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I was involved in a recent airline mistake situation. AirCanada accidentally listed an $8000 flight pass for $800. People are complaining that AirCanada is no

by giarc 11y ago

I was involved in a recent airline mistake situation. AirCanada accidentally listed an $8000 flight pass for $800. People are complaining that AirCanada is not honouring these passes and there's even a class action lawsuit starting up. I wonder though for those people that get heavily involved, will this mean years of getting "randomly" bumped from flights? Will AirCanada 'punish' these people?

Roodgorf 11y ago
I highly doubt it. Why would they take the risk in giving themselves a worse reputation? What would they stand to gain financially anyway? It's interesting that we seem to naturally assume that the business reaction would be congruent with what might be the reaction at the human level.
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  Interesting - homo economicus might well be companies not people...
- giarc 11y ago
  I would agree, but that's assuming everyone in the company is acting on behalf of and with the intentions of the company. I think there are plenty of examples where a company representative acts in a manner that is completely against what the company would want (see corporate Twitter accounts).
  - Roodgorf 11y ago
    Fair enough, and in other cases I could see this as being an issue (particularly with smaller businesses perhaps where employees may identify more strongly with their company and its success), but in this case I just don't see it happening. As I said it doesn't really make sense at a company level, and on a personal level who would be the one motivated to punish these customers in such a way? It seems the onus would be on some individual(s) in the ticketing system to "Hey, that's one of those jerks from that lawsuit! I'll teach them to cause trouble with my company." That just doesn't seem likely to me.
OJFord 11y ago
In the UK at least, they can "get away with" (i.e., there's nothing to get away with, it's totally legal) correcting a mistake like that. I can't remember exactly what it's called - I assume it has to be an "obvious" error.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Honest errors are allowed for - there's quite often cases of online systems giving silly prices and the company isn't obliged to honour the price. Sometimes you see E&OE [errors and omissions expected] on adverts to draw attention to the fact that they might have erred and won't honour an erroneous deal. Sometimes companies honour the error for PR reasons, there was a John Lewis situation I think where they did this recently. Advertised prices are "invitations to treat" rather than binding contracts of sale.
  - OJFord 11y ago
    "Advertised prices are 'invitations to treat' rather than binding contracts of sale." Ah - precisely - I'm so glad you brought that up. If only more people understood this simple principle! You're right though, frequently honoured for good PR - it's rare that an item going through checkout at the 'wrong' price perhaps due to an expired offer is not adjusted.
- arcticbull 11y ago
  In the US, at least for the last few years, the same legal principal that allowed airline to get away with correcting those mistakes was secondary to Department of Transportation Regulation CFR 399.88a This prevented, explicitly including the case of "mistake" fares, the post-purchase increase in the price of airfare. This was done to prevent airlines from post-facto declaring a promotion a "mistake" when deemed "too successful" later.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  That's true. Here is an article that goes into the topic in some depth: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/money-saving-tips/10602641/Price-glitches-Do-retailers-have-to-honour-pricing-mistakes.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/money-sav...

by giarc 11y ago

Roodgorf 11y ago

I highly doubt it. Why would they take the risk in giving themselves a worse reputation? What would they stand to gain financially anyway? It's interesting that we seem to naturally assume that the business reaction would be congruent with what might be the reaction at the human level.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago
Interesting - homo economicus might well be companies not people...
giarc 11y ago
I would agree, but that's assuming everyone in the company is acting on behalf of and with the intentions of the company. I think there are plenty of examples where a company representative acts in a manner that is completely against what the company would want (see corporate Twitter accounts).
- Roodgorf 11y ago
  Fair enough, and in other cases I could see this as being an issue (particularly with smaller businesses perhaps where employees may identify more strongly with their company and its success), but in this case I just don't see it happening. As I said it doesn't really make sense at a company level, and on a personal level who would be the one motivated to punish these customers in such a way? It seems the onus would be on some individual(s) in the ticketing system to "Hey, that's one of those jerks from that lawsuit! I'll teach them to cause trouble with my company." That just doesn't seem likely to me.

OJFord 11y ago

In the UK at least, they can "get away with" (i.e., there's nothing to get away with, it's totally legal) correcting a mistake like that. I can't remember exactly what it's called - I assume it has to be an "obvious" error.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Honest errors are allowed for - there's quite often cases of online systems giving silly prices and the company isn't obliged to honour the price. Sometimes you see E&OE [errors and omissions expected] on adverts to draw attention to the fact that they might have erred and won't honour an erroneous deal. Sometimes companies honour the error for PR reasons, there was a John Lewis situation I think where they did this recently. Advertised prices are "invitations to treat" rather than binding contracts of sale.
- OJFord 11y ago
  "Advertised prices are 'invitations to treat' rather than binding contracts of sale." Ah - precisely - I'm so glad you brought that up. If only more people understood this simple principle! You're right though, frequently honoured for good PR - it's rare that an item going through checkout at the 'wrong' price perhaps due to an expired offer is not adjusted.
arcticbull 11y ago
In the US, at least for the last few years, the same legal principal that allowed airline to get away with correcting those mistakes was secondary to Department of Transportation Regulation CFR 399.88a This prevented, explicitly including the case of "mistake" fares, the post-purchase increase in the price of airfare. This was done to prevent airlines from post-facto declaring a promotion a "mistake" when deemed "too successful" later.
Someone1234 11y ago
That's true. Here is an article that goes into the topic in some depth: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/money-saving-tips/10602641/Price-glitches-Do-retailers-have-to-honour-pricing-mistakes.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/money-sav...