1. The about-face.
August 6th: El Al’s verified twitter account makes these 2 tweets:
“-An outside company posted incorrect fares on travel websites, so all tickets sold will indeed be honored”
“-Yes, all tickets will be honored!”
I even tweeted a compliment to them at the time,
“-@ELALUSA Kudos for coming out and honoring the tickets without any fuss. @United can actually learn a lesson from you guys!”
Today they made another tweet:
“-Thanks for your patience. Details/decisions re incorrect fares that were briefly sold on Monday are not finalized. We will update tomorrow.”
For posterity (in case any tweets wind up going AWOL) here’s a screenshot link.
Additionally The Jewish Week obtained a quote on the 6th from Sheryl Stein, an El Al spokeswoman, that the fare would be honored.
Apparently El Al hasn’t read the first rule in customer service. Don’t tell the customer that you will honor something unless you are 100% sure about it. The ill will you will create by backing out will be 100 times worse then if you didn’t confirm that you would be honoring in the first place.
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2. News articles:
UPI.com, which claims “Over 100 years of journalistic excellence” has the most bizarre coverage of the story, “Israel’s El Al Airline said the New York to Tel Aviv flights were posted for the wrong price on the Dan’s Deals Web site by a contractor and dozens of customers — many of them Orthodox Jews — quickly moved to take advantage of the discounted fares, which dropped the price of a $1,600 ticket to less than $400, the New York Post reported Wednesday.”
Wow. Just wow.
ABC in NYC had this report which mentions DansDeals’ coverage of the deal:
The NY Post identifies DansDeals twitter alerts as setting off the frenzy.
The USA Today quotes the AP saying that over 5,000 tickets were sold. It mentions a Dan’s Deals email alert, though presumably they mean a Twitter alert from @DansDeals.
VIN quotes DoT spokesman Bill Mosley, regarding the error being done by a 3rd party as saying, “If the third party was working for the airline, that is tantamount to them being the airline,” said Mosely. “I don’t see the distinction if the error was made by a third party or by El Al. If the airline hires a third party to post their fares, that party is under their auspices and it shouldn’t make a difference who actually made the error.”
JTA covers the airfare deal taking down the DansDeals servers.
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3. Halachic (Jewish Law) issues:
Yair Hoffman deals with the halachic aspects on VIN.
I’m not going to enter into an ethical or halachic debate, but some key points must be added to that analysis.
1. Only a tiny percentage of flights take off without empty seats, so buying an airline seat seems to be different than buying a physical good. On average about 20% of the seats on a plane (that means over 80 seats on a 747) go out empty. In fact the whole basis of Priceline is to sell bargain basement seats and hotel rooms, as even getting a few dollars is better than getting nothing when the seat or hotel room are unoccupied.
2. Unadvertised airfare sales are the norm. Is it the purchasers responsibility before purchasing an airline ticket to determine if this is a sale or if this is a mistake?
3. The author goes into a lengthy discussion of a fuel surcharge (which is what I originally speculated had been left out of this fare and was later confirmed by El Al) but can your average consumer be expected to understand the concept of a fuel surcharge?
4. The fact that when American Airlines sells you a mileage ticket to fly on El Al they do not collect a fuel surcharge seems to indicate that the fuel surcharge is not an essential part of the ticket. If it was an essential part of the ticket then how would you be able to use that ticket on El Al when you pay no fuel surcharge?
True that when El Al sells a mileage ticket they do bundle a fuel surcharge, but you can clearly see that booking via other sources can often drop the fuel surcharge.
Why should the consumer assume that the fuel surcharge is an essential part of the ticket and should they have to determine if a fuel surcharge is supposed to be collected before buying an airline ticket?
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4. My thoughts on whether tickets will be honored:
If you’ll recall during United’s 4 mile island crisis (a term that I coined for the Hong Kong 4 mile tickets that caught on) United waited about 5 days before announcing their final decision, likely to determine with the DoT whether they would have to honor the 4 mile tickets.
United had 2 arguments in that case.
1. They have a published rate chart for mileage tickets. While paid tickets can fluctuate wildly, mileage tickets don’t have such fluctuations. (Though I’d argue that we have seen discounted mileage awards in the past, but nothing like that)
2. Even when it said 4 miles it also said the correct amount of miles on the same page. (Though I’d argue that the page made it look like they were discounting it from the regular rate to 4 miles and indeed on the receipt it said 4 miles.)
El Al is likely having negotiations with the DoT right now and they probably regret having come out on Monday as saying tickets would be honored, as that can only hurt their case for cancellation of the tickets.
Personally I don’t see El Al being able to void people’s tickets, due to the US DoT regulation that prohibits airlines from raising the fare or cancelling people’s confirmed tickets, even if the airline claims it was a mistake. These regulations have been tested and enforced, for example Korean Air had to reinstate tickets that they cancelled after people started flooding the DoT with complaints.
As for me, sadly Pesach in Israel doesn’t seem to be in the cards so I cancelled my family’s tickets last night, but I’ll be rooting for the rest of you!
see in the news in israel http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/392/960.html
I booked tickets in late February during the “El Al error frenzy” (for $386 RT on CheapTickets) and called them this afternoon to confirm my seat assignments. If I use the reservation code provided from El Al and log in to “Manage My Bookings” on their website, I can see my reservation with the correct flight information, so I would assume that means I’m good to go, but I guess you never know.
My thoughts on the ElAl deal:
Chanukah in Israel is now a reality and I got the dates I wanted thanks to the twitter alerts (activated after I missed 4 mile island).
Also, I think with all this publicity it way be time to switch site hosts 🙂
Keep the site growing and good luck.
I’m betting that these tickets will be cancelled. Elal has good lawyers who know the loopholes and stuff.
5000 tickets is too big of a loss to just let it slide without a fight
just my humble opinion
On channel 7 news at 5:00 El Al said they are honoring all the tickets it was breaking news! Awesome
Dan Wanted to hook up pesach in Israel.What changed?
@Dan: A great overall analysis, as always.
My thoughts: El Al is losing around $1,000 per ticket. Now let’s say ~5,000 people bought tickets, it amounts to lost revenue of ~$5,000,000 (which assumes everyone would have bought a ticket anyways – which is probably highly unlikely). Obviously $5M is a lot of money, but it’s not a train smash. I think El Al’s best bet is to try to split the lost revenue with the government, who should be thrilled to contribute to the loss due to the new money that will be added to the economy (it’s probably a fair assumption the average person will spend around $1,000 on their trip in Israel making up for any loss, never mind the increased velocity of money from the new money that will be coming into the economy). Otherwise El Al should simply honor the tickets and walk away, and think of it as a very successful marketing campaign.
@RJ898: May this be your Chanukah miracle.
channel 7 news did not say that- at least not here.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8765952
@Shua:
Link please?
http://www.vosizneias.com/111424/2012/08/08/new-york-update-el-al-tix-still-up-in-the-air-dot-investigating
From an inside source at ElAl “ElAl will honor the fare, but will charge the fuel surcharge that was not collected at time ticket was issued.”
@Gilad:
El Al is most definitely not going to take a loss of $1,000 per ticket, not anywhere close to that.
The cost of flying people is far less than that, especially because the vast majority of people would not otherwise be flying to Israel and planes are rarely filled to capacity.
guy take a deep breath, and stop dreaming !!! elal is a jewish company they are not dumb, trust me they will find some way to drop those tickets , i’m %95 sure that the final decision will be that they will not honor the tickets, so every1 that got tickets (including me) be prepared for a let down !!!
Thanks again Dan for letting all of us who did get on theis deal do so. When I heard about the deal and bought the tickets I honestly didn’t think it was a “mistake” at all. Like you said, unlike award charts where everything is clearly written out and charted, flight fares are not and as far as I knew it was just a “great deal”. Either way, the bottom line is now we need some hotel deals…HELP!!!!!
i hope elal will honor the tickets but why not open the credit cards on the top of dd and go to israel for free (or any where else in the world)
WHY ARE WE SAYING $1600.??? IS THIS A REGULAR TICKET ?????? HELLLOOOO????? ITS 900.00 COZ ITS NOT DIRECT FLIGHT i know that $390.00 is not 900$ but go now and try to book it you will get it for $900.00 or so NOT $1600.00
@heimish guy: Jewish or not jewish we have the DOT on our side and they could demand ElAl to reinstate them so think before you post.
My bet:
they will honor the ticket, but charge baggage fees like spirit– it will be $200 for a suitcase up to 20lbs, second bag $400- Carry on will be $100.
they will charge for water on the plane ($8 a cup) and $2 for the bathroom 🙂
Honestly, I hope Elal stands behind the tickets–
and i think people will not trust them again otherwise.
Me:
Doubtful, because they’d have to charge that for everyone in that fare class, and they’d lose a lot of business.
The law is for airlines based out of america, el al is an isaeli airline they can use that argument
@Sara: No, the law is for any airline that flies in the U.S.
@Sara:
Actually, they can’t.
From the DoT:
“Q: Does the prohibition on post-purchase price increases in section 399.88(a) apply in the situation where a carrier mistakenly offers an airfare due to a computer problem or human error and a consumer purchases the ticket at that fare before the carrier is able to fix the mistake?
A: Section 399.88(a) states that it is an unfair and deceptive practice for any seller of scheduled air transportation within, to, or from the United States, or of a tour or tour component that includes scheduled air transportation within, to, or from the United States, to increase the price of that air transportation to a consumer after the air transportation has been purchased by the consumer, except in the case of a government-imposed tax or fee and only if the passenger is advised of a possible increase before purchasing a ticket. A purchase occurs when the full amount agreed upon has been paid by the consumer. Therefore, if a consumer purchases a fare and that consumer receives confirmation (such as a confirmation email and/or the purchase appears on their credit card statement or online account summary) of their purchase, then the seller of air transportation cannot increase the price of that air transportation to that consumer, even when the fare is a “mistake.â€
A contract of carriage provision that reserves the right to cancel such ticketed purchases or reserves the right to raise the fare cannot legalize the practice described above. The Enforcement Office would consider any contract of carriage provision that attempts to relieve a carrier of the prohibition against post-purchase price increase to be an unfair and deceptive practice in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 41712.”
I keep hearing that it was all a matter of no adding the fuel charge…how much can the fuel charge on 1 ticket be already???? These are surely not $1600. tickets. Tickets to Israel in the winter with a stopover….maybe $1000….maybe!!
they can’t otherwise we will sue them it’s going to cost much more
Dan, what happened to the number one argument, dina d’malchusa Dina -simple!
DOT = malchusa. Period.
@chaim s: Those same flights (AA,Elal etc) are $1200. Yes you can fly Aerosvit for cheaper etc, but the flights that guys got, today would cost them $1,200. The $1,600 that they are mentioned is for flying in the summer. Winter tickets are cheaper.
@yidel:
There are plenty of other arguments, including the fact that it was a 3rd party mistake and dina d’malchusa dina (which may or may not apply), I just put a few of the many out there.
I spoke to a former ElAL rep @ chepoair.com customer service. She said that ElAL is honoring all tickets that were purchased. In other words, If you received an e-ticket, then it will be honored, otherwise they are not honoring confirmations. I received a confirmation from cheapoair.com, and I also received an ELAL confirmation, but no e-ticket. I spoke to ELAL who told me, “you still have a seat on the plane, you just have to pay the full $1,100 amount.” Does anyone want to start a class action law suit? I’m In!!
in the video clip: …’my boyfriend … LOL!
@Sunny: nanach alberta bound
drudge has it now
Yaakov, go onto the El Al website, Put in your reservation number. Your info should come up-see if theres a link to your e ticket.
I think as a pre-desicion the group should get a lawyer too fight NOW
Just wondering what ever happened with the UA HKG deal. They canceled my ticket and sent me a stupid email…… I filed a complaint with the DOT and never heard from them. Any legal advise on further action i. e. hiring a lawyer, did the DOT ever issue a statement about consumer rights with award tickets?
Thanks all who respond
I called EL AL – they said they are honoring the tickets
Dan, just out of curiosity. How many hits has your site had since you posted the deal Monday?
Dan we would really like to know how much hits you got on dansdeals. Please reply
@Sarah:
I went to the elal website, this is what came up
Only e-ticket numbers are displayed w hen they are issued.
Document 114-712321****: New York – New York
and a little red square next to the D… does that mean the e-tickets are not available yet, or does it mean that this number is my e-ticket
1)Dina d’Malchussa does not permit one to take advantage of ta’us Yisroel.
2)According to your logic, that hese seats would have gone empty anyway and that the airline is glad to get whatever they can, please explain why one cannot purchase ElAl tickets on Priceline for $400, even the day before a flight.
Dan can you please explain to me how the ticket structure works.
When I buy a ticket on Elal that flies on AA to swiss and Swiss air to Israel. Does Elal then go and pay both airlines? or does the money go to that airline? Im curious as to what the payment setup is and how the payment works. Does elal buy a block of tickets on those airlines (I doubt that) and resell it?
Thank You
@chavie:
I went to the ELAL website, I don’t have the document numbers (e.i. the e-ticket) I know ELAL keeps saying that their honoring the tickets, what about those people such as myself that ELAL froze their accounts before a ticket was printed, but I did get a confirmation number.
El Al has a major PR problem. On the one hand, they are telling the news that they don’t know what they will do yet, on the other hand, when you call the airline, the customer service representatives tell you they will honor the tickets.
@Dan: He said $1000 loss of revenue not profit.
@Yashar v’Tov: Who says its Ta’us yisrael if a third party made the mistake?
BTW why is every second word here “Dan”?? ….Dan could you do this deal again tommorow for a few hours….
Dan is ElAl gona honor these ticket? How do you not know if you were the one who posted it?? 😛
ElAL will honor those tickets but those passengers will not receive any food and beverages as well they will not be abel to watch any movies.
Here is the link to the law. The tricky part is, they never actually accepted payment from me. They said that my payment has been submitted, but there is actually no payment subtracted from my CC (SPG of course)
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2012-title14-vol4/xml/CFR-2012-title14-vol4-sec399-88.xml
@Yashar v’Tov:
1. 3rd party=T”A.
2. Then nobody would purchase full fare tickets…
@Naphtali:
He said El Al is losing $1,000 per person.
The truth is that the vast majority of the purchasers would not have otherwise bought tickets, it was just spur of the moment.
People buying tickets anyway probably already bought tickets or will want to fly nonstop…
To call this a loss of $1K per ticket is ludicrous.
I purchased two tickets on Expedia. They gave me ticket numbers and an elal reservation number. I checked my credit card and the charge is still pending. On Elal website my status is “recorded”. Does this mean that my ticket is on hold? I also received seats. What does this all mean?
Dan I hope youre right about it being illegal for them to back out. If they end up honoring it, what do u think are my chances for ordering kosher meals on my flight? In my haste (after seeing ur post saying to ‘run’) it completely slipped my mind. U think they wont allow any changes because of this debacle?
Not sure if this is good news or just standard, but my Amex was just charged the amount ($1600) for 4 tix. It was booked through Expedia and was pending till now. Either way, thanx Dan. Vegas was nice also 😉
Booked on Hotwire that offered a El Al confirmation code. Updated booking on El Al site with the El Al confirmation code and changed by seats, ordered “Strictly Kosher” meals and printed out El Al ticket receipt with e-ticket number. On it was printed “This is an electronic ticket receipt and serves as proof of payment…” Mind you, my return flight from Paris to JFK was switched to a later flight that does not match the flight times that I booked and shown on my Hotwire Reservation. I figured I better print these confirmations and proof of payment, with the updates, in case it is needed down the road to prove that I have “purchased” the ticket, received a receipt for payment and have a confirmed e-ticket number. And El Al is thinking to cancel the booking with such proof!?
DrudgeReport.com just picked up the ElAl ticket story. They get millions of hits a day. This just became a major story!
idid call ELAL and order kosher for me my wife and infant and also got seats from ORD to TLV and Expidia debit my CC $ 1235 for the tkts.
got AA & ELAL confirmation and the ETKT numbers.
TNX !!!!
I just spoke to elal . They said that the company will be honoring the tickets a d we should enjoy. When my husband d said should we feel bad that we were able to get such a great deal by someone else loosing out, he said don’t worry we will be honoring the tickets.
@TG: Drudge gets alot of hits? You dont say
I’m curious..if there is any halachic problem if one bought thru expedia or any other 3rd party agency. Even though there “may” be a prob with buying directlt from elal as they r jews but buying from a 3rd party may have different halachic implecations.
Also, any law issues or lawsuits for that matter would have to include expedia/orbitz etc. as well….if I purchased thru a 3rd party its their issue not the parenting airline.
@Gilad:
What do you mean, split the money with the government? You mean the Israeli taxpayer? Or, more directly, you mean I should pay half of your cheap ticket to Israel?
No, I don’t think so.
I think El Al’s shareholders should pay, because they own the company, no me, who happens to pay taxes to the Israeli government.
So El Al was not unilateraly mochel. Other heteirim may still apply.
@Msregister: seeing as it’s El Al food, that might actually make the tickets worth more 🙂
Is this a Mekach Taos? Are we stealing from a Jewish compnay? It would be ironic to travel to Yerushalayim on a stolen ticket….
Wow dude, you really love taking the credit for all this, even what that credit is due elsewhere!
@Dan & Naphtali: Thanks for your comments. My apologies for not being more clear. I was definitely referring to $5M lost revenue (= 5,000 tickets x 1,000 per ticket). In terms of actual loss, it wouldn’t be surprising if there wasn’t ANY loss on these sales… granted that’s not the way to run a business, but again, if they play this right, how much would a similar successful marking campaign cost them?
@yair: I hear what you’re saying and you’re 100% right that this mistake should NOT be the responsibility of the Israeli taxpayer. Nevertheless, besides those that got in on the deal, I still believe that the Israeli economy, Israeli businesses (and also the Israeli taxpayers) will benefit greatly! I’d imagine many of the people are going to take the money they saved and spend it in E’Y – I know I am, and then some;)
@Flyertalk user:
I’ve already posted multiple times on this site that I personally did not find the deal, I saw it due to mickeyg posting it to DDF. I’ve also told every reporter I’ve spoken to that that was how I personally learned about it.
mickeyg wrote there that he was searching for flights and found cheap tickets, I plugged the ITA Calendar to find valid dates and posted it and tweeted it to my 5K followers which is was started the frenzy among religous jews nationwide which is a majority of my readership.
If I find a deal on FT I’m happy to attribute it there, and have many times in the past, but that was not the case this time.
@Gilad:
You can’t count lost revenue among people that otherwise would not have flown.
hey dan, i see in my CC that i got billed $370 twice from el al. which i guess means that one of my fix went through.however i have no idea where to look for it. as i never got an email about it.
Thanks
Dan as avid followers of dansdeals I think we have the right to know how many hits you got Monday on dansdeals.com and how many more hits than average.
Please Please tell us
Are they honoring the tickets??
any updates as of today 08-09-12 on weather the tickets will be honer or not?
I received confirmation from Expedia not el al directly . Does anyone know if these tickets are being honored? My itiniery also says that check in is with American airlines I’m confused does anyone know what this means?
El Al HAS to honor this due to new regulation. Please google DoT 399.88 (A) to see the details. Basically to sumarize. Once the airline issued a ticket (that is the eticket number) the airline can’t charge you more, can’t add fees or try to collect a penny more. Even in the case of error fares, the airline has to honor the deal…
El Al has some potential solutions, tis was what someone on FlyerTalk psoted…
“Potential solutions that LY could take to solve this issue and avoid DoT fines: (These numbers are just assumptions: if we use a 6000 tickets sold figure)
1) Offer full refunds for those who feel they shouldn’t get in on the deal for whatever reason. (Religious, Moral, etc) That would get rid of 40 to 60% of the sold tickets.
1A) Just to show good will them a 200 bucks El Al non-transferable voucher or something as a goodwill symbol. El Al charges more than average so they would make some decent money on that settlement.
2) To those on Partner airline metal. Offer to place on same dates or similar dates on LY metal. Obviously some seats go unsold on every flight, so marginal cost is pretty low. (Exceptions might apply for holiday season, where LY might sell at a much higher rate) 20 – 30% might take this offer. You would still get AA RDMs at 50%. Again offer a voucher for $200 off LY flights, most of these would go unused (make them non-transferable to avoid resale issues)
3) Keep the tickets as is, lot’s of us FTs would be happy with our routings. The remaining 10 t0 20% fly as booked. Slightly higher cost to LY but lower than before. Also most codeshares are based on certain parameters. So I doubt LY is paying AA full fare from JFK-ZRH…”
@yankle: You know what they say: It’s more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be.
They said on Twitter that they’ll honor it!
@dan whats an ITA Calendar?
@chavie: I was there when you made the phone call. When I told him I feel bad, and I want to return the tickets, he said I can. Maybe they’re only honoring them because they have no real choice. It’s a lose-lose situation. If they dont honor them, they look terrible. If they honor them, they lose money.
they are honoring the deal… see last post on twitter 🙂
they are honoring. yay!!!!
awesome its offical. they are honoring it. Also they are letting you change to fly nonstop for 150 dollars not bad!!
Here is a link to the El Al press release. They are allowing you to upgrade to a non-stop NY-TLV flight for $75 each way but this is completely optional. You are also allowed to cancel your flight for a limited amount of time for now fee.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=460150634007087&set=a.128098047212349.15013.116106135078207&type=1
Great customer service El Al. As another poster put it. United and other US airlines can learn good PR from an Israeli company! Great job El Al!
@Gilad: i’ll make you a deal. Come to Israel, and give me $500, and we’ll call it even 🙂
@Yaakov: we also have a problem with cheapoair, please call me at 410-404-9167 asap.