What is and isn't a manifestly incorrect pricing error

[pemma]

Just seen this on the BBC News site

Passengers who bought cheap British Airways flights say they are angry after their tickets were cancelled because the prices were wrong.

The airline said it had sent incorrect fares to a number of travel agents for flights to Tel Aviv and Dubai.

Ash Dubbay, from London, says he had booked a return flight to Tel Aviv for £195.
...
A BA spokeswoman said the contract with customers was not legally binding if the price was "manifestly incorrect".

The firm said the incorrect tickets were "hundreds and hundreds of pounds" cheaper than they should have been and BA was not in a position to honour them, although it refused to say how many such tickets had been sold.

BA said: "Errors like this are exceptionally rare, and if they do occur, under contract law, there is no binding contract between the parties.

"We have apologised to customers and offered a gesture of goodwill."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44546400

To me £195 for a return flight to Tel Aviv sounds cheapish but not 'manifestly incorrect', if it had been a return fare to Dubai in First Class for £195 then perhaps it would be manifestly incorrect, unless they advertised it as a special offer. I once saw a land only package for Israel including tours and multiple nights accommodation advertised for something like £40 - with something like that I wouldn't dare to book it and then buy flights separately on the presumption that I would be able to go without paying any extra.

 

[edwin_m]

I agree £195 doesn't seem unreasonable. My last flight to Madrid was about £110 return on Easyjet, £195 would be a bit less per mile but not drastically so (and I've had cheaper flights to Madrid in the past). Given the crazy prices that sometimes pop up on the low cost airlines, and the fact BA is trying to compete with them, I don't think I would have smelled a rat in this case.

 

[Kite159]

It sounds like BA have (once again) shot themselves into the foot, the negative PR arising from this error probably will cost them more than it would if they allowed those cheap flights go ahead.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree this is not manifestly incorrect. I think they should be forced to honour these.

 

[AlterEgo]

I agree this is not manifestly incorrect. I think they should be forced to honour these.

Agreed.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It sounds like BA have (once again) shot themselves into the foot, the negative PR arising from this error probably will cost them more than it would if they allowed those cheap flights go ahead.

I hope so. If they'd been a tenner I would agree, but £195 for a return Economy class flight within Europe (albeit one slightly on the long side) seems a totally reasonable price. If they really were charging a grand, it's *that* that is manifestly unreasonable!

 

[Iskra]

Currently in Southern Italy. A 3 hour flight from home. Paid £50 with Ryanair. None of the destinations quoted are 4 times as far, so £195 looks very reasonable to me.

 

[All Line Rover]

For those purchasers of tickets who were unaware of BA's mistake, the contracts remain binding and the BA spokesperson is incorrect (just as a contract remains binding where a passenger makes a mistake when inputting their name or date of travel*). The only exception would be if BA's contracts for travel stated that any pricing mistake by BA would preclude a contract being formed, but I would expect such a term to be void for uncertainty (how could the occasional passenger know if BA had made a 'mistake', and what would be the effect of a 'mistake' in selling a ticket at £690 instead of £699?), or else capable of being disapplied as an unfair term, particularly when * is taken into account.

For those purchasers of tickets who were aware of BA's mistake, the contracts would be void (they would never have come into existence). However, if BA didn't notice the mistake and allowed a passenger to travel using a ticket BA had supplied, I would expect the courts to hold that an implied contract for travel came into existence at the time when the passenger's ticket was accepted at an airport check-in desk as valid for travel.

To address the comment below, 'manifest error' is nothing more than an evidential shortcut to the legal rule that, where the 'innocent' party to a supposed contract has made a unilateral mistake, that contract is void if the other party is aware of the mistake. I agree that BA's error is not a 'manifest error'. Any ticket purchasers who *were* aware of BA's error still won't have a valid contract with BA (at least, not until they check in for the flight), but it would be difficult for BA to prove the subjective knowledge of a particular purchaser.

The teaching MotCO received (post #13) was correct but indeed 'basic', as it only covered the basic legal principles and not the (important) caveats.

 

[etr221]

For those purchasers of tickets who were unaware of BA's mistake, the contracts remain binding and the BA spokesperson is incorrect (just as a contract remains binding where a passenger makes a mistake when inputting their name or date of travel*). The only exception would be if BA's contracts for travel stated that any pricing mistake by BA would preclude a contract being formed, but I would expect such a term to be void for uncertainty (how could the occasional passenger know if BA had made a 'mistake', and what would be the effect of a 'mistake' in selling a ticket at £690 instead of £699?), or else capable of being disapplied as an unfair term, particularly when * is taken into account.

For those purchasers of tickets who were aware of BA's mistake, the contracts would be void (they would never have come into existence). However, if BA didn't notice the mistake and allowed a passenger to travel using a ticket BA had supplied, I would expect the courts to hold that an implied contract for travel came into existence at the time when the passenger's ticket was accepted at an airport check-in desk as valid for travel.

My understanding is that BA's position is that it was a manifest error: i.e. that that the price was so wrong as to be obviously a mistake, and so anybody booking would be aware, and hence the contract void.

A legal definition: a ‘manifest error’ is one that is “obvious or easily demonstrable without extensive investigation”

My view of this (and IANAL) is that the price (c£200) was not so wrong as to be a manifest error - a quick look earlier did show some prices of less than £300 for flights to Tel Aviv - and hence that BA's position is wrong.

 

[CC 72100]

Well RailUK is by no means representative of the whole population, but a straw poll on this thread suggests that nobody would have suspected something was wrong at that price. In 2018, the pricing between Low cost and Legacy carriers, and what they represent (service, quality etc.) is becoming increasingly blurred and so I certainly wouldn't have suspected that that price was definitely a mistake, far from it.

£19.50 on the other hand of course!

 

[Ianno87]

I'd argue that quite alot of people don't buy flights often enough to know what a "normal" price is.

Our honeymoon flights Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur via Doha (back from Singapore) cost a shade over £450 each return inc. Taxes - I was astounded given the distance!

 

[gazthomas]

Despite having a couple of generations working BA are a shower of S... you know what

 

[MotCO]

I had always thought that if someone offered to sell you something at a certain price, and you accepted that offer by making a payment which was accepted, then a contract has been made and both partes had to honour it. Some basic legal training many years ago led me to believe this.

Has the law changed? Have I got it wrong, or does it not apply to tickets which are not products in their own right?

 

[joncombe]

The Aviation industry must be one of the harder to determine if a price is "manifestly incorrect". I've taken flights with Ryanair this year where the fare was £9.99 each way (and I didn't pay a penny more). That doesn't even cover the required taxes (it was a European flight). Logic might dictate that a fare that doesn't even cover the (mandatory) taxes would be incorrect, but it wasn't (I don't think such low prices are that uncommon on Ryanair, I seem them advertised from time to time).

So I think BA should just honour their mistake. Their actions seem extremely petty.

 

[tony_mac]

Has the law changed? Have I got it wrong

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartog_v_Colin_&_Shields

 

[yorkie]

£195 sounds about right to me, given you can fly to many places at a cheaper rate 'per mile'.

There have also been numerous instances of road/rail transport companies selling £1 fares for long distance journeys, so £195 for a long distance flight is not at all indicative of any sort of "error".

I hope they are made to regret this poor decision.

 

[pemma]

Paid £50 with Ryanair.

I've taken flights with Ryanair this year where the fare was £9.99 each way (and I didn't pay a penny more). That doesn't even cover the required taxes (it was a European flight). Logic might dictate that a fare that doesn't even cover the (mandatory) taxes would be incorrect, but it wasn't (I don't think such low prices are that uncommon on Ryanair, I seem them advertised from time to time).

given you can fly to many places at a cheaper rate 'per mile'.

I think it would be a reasonable assumption to expect a Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle fare on BA to cost more than a Stansted to Beauvais fare on Ryanair despite the similar distance given one of the reasons Ryanair use a number of smaller airports is to keep the cost down. It's also worth remembering a lot of the promotional fares on budget airlines apply in one direction only so Ryanair might offer you a £9.99 flight to go somewhere but if you want to go back with Ryanair you'd pay substantially more in the return direction. That said not all budget airline flights use smaller airports and some traditional airlines like KLM, TAP and Aer Lingus sell flights for prices not dissimilar to those of budget airlines.

 

[edwin_m]

I think it would be a reasonable assumption to expect a Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle fare on BA to cost more than a Stansted to Beauvais fare on Ryanair despite the similar distance given one of the reasons Ryanair use a number of smaller airports is to keep the cost down. It's also worth remembering a lot of the promotional fares on budget airlines apply in one direction only so Ryanair might offer you a £9.99 flight to go somewhere but if you want to go back with Ryanair you'd pay substantially more in the return direction. That said not all budget airline flights use smaller airports and some traditional airlines like KLM, TAP and Aer Lingus sell flights for prices not dissimilar to those of budget airlines.

I think BA is on shaky ground PR-wise if they try to make that argument, which is essentially that "everyone knows we are more expensive than Ryanair". This is a perception, whether correct or otherwise, that they have been trying to shake for years by removing the "free extras" from their services and trying to drive down costs in other ways.

 

[radamfi]

I won't fly with BA unless there is no choice or they are substantially *cheaper* than the alternatives. I think I would actually pay more to go with Ryanair. I have avoided BA for many years already and right now I can't see myself using them again.

 

[pemma]

I think BA is on shaky ground PR-wise if they try to make that argument, which is essentially that "everyone knows we are more expensive than Ryanair".

That wasn't the point I was making. The first point was flights to and from smaller less used airports tend to be a bit cheaper so it's not quite as simple as using a price per mile to work out whether a flight is appropriately priced. The second was some of the promotional fares from the likes of Ryanair apply to one way journeys, so you need to use the cost of a return flight with a Ryanair when saying how much it would cost with Ryanair not just use a headline offer single fare and double it. So in summary it's fine to say what a return fare on Ryanair from Manchester to Barcelona costs and to use that as a benchmark but not what a single fare on Ryanair from Stansted to Beauvais costs and to use that as a benchmark.

 

[Mojo]

Israel is a very expensive place to fly to (I should know, we've been wanting to go there for ages so have looked at a lot of flights!) so I'm not quite sure I buy the argument vs. flights to Italy, Spain, etc.

Airlines are very frequently cancelling 'Error' fares (one only has to look at the archives of Flyertalk, Secret Flyer, et al), so I'm not sure why this story has hit all the news articles and is being discussed so widely whereas all the others don't seem to have.

 

[AlterEgo]

Israel is a very expensive place to fly to (I should know, we've been wanting to go there for ages so have looked at a lot of flights!) so I'm not quite sure I buy the argument vs. flights to Italy, Spain, etc.

Airlines are very frequently cancelling 'Error' fares (one only has to look at the archives of Flyertalk, Secret Flyer, et al), so I'm not sure why this story has hit all the news articles and is being discussed so widely whereas all the others don't seem to have.

I’ll be honest, I was expecting the twist to be “...in business class”. £189 is very cheap for economy class but not something which would be an obvious error to a lot of laypeople.

Easyjet are selling TLV flights for as low as £140 return - as a regular thing, not a sale.

I’m very disappointed BA are being so hard-nosed - a lot of Tel Aviv traffic is friends and family traffic connecting with people they don’t see often. I wish BA tremendous ill fortune and a pox upon them.

 

[edwin_m]

That wasn't the point I was making. The first point was flights to and from smaller less used airports tend to be a bit cheaper so it's not quite as simple as using a price per mile to work out whether a flight is appropriately priced. The second was some of the promotional fares from the likes of Ryanair apply to one way journeys, so you need to use the cost of a return flight with a Ryanair when saying how much it would cost with Ryanair not just use a headline offer single fare and double it. So in summary it's fine to say what a return fare on Ryanair from Manchester to Barcelona costs and to use that as a benchmark but not what a single fare on Ryanair from Stansted to Beauvais costs and to use that as a benchmark.

In my original post I was comparing a return flight from Gatwick to Madrid so neither a single journey nor a drastically smaller/cheaper airport. And someone has since pointed out that Easyjet regularly offer flights to Tel Aviv at a lower price than the "manifestly incorrect" one quoted by BA.

 

[pemma]

Airlines are very frequently cancelling 'Error' fares (one only has to look at the archives of Flyertalk, Secret Flyer, et al), so I'm not sure why this story has hit all the news articles and is being discussed so widely whereas all the others don't seem to have.

Just searched Flyertalk and only two threads immediately came up. One relating someone's Business Class trans-Atlantic fare not being honoured and the other related to the BA Israel fares being discussed here. It looks like some regular flyers were aware these Israel fares were much cheaper than what BA would normally charge and consequently they were all encouraging one another to take advantage of the 'offer' before BA noticed the 'mistake.' So it could well be the likes of Flyertalk made the difference between BA honouring tickets sold at the wrong price and them not doing, they might well even be able to use Flyertalk as their evidence for it being 'manifestly incorrect', even though those who aren't regular flyers or enthusiasts might well have seen it as a cheapish price but not a 'manifestly incorrect' one.

In my original post I was comparing a return flight from Gatwick to Madrid so neither a single journey nor a drastically smaller/cheaper airport. And someone has since pointed out that Easyjet regularly offer flights to Tel Aviv at a lower price than the "manifestly incorrect" one quoted by BA.

Various people have used European flights as an example in this thread. You did say you flew to Madrid in your earlier post even though you didn't say where you flew from, one person has referred to a flight between 'home' and 'Southern Italy' so it's unclear what exactly they are using a comparison.

 

[pemma]

Seems someone in Wizz Air's PR department knows what they are doing

As anger grows at the cancellation by British Airways of thousands of tickets that were sold too cheaply, a rival airline has stepped in to capitalise on BA’s misfortune.

Wizz Air, the Hungarian budget airline, is offering disappointed British Airways passengers flights from Luton to Tel Aviv for £80 each way.

The fares are for travel up to 21 July 2018 and are “subject to availability”, according to the airline.
...
Bookings must be made by Sunday 25 June 2018, and customers will need to provide evidence of the cancelled BA booking.

Wizz Air’s chief corporate officer, Owain Jones, said: “Wizz Air is delighted to give new customers who’ve been left in the lurch following the cancellation of their BA flights to Tel Aviv the opportunity to break with tradition.

“We’re confident that our new customers will realise that there’s no need to pay high prices to travel to some of the most exciting destinations in Europe and beyond.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/trave...ancelled-bookings-mistake-fares-a8409351.html

 

[Bletchleyite]

Let's hope Sleasy get in on it too. This particular piece of BA arrogance needs them to be delivered a firm clout.

 

[Harpers Tate]

I see that Virgin Atlantic are advertising a "sale" at the moment, with the tag line

"Prices so great, you'll think we made a miztake*"


"* Don't worry, even if we mess up, we'll still honour our prices."

And I suspect they will, too. Honour I mean, not mess up.

 

[TheEdge]

Last month I flew from Heathrow to Cyprus on BA for £230 return, so £195 return to Tel Aviv would strike me as cheap but not obviously an error.

 

[gingerheid]

It is cheap, but the only obvious error is the PR disaster caused by cancelling tickets when other airlines (almost) offer cheaper ones.

 

[MotCO]

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartog_v_Colin_&_Shields

In that case, there had been a previous oral agreement to buy at a certain price, but the order misquoted the unit. In the BA case, there was no prior discussion between customer and vendor, so I am not sure that the case is the same. As discussed in other responses to this thread, it is not at all obvious that the price offered was wrong.