I wrote about the CTA decision on the RGN mistake fare around a month ago. Today, it seems like Swiss sent in a letter to the CTA asking them to “review and rescind” the decision. It also seems that they read my blog, as they’re basing some of their argument on what I wrote.

You can download a PDF here of what the (new) LX legal team is saying.

*Rant on*

I think this is fairly ridiculous. Now, by no means am I a legal expert, but I just felt the need to comment on some of their opinions why should I be writing about this? I just feel it’s significant to the future of mistake fares, a few of which I have posted here.

I was going to respond to every one of their comments, but I don’t think it’s worth wasting my words on the Swiss legal team. Geez. So I’m just going to say a few things:

Just because it’s a mistake fare doesn’t mean you have the right to annul a contract that has been both misleading, with a lack of the 5F clause in the Contract of Carriage viewable to consumers, and unfriendly to consumers especially given that this has happened before. It has been very clear that there have been several rounds of this fare which highlighted the convertibility issue associated with the Myannmar Kyat. It’s Swiss’ and IATA’s fault for their failure to ensure that the issues associated with the currency conversion has been fixed. Furthermore, given that other airlines have honoured these tickets, it’s not up to you to say whether it is a technical error or not.

I publish fares because I wish for people to benefit from lower airfares. I have no malicious nor predatory intent and I don’t intend to unfairly benefit from this fare. It’s not like I purchased 20 of these fares just to “stick it” to Swiss. I feel like the Swiss legal team is twisting my words. I wrote that post to face people on online forums including Flyertalk who disliked my publication of extremely low fares. I asked people to not call the airlines because that is standard practice with fares such as these. I’m not encouraging people to not call the airlines because I want everyone to take advantage of the airlines, but because it has been a practice established by other and something that I do just as a courtesy to respect other blogger’s and traveller’s treatment of a fare.

They’ve definitely taken my words and maliciously twisted them into a way I never intended to, which is really insulting. Calling me an “experienced frequent flier of international tickets” is an attack on my brand. Perhaps, I should sue them, like Asiana?

Just because I say to not call the airlines and that fares can be cancelled doesn’t mean anything. Swiss has no right to cancel our tickets. At all. Whether I knowingly purchased the fare or not, or I asked readers not to call the airline is irrelevant.

I also find hilarious some of the things that LX has said: they didn’t sell these tickets but yet they sold 17 tickets ex-RGN between Sept 2011 and August 2012.

And no, we were not refunded immediately. And what right does Swiss have to say we never should have deserved a bargain?

I am also really skeptical that this would be to the extreme detriment of Swiss.

“Please note that the Agency may not necessarily rule in the same manner as it is not bound by past precedents.” – CTA

Time for more waiting…