
The Other Mile-High Club - DiabloD3
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-other-mile-high-club
======
oofabz
If I run a computer system that commits a crime because of a bug, I will be
held accountable for my system's actions.

For example, I might misconfigure my FTP server to include my music
collection, facilitating piracy. Or I might write a shopping cart that takes
everyone's money and doesn't deliver their product. An "honest mistake"
defense won't get you off the hook for these.

Since the law applies to everyone equally, airlines should also be responsible
for their mistakes. We have laws against false advertising for good reason and
if we stop enforcing them, companies will take advantage.

~~~
branchless
I really don't like this vulture culture. The main defence seems to be "the
airlines are bad too". My six year-old now knows this doesn't cut any ice.

This vulture behaviour even extends to ruining small companies. In the UK
recently I read of a company on amazon with a far lower price on a product
than intended and the twitter crowd were all out demanding the company
"honour" the price even though everyone knew it was an error. Amazon were of
course siding with the customer but the company was saying it would put them
out of business.

~~~
Spooky23
This class of mistake is a cost of doing business when airlines have computers
and people playing these ridiculous revenue optimization games.

Unlike virtually any other business, it's really difficult to accept the
excuse of fare "misprints" when in many cases airlines reprice routes several
times per day, or even multiple times per hour. I'm sure that if they were
able to say "oops", the number of "mistakes" would spike whenever unexpected
demand was encountered.

If they have issues with employees fat fingering fares, perhaps they should
review the internal controls.

------
rubyrescue
I've flown from SEA-NYC for $1.86. I flew from YYV to Romania, and onto
Turkey, for $200. I flew with my family of 5 in first class from SEA-YTO
(Toronto) for $0, on Air Canada. Too many others to count. All from flyertalk.
It's not as good as it used to be but there were times I've taken whole
flights full of flyertalkers headed somewhere basically for free.

Key to success: Find some friends who also like to do this and who will wake
you up in the middle of the night if they find a great deal (and won't
complain if you reciprocate). It's hard to watch flyertalk all the time and
the deals go quickly.

~~~
hristov
Just curious did you actually want to fly to new york? Or was it a case of
"wow it is only 1.86 to go to nyc, i guess i am going".

~~~
hueving
nah, you have to be up for random trips or have a list of places that you
would be willing to go if free. It's much less likely that one will pop up
conveniently for a trip you need to make any time soon.

------
aaron695
I find it sad that there are people who think because someone makes a mistake
you should be allowed, in fact a 'right', to take advantage of them.

I understand if you don't realise and their mistake sets you back you should
get some sort of resolution.

But come off it, everyone in these groups knows when it's a pricing error.

These groups are fun, I do like them, but when some members think they are
entitled to something because mistakes happen I have issue.

~~~
jrochkind1
Airlines have taken advantage of me for making a mistake so many times. Once I
booked I accidentally booked a flight for February 12, when the conference I
was going to was actually March 12. I didn't realize until the day of my
actually purchased flight. There was no sympathy for me, I simply had to buy
another ticket.

~~~
hueving
That's different because it's not obvious to them, especially since you waited
so long. Your parent comment is referring to situations where it's obvious
some sort of mistake was made and yet you jump on it and exploit it knowing
that something wasn't right.

~~~
jrochkind1
How do I know what fares are obviously mistakes? Fare prices are all over the
place. They quite often charge less for a round-trip than a one-way to the
same destination, which is not a mistake at all, that fact makes it clear that
it's not obvious which fares are mistakes and which aren't, or I'd think all
of those were!

~~~
redblacktree
It may not always be obvious, but as an example, the $1.86 flight that another
poster mentioned should certainly trip your "this isn't right" sensor.

~~~
Spooky23
Why?

Companies do all sorts of bizarro price offers. Megabus offers $1 fares to
encourage pre-booking. Target sells $6 shampoo for 90% off when it sits for
awhile. $1.86 may be preferable to an empty chair for some reason.

Pretending to be in Denmark to score a deal is acting in bad faith... But if
you offer something for sale at a bad price, that's your problem.

~~~
lsaferite
Well, If I had an account with a billing address in Denmark while I lived in
the US, would that suddenly change the morality of the situation?

------
spitfire
In Canada an offer to trade is legally binding. At least for the first sale of
a erronous advertisement.

Legally speaking if a company posts a screaming good deal in a flyer or
advertisement they have to honour the first sale, but after that may make
corrections.

This has been tested in court.

Also, if you make an offer and accept a response by mail, the second the
response hits the mailbox (NOT the postmark) it's considered accepted.

So if you offer to sell something, to person A who who responds via mail but
sell to person B before the letter gets to you you're legally bound to make
person A whole.

This too has been tested in court.

This is why you now see legalize at the bottom of flyers now which says the in
store price is the valid price if disagreements pop up.

~~~
eru
Couldn't airlines put some fineprint into any offer, that they are not
actually selling you a straight up flight ticket, but a flight ticket that
comes with the option for the company / obligation for the customer of a
buyback at the price paid (or, say, 110% of the price paid)?

------
jrdnbshp
I started a community for this exact purpose. It's called Oyster Chat and it's
free to join We've got about 400 travelers on Oyster Chat right now and
membership is growing at 10-15% per week. We collectively share the best
flight deals, but unlike FlyerTalk it encourages real-time discussion and you
receive city-specific notifications. It's hosted on Slack right now.

Over fifty flights have been booked so far based on the discussion in there.
Oyster Chat is an extension of my flight hacking business Yore Oyster.

Happy to answer any questions about it, and anyone interested in flying
cheaply is encouraged to join and contribute to make our community even more
valuable.

-Jordan

~~~
boothead
How do you join? Got a link to the slack room?

~~~
jrdnbshp
oysterchat.com. You'll get an email invitation within 30 minutes of signing
up.

~~~
boothead
Thanks, signed up! :-)

------
bryanlarsen
Claiming you're from Denmark when you're not to receive an advantage is fraud.
I wouldn't expect a company or a prosecutor to press charges over it, but
demanding that your fraudulent transaction be honoured certainly seems like
pushing your luck.

~~~
cjg
"Oh, no, I must have put Denmark by mistake."

------
lifeisstillgood
The crux of the article:

    
    
      “People absolutely have no qualms screwing 
       airlines," he said, "because they just 
       hate them."
    

It is probably true. I think the pricing mechanisms make this true - every
time I get on a plane I am annoyed that there will be others on board that
have paid significantly less than me, and I suspect that, Lake Woebegone
style, _so does everyone else on the plane_.

I don't know if the maths will support it, but an airline that actually
charges flat fares may win enormous amounts of good will.

------
fsk
I don't see why this is even an issue. You publish a bad price due to your own
incompetence. You should have to honor the fare.

If the airline overcharged someone due to an error, do they give refunds?

If you accidentally buy 100000 shares of a stock when you meant to type 1000,
you don't get a redo. Why should airlines be any different?

I once saw replacement electric shaver heads on sale in Rite-Aid. The price
should have been $30 but they charged me $1. When I saw how it rang up, I
bought another two. Can Rite-Aid demand $58 from me? How is this different?

~~~
joezydeco
This is an issue, and United is allowed to deny the tickets, because the non-
Danish citizens that tried to enter a purchase contract with United did it
under false pretenses (i.e. putting down their country of citizenship as
Denmark to trigger the pricing error when they were not Danish citizens).
Contract law gets pretty precise under these situations.

Airlines have been held to task when people found legitimate fares and
honestly purchased a ticket. This was not one of those situations.

More generous airlines and other large corporations have been known to honor
the price anyway to avoid a P/R fiasco and generate goodwill. From my
experience, UAL is not one of those companies. =)

~~~
lsaferite
Were they putting Denmark as the citizenship for ticket details or putting
Denmark as the billing country for a creditcard to trigger the correct billing
currency?

I read it as a simple billing currency issue.

------
math0ne
Anyone got any links to places where stuff like this gets posted ;)

~~~
joelrunyon
I just did a trip like this to Seychelles for $400.

Wrote about it here --> [http://impossiblehq.com/say-yes-
adventure](http://impossiblehq.com/say-yes-adventure)

There's a good round of links that I follow for good deals near the bottom.

Hope that helps!

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Was the ticket mispriced or do you think Etihad was just running an aggressive
promotion?

~~~
joelrunyon
It was mis-priced, but Etihad did a standup job, got extra press & honored the
tickets.

United did the opposite, which is one of many reasons why no one likes flying
United.

