Adios, mistake fares!

FIRST THINGS FIRST: I haven’t had time to investigate for myself, but Frequent Miler’s latest post about a great deal at KMart / Sears is intriguing and I recommend you read it if you have a Sears near you.

THE END IS NEAR: Fascinating stuff from Cranky Flier via View From the Wing! Apparently the airlines have raised enough of a fuss over being forced to honor mistake fares that the DOT is now considering changing the rules. Gary writes:

The rulemaking reveals the Department of Transportation’s intention to weaken one aspect of existing consumer protections.

The DOT has required airlines to honor prices, even when those prices were a mistake (14 CFR 399.88). They wanted air carriers to own their prices no matter what.

They didn’t require United to honor 4 mile award tickets to and through Hong Kong, but United displayed the ‘correct’ price throughout the booking process and only dropped price at the end.

This tilted things in a really strong direction for consumers overall. It also upended the traditional notion of obvious mistake, that no contract could have been formed if parties didn’t actually intend to strike a bargain at a particular price.

Here’s the relevant passage from the DOT notice of proposed rulemaking:

“Individual bad actors”? I love it!

I’ve never capitalized on a mistake fare, so I don’t really have a dog in this fight. But one thing I recall seeing on Flyertalk is how a few folks would muster up a ridiculous sense of moral outrage at companies that did not want to honor a mistake fare.

I can understand disappointment if the mistake fare isn’t honored, but outrage? Really? Is it really that big of a deal if you can’t fly to Scotland for $3.50 when the deal was obviously a result of somebody pressing the wrong key?

Anyway… Gary points out, “I have no idea how the Department of Transportation is going to write a rule that would parse whether a fare was obviously a mistake to a consumer or whether a consumer was duped by a good deal that the travel provider tried to raise the price on later.”

Great point, I have no idea how you’d do that either. I’d be surprised if the airlines don’t get their way, though, unless the Flyertalk has some high-priced Washington lobbyists I’m unaware of. Industries these days usually get to write their own rules, so enjoy those mistake fares while you can.