Best understanding at this time is that Thai Airways is refusing to honor the $0+tax fare for first class travel from London to Bangkok.

Ironically, this is just as the Bangkok Post is reporting that Thai Airways is

planning to offer complimentary tickets and heavily discounted tour packages to 20,000 travel agents worldwide in a bid to woo back passengers.

It seems, though, that Thai caught onto the computer glitch pretty quickly, but the programmers had all gone home in Bangkok before correcting the error. The London ticket office seems to be refusing to ticket the fare.

In most past cases, tickets like this have been honored.

United tried to back out on its $29 Paris fares a couple of years ago, but relented after some bad press. (Giving away tickets gets good press worth more than the loss in fare. Denying to honor tickets sold can get bad press which costs alot more than the loss in fare.)

Personally, I benefited from a $50 + tax business class fare to Puerta Vallarta a few months ago.

But in these other cases, the tickets were purchased right away. Unfortunately, there are no electronic tickets on the London-Bangkok route, and so all that those of us who booked had was a confirmed reservation but not a ticket. That’s much easier for an airline to walk away from, since money has not yet changed hands.

The hope was fun while it lasted…