flying Blue Gold members and higher will have the deal honored, while everyone else will see awards cancelled and points refunded within the week.
Unfortunately this deal was too good to be true. Due to a technical glitch affecting some city pairs (primarily French train stations), some of you were able to book fares for as low as 1,500 miles in J. This was an error fare; the true price should have been 37.5k miles which matches what is published for this month’s promo rewards and can be found on FB.com.
All the 1,500 mile bookings have already been cancelled, and the 13.5k mile bookings will also soon be cancelled. Your miles and taxes will be refunded, and we will be sending out an email to those affected this week.
However, we are making an exception for FB Gold, Platinum, and Ultimate members who booked the 13.5k mile fares – in recognition of their loyalty, we will honour the mistake fares for these members.
Air France Business Class
Air France Business Class
Kudos to Ben Lipsey for acting quickly and being clear in his messaging on this.
Lipsey got his start in the airline industry by messaging Air Canada’s President on FlyerTalk to score an internship when he was 20 years old and eventually moved over with Ben Smith when he became CEO of Air France KLM.
(HT: Jerry A)
I have to say, this is an admirable way to handle it. Reward your loyal customers while also protecting the bottom line from opportunists (myself included).
It would be amazing if other airlines put their loyal/high-status customers ahead of knee-jerk reactions to situations they (the airline) create. We all know it might not be honored, but they make all the rules and set all the fares.. so hold all the cards, strings, levers.. picky your metaphor. We, as consumers, don’t get to cry “ooohh mistake booking, I paid too much!” and cancel our tickets without penalties.
So the playing field is far from level. But this is a classy and good-faith gesture to their best customers.
Does AF own Fb.com ??
Well they clearly labeled them as promo fares – who is to say 13,000 is too low. They induced some to transfer points from a more valuable currency.
I wonder if we can request the points to be transferred back to their credit card partners. I transferred the points with a redemption in mind. Any thoughts here?
Personally, I am somewhat glad/indifferent that they cancelled because it might save me 100 EUR (2x 50 EUR cancellation fees). When I booked my 13,500 point itineraries for April/May, I did it because the price was great and I live within driving distance about midway between Montreal and NYC. I took what I could get (in April/May) and hoped to make it work. But, I may have ended up canceling anyways because I go to South America during the winter. However, I have to disagree with both Ben and you (Gary). First, 13,500 points is certainly a fantastic deal. However, when FB leadership has designed a dynamic program, it’s not reasonable to say “too good to be true” only when it works in your favor. The truth is that there are some good deals but the vast majority of FB redemptions are laughably too bad to be true. Personally, I think the 1,500 and 5k fares were obviously ridiculous and I didn’t touch them. But, I grabbed the 13,500 fares because they were exceptional but not completely unreasonable. Even thought I might not have ended up wanting mine, I think the 13,500 fares should be honored for everyone. Second, “kudos” is something that you say to someone who does you a favor. This is not a favor, except maybe for me. If Ben is such a great leader then he should own this for everyone. But, I learned a long time ago that “loyalty” is mostly a 1-way street.
I had both 1.5k and 5k awards cancelled, but upon further examination, I found that the 5k award appeared on one date but actually booked for another, which would have made a mess for the trip as a whole. And it was adding to the pile of travel a bit much, so a bit of relief.
Kind of hoping they throw all of us inconvenienced by their error a small bone of a few thousand points, but I won’t hold my breath.
I think for the non elite members allowing them to keep the booking at the intended 37.5k should have been offered. I mean, in today’s terms 37.5k for J business class is an amazing find in itself.
Keith, I can’t imagine the nightmare and the customer service reps lack of understanding to try and reverse the transfers, it is hard enough to get things done which are expected. I feel like everything is treated as an exception now by the customer service of many companies.
This is a nice gesture for FlyingBlue members (except Silvers), but KLM is may be opening itself up to a legal challenge by selectively honoring the fare. I don’t believe there has been any fare mistake litigation where a company chose to honor the contract with some customers but not others. By choosing to honor the 13,500 point sale with certain members of the public, I would argue that there is no reason why FB can’t honor it with everyone else.
Well, I dunno…
The fare was labeled as a promo fare with some restrictions and they don’t publish an award chart, so how is one to know if they are running a spectacular deal or making a mistake?
What other companies can make a sale and then several days later say opps, we made a mistake , and just pretend it never happened. Pretty sleazy.
Was this truly a good deal? Not from my perspective, although I was a perfect candidate. I live in Boston, so a repositioning flight to Montreal or Toronto would have been quick, easy and relatively affordable. I have miles in my FB account so no transfer was necessary. I have family in France, so I could have skipped the last leg, and stayed there. On and on. But even so, I decided not to attempt it.
I’d rather get to Europe in 6-7 hours, on a direct flight, even if that means many more miles, or even flying in economy.
But I agree, this would have been excellent material for water cooler chat.
While the DOT is no longer using its resources to require airlines to honor mistake fares – airlines are still legally required to honor those fares.
The DOT document says that it will not enforce the rule (so long as the airline provides a refund and pays certain expenses) as a matter of “prosecutorial discretion.” https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/Mistaken_Fare_Policy_Statement_05082015_0.pdf
This doesn’t mean that airlines are not required to honor mistake fares – it just means the federal government will not make them do it. There is still small claims court.
@jcil – Back in my computer buying days, this was quite common. Computers and components would get listed for incredible prices, then the orders would get cancelled. If you could walk in the door and find it on the shelf, you could grab it that way, but Slickdeals was and is full of stories of cancelled orders. Retailers have never felt obligated to honor prices they don’t like. It takes a major state or federal agency to crack down on such things. But generally, unless they can show it’s a bait and switch tactic, they let them cancel the sales if you haven’t taken possession.
FWIW, there are people who specialize in this sort of deal in all sort of things. Stamps, coins, art, wine, books, collectibles – it’s why people hit estate sales or scour the dusty shelves of inner city liquor stores. It takes expertise, but it does happen. I saw a friend of mine buy a $1000 watch for $10 just before I got a chance to look in the box. I’ve snapped up collectibles even from major dealers by knowing more than they did.
@rdinsf – this is a non-U.S. airline that offered award tickets to and from destinations that do not touch the United States
@Gary Leff
Yes, but their website offers access to customers in different countries which can be selected in advance of purchase and fares were offered to American consumers.
He sure successfully induced millions of miles of inefficient transfers into Flying Blue!
Quit whining people – you know it was too good to be true (seriously did you think 13,500 J each way was a reasonable price given the cost of buying the tickets and anything less than that was clearly a mistake). Companies can, and will, cancel mistake prices.
For those saying go to small claims court you would have to prove harm. You technically haven’t lost anything since it got cancelled before the trip. If you made non-refundable reservations for hotels, cars or tours in the 2-3 days this was up in the air frankly that is a “you” problem since anyone with a brain or passing familiarity with airline awards knows not to commit until the dust settles if it appears to be a possible mistake. Also, quit trying to rationalize that 13,500 is “fair” since they don’t have an award schedule. Just look at the price and you aren’t getting over 11 cents/mile in value (assuming just $1500 for a one way business class ticket) in any case.
Also, so you moved some points to FB – I think you will get over it!
i have KLM Gold, and i also received an email saying it was a mistake and they’ll refund my points and cash. So I am not sure now, how can I check for sure if it’s still being honored?
@Keith In general, credit card programs will never reverse transfers due to a problem with a subsequent partner booking. Of course, you can ask. You can always ask. Simply be prepared for the answer to be no. I’ve been able to get transfers reversed twice when a transfer was inexplicably “stuck” (points deducted from amex, but no points credit by the partner) and when the partner themselves cancelled three flights in a row (and then agreed to return the points to amex). However, in this case the argument will be that you can still use those AF/KLM points for some other trip — they haven’t become worthless, just worth less.
General thought: Agree with Gary. They handled it well by quickly recognizing the error and cancelling. It is a smart gesture to let higher-level elites keep the booking, as a signal that such customers are valued even when they aren’t paying cash for their flights. The difference between this 13.5k mistake and others is that the airline did, in fact, publish a “chart” in the form of the promo award list, so it was clear this was a price far below the expected charged.
AC,
The 13,500 business class promo awards showed as “promo” on the AF sites and they had a rather substantial 2-3 figure dollar amount in “carrier surcharges”/YQ fees that essentially made these tickets miles+cash tickets. A bunch of people whom I alerted scoffed at the idea of buying these promo award tickets because the round trip cost was “too high” due to the “carrier surcharges” and a bunch of rather awfully long layovers.