What a con!

[Justbecauseitsso]

A certain large UK airplane company (can I name and shame on mumsnet?) has tricked me into booking my holiday in their apparent sale.
I booked on the last day of their sale and 2 days later I find out that the very same flight now costs £150 cheaper! They won't refund me the difference when I called. I'm livid. These sales are a con and so this a warning to all - don't fall into the same trap as I did.
As if families don't already get penalised for having to travel during the most expensive times of year we now get conned out of more money for stupidly believing that when a major British flight company proclaims cheaper flights in their sale they are basically lying 😡

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

Nobody tricked you. You paid the price that you thought at the time was good value. Nobody promised you that they would't cost less another time, flight costs change all the time.

Neither do you get penalised for travelling during the holidays, and nobody has conned you. You need to get over yourself, and never look at prices for flights you have already booked!

[harderandharder2breathe]

You weren't tricked

It's always a risk that things will later be cheaper. But if you take the risk of waiting for them to get cheaper you might miss out if they sell out.

[DonkeysDontRideBicycles]

Frustrating when you think you've found a bargain. I have seen this kind of thing feature in consumers' advice columns so you're not alone.

[user1483387154]

Frustrating but you were not tricked. Flights prices change constantly

[Magzmarsh]

Agree with pp. you paid what you thought was reasonable at the time. It's like buying and selling shares, you have to jump in sometime

[PigletWasPoohsFriend]

You haven't been tricked. Nor are you 'penalised' for traveling.

You paid the price at the time. No one forced you to buy them.

[TheresABluebirdOnMyShoulder]

You need to get over yourself

Er, what?

Anyway. I don't think that legally there is much to be done, but I would be annoyed all the same and I disagree with PPs. I do think that there is an element of being 'tricked' here. Surely the whole point of a sale is to offer goods at reduced prices. You would be forgiven for assuming (and indeed the airline are relying on the fact that you will assume) that prices at the end of the sale would increase, not decrease, otherwise on what grounds was the item included in the sale/what was it that signalled the end of the sale if not increased prices. Legal or not, I don't think it's ethical and I would think twice about using such a company again.

[SingingInTheRainstorm]

I would think about calling again and saying you're going to contact a couple of regulators, financial and travel, as you bought under the guise of a sale, for the tickets to be reduced even further.
If you value you repeat custom, a refund of the difference with no silly admin fees, is the least they can do, otherwise you won't book with them again and you will share your experience so others are aware of their tactics.
Wouldn't say necessarily it was a con, but would say that when supermarkets do sales they have to say, this was advertised at this amount to basically protect consumers.
I think various newspapers have financial columns you can write to, plus Radio 4 has a show where people can call in with perceived issues and they'll try and sort it out. For some £150 is a lot of money to get back.

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

hmm Er, what?

Why confused? The outrage, the "warning" others about perfectly normal price fluctuations, the emotive language about cons and penalised and being livid.
I repeat, she needs to get over herself.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Lots of companies do this. All the sofa, kitchen, carpet etc companies that have 'everything half price must end this weekend' type sales for example.

It's not fair and it makes people panic into booking/buying without researching prices etc. And for things like flights, where people often don't really know what is a good price for a particular route, it can be quite difficult to research things thoroughly.

I'm now at a stage where I believe absolutely no adverts like this and assume that the advert is a con/not what it says it is until my research proves otherwise.

One thing that really puts me off about flying long haul is that I have absolutely no idea what it should cost. The furthest I've been is Lanzarote and I've been on loads of cheap flights all over Europe so I know that the average price for a return flight for an adult without luggage outside the school holidays is around £80-120 and if you get it for less than that, it's quite cheap and it starts to look expensive when the price gets nearer to £150.

I have no idea how much I should pay to fly to New York, Singapore or Australia for example so would have to do loads of research before I could book flights to those places so I wouldn't be able to book sale flights because if they were say £600 I would have no idea whether they were 'the deal of the century', about average, or 'they saw you coming prices'.

[Justbecauseitsso]

@Narky - clearly you are a cool customer and don't get taken in by a Sales promotion. Aren't you lucky. So to ignore your unhelpful comment I do continue to feel conned as I was led to believe by BA promoting sales that it would mean cheaper flights and not £150 more than they then went on to offer 2 days after their sale closed. I'm still livid 😡😡.

[Justbecauseitsso]

And thanks to the helpful comments I will check out what consumer rights I may have and see if I can receive some sort of recompense.

[ShotsFired]

Justbecauseitsso I was led to believe by BA promoting sales that it would mean cheaper flights and not £150 more than they then went on to offer 2 days after their sale closed

I regularly fly long haul so when I saw a great promotion for some tickets we snapped them up months ago. Had never seen them that cheap before and I know the usual costs inside out from wistfully dreaming when they were much higher priced . They cost £4200 all in.

Tickets on the exact same flights are currently selling for £3500.

Airline ticket pricing is a complete black art of demand, classes and random other factors we'll never know. Whoever upthread said never go back and look at prices once you have paid is so right. That way madness lies.

Just remind yourself you were happy to buy at the price you paid. And don't go and look again! Have a great trip!

[TheresABluebirdOnMyShoulder]

Narky not confused, just think it's a strange useage of the phrase. It's a phrase that implies that somebody has a massive ego and thinks highly of themselves. I don't think there's any evidence of that in the OP. Just someone who isn't happy with customer service they've received.

[Lweji]

Were those flights to the US?

It looks like they are having trouble shifting them.

[Lweji]

Also, it's only a con if on the sale they were more expensive than before.

[19lottie82]

Don't be daft you weren't conned! They offered you a holiday at a certain price and you were happy to pay it!

If the price had gone up would you be offering to give them the extra?

[youngestisapsycho]

I booked BA flights and hotel to New York in Oct. I looked them up again yesterday and it has increased by just over £1000... prices go up and down.

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

Aren't you lucky. So to ignore your unhelpful comment I do continue to feel conned as I was led to believe by BA promoting sales that it would mean cheaper flights and not £150 more than they then went on to offer 2 days after their sale closed

No, not lucky, I just have a bit of cop on. You weren't led to believe anything, you assumed. The flights were cheaper than they had been previously, that is what sale means, there was no promise or implication that they were the cheapest they would ever be. You invented that bit.

It's like if you see a dress full price in a shop. Then a week later its 30% off in a sale, so you buy it, and you're happy. But then the sale ends and they still haven't got rid of it (for that is the point of sales!) so what do they do? Do they put it back in with the new stock at full price, or do they put it in the bargain bin at 70% off?
And would you go in to the shop shouting about being ripped off because it is now cheaper than when you bought it? Of course you don't!

[Morphene]

narky except that in many shops, if you have a loyalty card, you get future reductions refunded to you in that case of items in the sale.

So actually, yes there is an expectation that if you can find the product you just bought on sale at lower price then you can claim back the difference.

[PigletWasPoohsFriend]

I do continue to feel conned

To repeat you were not conned as they have done nothing illegal.

[PigletWasPoohsFriend]

So actually, yes there is an expectation that if you can find the product you just bought on sale at lower price then you can claim back the difference.

Those loyalty cards it is usually if you find them cheaper elsewhere not with the same company.

[PolaDeVeboise]

Well, a bit of good news - we booked flights with Easyjet early last year and then OH looked again a few months later and found they were cheaper. When he called up, they advised that we would be credited the difference to use for future flights, so big up to them!

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

narky except that in many shops, if you have a loyalty card, you get future reductions refunded to you in that case of items in the sale

I have never seen this and don't actually quite believe you. Many shops? Name 5?

And does OP have a loyalty card for this airline? And do they have any mention of such a thing in their terms and conditions?

[icanteven]

ShotsFired

See if you can change your flights and get money back - lots of airlines allow this.

www.lovemoney.com/news/20641/easyjet-claim-back-the-difference-if-prices-fall-before-you-fly

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/holidays/article-2313445/Missed-cheap-flight-deal-How-airline-pay-YOU-difference.html