TG/KQ MEL-KGL US$1074 Business class return

[SnowGoose]

Dear Huang,
Subject: Important Notice Regarding Your Recent Purchase.
Thank you for your recent Kenya Airways ticket purchase. We value you as a customer and look
forward to seeing you onboard Kenya Airways soon. We regrettably wish to bring to your
attention an unfortunate issue related to your recent ticket purchase from Melbourne, Australia to
Kigali, Rwanda
Due to a technical glitch, a price-related error occurred that led to incorrect pricing display which
affected the Melbourne, Australia to Kigali, Rwanda ticket. After careful consideration, we are
unable to honor the ticket you purchased due to the huge price difference compared to the actual
ticket price.
We would therefore like to extend our unreserved apology for this unfortunate situation as we
understand that this was no error on your end and may cause great inconvenience. To fix the
error, we have canceled all tickets purchased.
And to resolve the situation, we would like to offer you the following two options:
1. To purchase the tickets afresh. We will offer a discount of 10% using the Promo-code
MELKGL10. We would love to see you onboard Kenya Airways and hope you’ll accept
the new offer as our apology.
2. If you do not wish to purchase a new ticket, kindly request for a refund from your
agent (in case you purchased the ticket from a travel agent) or on the Kenya Airways
online portal (in case you purchased the ticket on the Kenya Airways website) and submit
the same. If payment has been accepted by us, refunds will be issued to your original
payment method.
Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this situation may have caused. We
appreciate your understanding and thank you for your continued support. For any further
questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out by replying to this email for
assistance.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Jackson Kamande.
Head of Pricing & Revenue Management

 

[jase05]

Yeah, there was no way that was going to stick and thought as much at the time. Unfortunate for yourself though

 

[aaa99]

Did you book directly on the website or via a travel agent?

 

[SnowGoose]

Booked directly with Kenya Airways. I find the wording of the letter quite odd - why should i reach out to them to request the refund if they are initiating the cancellation?

 

[clifford]

Booked directly with Kenya Airways. I find the wording of the letter quite odd - why should i reach out to them to request the refund if they are initiating the cancellation?

It's an airline...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Booked directly with Kenya Airways. I find the wording of the letter quite odd - why should i reach out to them to request the refund if they are initiating the cancellation?

Cause you might be tempted to take the 10% offer!

 

[Danger]

Yeah, there was no way that was going to stick and thought as much at the time. Unfortunate for yourself though

Not everyone's has been cancelled. Some members on FlyerTalk have reported flying. Even a member here seems to have snuck through (so far, at least).

Cause you might be tempted to take the 10% offer!

It's still poor form, I think. 'We made a mistake, but you're gonna have to go out of your way to contact us to get your money back'. I seem to remember a recent alleged error fare where the airline gave similar options, but said the refund would be automatically processed if there was no response in a certain number of days.

 

[jase05]

Not everyone's has been cancelled. Some members on FlyerTalk have reported flying. Even a member here seems to have snuck through (so far, at least).

I must say i‘m surprised anyone had their flights honoured but great if they did

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I must say i‘m surprised anyone had their flights honoured but great if they did

With error fares it’s not a bad idea to book and fly immediately. A small number of tickets often fall through the cracks during that intervening period.

It’ll be head office rather than check in that picks up any errors and decides to cancel. So if you can get yourself to the airport before anyone notices, you should be ok.

 

[Leuke]

Dear Huang,
Subject: Important Notice Regarding Your Recent Purchase.
Thank you for your recent Kenya Airways ticket purchase. We value you as a customer and look
forward to seeing you onboard Kenya Airways soon. We regrettably wish to bring to your
attention an unfortunate issue related to your recent ticket purchase from Melbourne, Australia to
Kigali, Rwanda
Due to a technical glitch, a price-related error occurred that led to incorrect pricing display which
affected the Melbourne, Australia to Kigali, Rwanda ticket. After careful consideration, we are
unable to honor the ticket you purchased due to the huge price difference compared to the actual
ticket price.
We would therefore like to extend our unreserved apology for this unfortunate situation as we
understand that this was no error on your end and may cause great inconvenience. To fix the
error, we have canceled all tickets purchased.
And to resolve the situation, we would like to offer you the following two options:
1. To purchase the tickets afresh. We will offer a discount of 10% using the Promo-code
MELKGL10. We would love to see you onboard Kenya Airways and hope you’ll accept
the new offer as our apology.
2. If you do not wish to purchase a new ticket, kindly request for a refund from your
agent (in case you purchased the ticket from a travel agent) or on the Kenya Airways
online portal (in case you purchased the ticket on the Kenya Airways website) and submit
the same. If payment has been accepted by us, refunds will be issued to your original
payment method.
Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this situation may have caused. We
appreciate your understanding and thank you for your continued support. For any further
questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out by replying to this email for
assistance.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Jackson Kamande.
Head of Pricing & Revenue Management

This must be so frustrating for you! When were you flying? We have tickets in a couple of months and they're still live.

 

[SnowGoose]

This must be so frustrating for you! When were you flying? We have tickets in a couple of months and they're still live.

I was to be flying in June. I'm hearing of a few people with tickets that survived the cull, i wonder what happened there?

 

[yangry]

Some posts on Flyertalk suggest that you can check the 'coupon status' of your ticket on Saudia Airlines' website (saudia.com).

Scroll down the page after you put in your booking reference and surname, you should see the option to view e-ticket underneath your name. There should be something called 'coupon status' under each leg of the flights, and it will either say 'Open' or Suspended'.

I suspect that it's pretty much game over if one has been contacted AND if their 'coupon status' is suspended. It would be interesting to see in the case of someone who hasn't been contacted AND if their 'coupon status' is open, whether their flights will be honoured.

 

[Rayesfeg]

Booked directly with Kenya Airways. I find the wording of the letter quite odd - why should i reach out to them to request the refund if they are initiating the cancellation?

Digging up a bit of an old post but I do wonder if you had have booked through a third party (Expedia for example), would you have had the same outcome?

I can understand when booking though the airline directly, they can 'simply' cancel the ticket on you and email you about it. Would the process for tickets purchased through a travel agent be the same?
I couldn't imagine that travel agents, especially big names like Booking.com, Expedia who I would assume bring a decent level of business to the airline, would be very happy with an airline cancelling their customers tickets.

 

[MELso]

Digging up a bit of an old post but I do wonder if you had have booked through a third party (Expedia for example), would you have had the same outcome?

I can understand when booking though the airline directly, they can 'simply' cancel the ticket on you and email you about it. Would the process for tickets purchased through a travel agent be the same?
I couldn't imagine that travel agents, especially big names like Booking.com, Expedia who I would assume bring a decent level of business to the airline, would be very happy with an airline cancelling their customers tickets.

If booking through an OTA, there's no difference regarding cancellations and changes to booking direct (if that 11AM flight is now 12PM, it's changed for everyone!). When making adjustments following changes/cancellations though, airlines typically won't touch the ticket until about 24h before departure and everything has to go through the OTA.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Digging up a bit of an old post but I do wonder if you had have booked through a third party (Expedia for example), would you have had the same outcome?

I can understand when booking though the airline directly, they can 'simply' cancel the ticket on you and email you about it. Would the process for tickets purchased through a travel agent be the same?
I couldn't imagine that travel agents, especially big names like Booking.com, Expedia who I would assume bring a decent level of business to the airline, would be very happy with an airline cancelling their customers tickets.

No difference. And potentially worse, because the OTA might delay - or never - inform you. Not intentionally, they may just never pick it up.

The OTA is simply an agent for the airline… they are *not* the passenger’s agent. So whatever the airline says, the (O)TA has to follow. Your ticket (contract) is directly with the airline, not the (O)TA.

 

[Rayesfeg]

If booking through an OTA, there's no difference regarding cancellations and changes to booking direct (if that 11AM flight is now 12PM, it's changed for everyone!).

I get what you're saying, but in this case, the airline had an error. Totally understand if the airline had cancelled that flight or changed the time but in this case they made a decision and chose to not provide a service that OP had purchased. Hope that makes sense?

The OTA is simply an agent for the airline… they are *not* the passenger’s agent. So whatever the airline says, the (O)TA has to follow. Your ticket (contract) is directly with the airline, not the (O)TA.

Hmm, okay. That clarifies my sentence above then. Thanks.

I was thinking (hoping) maybe OTAs have some agreement with the airline where if it's an airline pricing error (not a cancelation or change in flight time), they would still have to honour it. Like a 'bank error in your favour' monopoly card .

 

[MELso]

I get what you're saying, but in this case, the airline had an error. Totally understand if the airline had cancelled that flight or changed the time but in this case they made a decision and chose to not provide a service that OP had purchased. Hope that makes sense?


Hmm, okay. That clarifies my sentence above then. Thanks.

I was thinking (hoping) maybe OTAs have some agreement with the airline where if it's an airline pricing error (not a cancelation or change in flight time), they would still have to honour it. Like a 'bank error in your favour' monopoly card .

Sometimes error fares are honoured, but usually not. It's like anything else in business - obvious errors don't have to be honoured.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I was thinking (hoping) maybe OTAs have some agreement with the airline where if it's an airline pricing error (not a cancelation or change in flight time), they would still have to honour it. Like a 'bank error in your favour' monopoly card .

There is a flip slide - potentially.

Booking an error fare directly with an airline can mean swift cancellation (or agreement to honour). The airline simply searches the origin/destination and the fare, identifies the tickets, and voids them.

Booking through an (O)TA the process is not necessarily as simple and can take a bit longer. There have been some (rare) cases when an airline has cancelled direct bookings, but passengers have still managed to fly on a ticket issued by an (O)TA and not found in time by the airline.

But generally that’s for tickets like ‘buy today fly next day’ (or at least within a few days of buying the fare).

In any event, the TA is getting commission, so the commission is going to be low on an error fare. No real skin off the TA’s nose to lose that small commission, and make a larger one by selling the seat to another customer at the correct price.

 

[Rayesfeg]

There is a flip slide - potentially.

Booking an error fare directly with an airline can mean swift cancellation (or agreement to honour). The airline simply searches the origin/destination and the fare, identifies the tickets, and voids them.

Booking through an (O)TA the process is not necessarily as simple and can take a bit longer. There have been some (rare) cases when an airline has cancelled direct bookings, but passengers have still managed to fly on a ticket issued by an (O)TA and not found in time by the airline.

But generally that’s for tickets like ‘buy today fly next day’ (or at least within a few days of buying the fare).

In any event, the TA is getting commission, so the commission is going to be low on an error fare. No real skin off the TA’s nose to lose that small commission, and make a larger one by selling the seat to another customer at the correct price.

Thankfully this is a rare occurrence.

I would imagine if this happened all the time, OTAs might put a clause in their agreement with the airlines that they cannot cancel/recall a customer's ticket if it is due to an airline pricing error.
Could you imagine how many emails/calls/chats Expedia, Booking.com etc would be busy responding to if airlines did this all the time. They would of course point the finger to the airline but they will still have to go through the expense of dealing with the increase volume of upset customers and the additional cost/brand reputation hit that goes along with it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thankfully this is a rare occurrence.

I would imagine if this happened all the time, OTAs might put a clause in their agreement with the airlines that they cannot cancel/recall a customer's ticket if it is due to an airline pricing error.
Could you imagine how many emails/calls/chats Expedia, Booking.com etc would be busy responding to if airlines did this all the time. They would of course point the finger to the airline but they will still have to go through the expense of dealing with the increase volume of upset customers and the additional cost/brand reputation hit that goes along with it.

Surprisingly it’s not that uncommon! Worldwide there are plenty of mistake fares.

(O)TAs simply cancel them as per airline instruction and issue a refund. Because of the method of communication… airline and travel blog sites… most of the affected customers know the score. Not going to waste hours chasing these up given there were a couple of influential court cases which settled pax rights in these cases.