Book a mistake fare? You’re stealing!

@Oliver - thanks, that makes sense. I don't read any Tribune source regularly, so I just know him from CNN. I did read his own website for a little while, before I realized he's not a very good writer, and your description of his typical exchange is spot on.

@Craig -- not sure if Elliot has any special deal with CNN going. The post on CNN's website was distributed by Tribune Media Services, and I actually read the very same article in the SF Chronicle Travel section a week or two earlier (yes, sometimes paper "news" beats online "news"). The Chronicle's weekly Sunday travel section always as an Elliot travel advice column (which CNN seems to "re-print" at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/travel.troubleshooter/index.html ) and they are always so predictable that they probably were written by a piece of software. It goes along the lines of Q: Help, Chris, I went to XYZ and company ABC did blah to me. Now they refuse to refund my money. A. If you had written or emailed instead of calling, you would have left a trail that subsequent communication could rely on. Alas you are to stupid for that, and so you're basically at fault for not getting the money back. But here, let me help you, I have contacted ABC and they are giving you $xxx for your self-inflicted trouble. Rinse, lather, repeat.

@Scott - actually, USA Today has some pretty good travel reporting, particularly Ben Mutzabaugh's blog. Elliott writes mainly for CNN and his own blog, although I think he's been on MSNBC (which is a horrible travel-news source) as well. That said, Elliott is, more often than not, something of a joke as a travel writer. And he's way off on this one. First off, while the fares in the BA case were lower than average for US-India flights, the total price quoted after taxes, etc. in this case was not so low as to be unreasonable, compared to both other all-in prices to India at the time or other international fares of comparable distance. I say "price", not "fare" deliberately, as consumers only care about total price, not "fare" vs. "surcharge" vs "taxes". Second, it's a matter of principle - if airlines (or anyone, really) are allowed to post a price, take payment from the customer, then disallow the price later and call it a "mistake" after the ticket is actually issued, where does it stop? Once you accept payment, you have a contract, and if the airline made a mistake, too bad. Now if they loaded the prices, noticed the mistake, and then stopped customers from booking as soon as they noticed it, without accepting payment, that's fair. But that's not what BA did in this case...they took payment, the tickets were issued, payment was made. Finally, there's an element of "poetic justice" to the BA event in that the fare loaded was $40, but the "fuel surcharge" pushed the price before taxes to the point where the price after taxes was, while low, not so low as to be unreasonable. If the airlines weren't still playing the "fuel surcharge" game, the $40 base fare would have priced out after taxes so low as to give BA a fair defence under the "reasonable man" concept of common law. The fuel surcharges were understandable as an emergency response to the oil price crisis, but now they're just being used to reduce the amount of the total ticket price subject to corporate discounts, make "free" FF program tickets no longer "free" without imposing an actual FF redemption fee and overtly reducing the value of programs, etc.

I have to agree with Chris E. Coins, keep up the good work... because one day you're going to replace Chris E at the paper!

He's the Glen Beck of the travel world.