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Christopher Elliott says that those who book fare errors are unethical. He opines that such travelers are wrong to take advantage of someone else’s mistake.

It’s great to be all high and mighty when you KNOW that something is an error. But how can we know if something is a promotion or a mistake? As I wrote last week:

Sure, some of these rates should never have been posted, but with Ryanair and Easyjet regularly selling seats for zero base fare plus taxes, or Spirit’s recent advertised $9 fares to the Caribbean, why shouldn’t the public assume some of these prices are legit?

Someone might also say that a fare that’s quickly pulled might more obviously be an error. But couldn’t those fares have been limited in availability, and thus genuinely sold out?

Given such an environment, in which today’s fare error might be tomorrow’s sale price, there is nothing wrong with expecting a low fare to be honored. ESPECIALLY if it is prepaid. The burden of quality control rests with the seller, not the consumer. And any tickets or rooms actually sold at such low rates should be an incentive to improve accounting procedures in-house, not an opportunity to punish the lucky consumers who booked the deal.

tags: travel | air travel | fare errors