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The Pure Madness of Pursuing Mistake Fares
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You’re not telling us the most important part – HOW did Rachel get AF to reinstate your ticket in F a second time?!?
Can’t believe your mouth-breathing audience is enjoying this story.
You’re a loser for deboarding the Lufthansa flight with a bag checked-in.
I hope AF and Lufthansa blacklist your bum-ass. lol “prince” of travel.
This is a awesome story, I have read it word by word and imaged the situation in pictures, it’s so entertaining. You make me believe that anything is possible as long as you don’t give up. You have a super assistant Rachel treasure her.
Oh my… Such an interesting read. This was a rollercoaster ride! Such a thrill to read and so glad to hear that you were able to make the trip and try out AF F! I’m also in awe by how well timed everything was; just a few more minutes on the LH flight, you could’ve missed the chance. And it sucks that Vueling wasn’t willing to help; as someone who got stuck because of conflicting transit policies in August, I can totally feel your frustration 🙁 Also huge props to Rachel for always being so helpful and calling all the airlines :p
Hope someday I can also pull together such a feat like what you have achieved. Also kudos to your assistant, Rachel. Without her, it would not have happened!
Was this written by Dan Brown?
Best post so far, Ricky. With my luck, my phone would have died on me just after getting the text saying it was booked.
In a certain time period this would be written as an opera. What a story … !!…
I can imagine the opera with a chorus of Customer Service Agents singing: “You cannot make it!”, and Ricky answering: “No, I am still in the game!”
Definitely a great story, up until you unboarded the plane at the last second… the captain was right when you swore at you. Clearly its not an easy task to get your luggage off and get everything back sorted, hence his displeasure. What ever tho, you got the blog post and hopefully didnt waste any of those other travellers time or connections!
So what? He should miss a rare opportunity, so someone would not be displeased? That was his right to leave the plane if he did not feel like flying.
If it delayed that flight and made an entire plan late, there’s a good chance many folks might have tight or missed connections. So yes, this was an incredibly selfish move.
It made sense to have the experience even to be able writing that article – should I say a movie script? Your audience enjoys reading exiting stories that involve the adrenaline rush and high reward. You don’t need to be perfect. Just continue writing about your adventures and the educational content as well. Your humour and attention to detail are also appreciated.
By the way – why do you prefer seat 1A? Isn’t the first row closest to the toilet?
I liked this story much better than the one where you ended up quarantined, a much happier ending also.
I think the valuable lesson (to me anyways) is the fine line you have to sometimes walk between, persistence and not blowing up (which almost never serves you well) at the agents. Keep up the great work!
My mind certainly wandered back to those moments in No Man’s Land a few times during this ordeal. Oh, the highs and lows of 2021 travel.
BEST ARTICLE on an av blog ever!
Can’t AF be sued for not honouring a ticket?
Like that was an advertised fare. Considering EU laws are very customer friendly.
Why sue when you can just get them to honour it? 🙂
After reading the hotel status-match story and now this, the writers of this blog win for DEDICATION! Wow!
Did you actually go to Europe for something or did you get yourself there ONLY so that you could fly back???
I also met up with some friends and got to rediscover a few places I haven’t visited for a few years. Oh and I got to review Austrian business as well. But yes – La Première was the main attraction.
What an odyssey!! And so well recounted. Never had a flight redemption been so well deserved. I can’t wait to read your report on La Première.
Why thank you Lise… and it wasn’t even a redemption!
Could guess was not easy day for you, stress and sweat even if cold December probably:), had pleasure to use same error fare mid November and before was big struggle among Edreams and Af representatives, my luck was that ticket always on delta stock and magically when rebooked 3/4 times with Af they couldn’t ever see original price on this tickets just showing 44500 Dz as taxes:). Transiting from Rome with Ita Airlines that no request any Visa nor connecting tickets, upon arrival some scepticism regarding bizarre route to get Portland but then green light to Cdg to enjoy Premiere Lounge from 0800 to 1330 day after, enjoining as much breakfast and Lunch by Ducasse, on board cabin and seats terrific but service no top notch, sad u probably not get much time in lounge to enjoy full experience but still kudos for your win to fly.
Ah, Mr. Transit Without Visa on ITA! I wish my journey were as smooth as yours. One of my few regrets (if you can call it that) was not asking them to make me something from the lunch menu even though I was only in the lounge during breakfast hours. Something to leave for next time. 😉
As per the churning community On Reddit , you come off as a douche for this https://www.reddit.com/r/churningcanada/comments/rhmsuh/daily_question_thread_for_rchurningcanada/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
The Reddit geniuses are great at shade and snipe but only one of their criticisms is even slightly worthy: the last-second deplaning. But ask yourself: what is the actual moment, after which one is obliged to stay on a flight? The plane door is still open. Travel is voluntary. I think it’s unwise to check a bag, because an opportunity such as this can occur, especially if you’re working hard to make it occur! But the act of getting off a plane, while the door isn’t closed yet? Totally 100% legit IMHO. for any discretionary reason, which one is not obliged to explain, to anyone. I’ve done it when the person next to me wore much too much perfume and all F seats were taken. Shade from Reddit? Not news.
It’s just a total dick move to waste a plane full of fellow travellers’ time like that for such a trivial reason.
Uhh… planes have been delayed for FAR less legitimate reasons than this one…
Flights do have a degree of buffer involved, and they likely will have made up a little time in the air.
In fact, you can probably look up the flight involved. Looks like it could have been LH1035 on Dec 13th.
You and all those reddit commenters must be Saints because you have not done anything selfish ever in life that caused inconvenience to others and hence have earned the right to call out others when they confess to their mistakes… or you all are regular human beings (read: hypocrites) who are unaware of their own shortcomings but are first to point out others’ shortcoming… don’t you find it ironic that the comments in the link above were posted in a thread related to churning credit cards, which itself isn’t in the right spirit of credit card agreements and is a “dick” move on its own…
I don’t agree. If the door is open, the flight isn’t in progress. Nobody is obliged to stay on board. But if pax time will be wasted, in this case it’s because a checked bag had to be unloaded. If it’s unpardonable to waste airline pax time, we’ve got a whole convo we can have on the subject, usually with the airlines themselves playing the role of villain.
You clearly have no idea how much coordination, work, effort, money, etc it takes to make an airport run smoothly. This is unpardonable because it is a colossal waste of time, money, energy for all the people who work at the airport for something completely unnecessary. You can hate on the airlines all you want but there are real hard-working people who actually get you from point A to B. I personally don’t care about the amount of money that LH will be charged for a delayed gate departure, but I do think it’s outrageous to have absolutely no empathy for all the hard work that went into getting that flight to arrive on time to its destination.
We churners are part of a selfish game, but most of us usually adhere to the rule about not hurting the little guy. Most of us don’t abuse mom & pop shops but we all have to remember that airports are not just full of big corporations. There are lots of very hard-working (mostly immigrants) working long hours for terrible pay. So, I hope this gives all of us some pause to think about how our actions affect others.
Too much drama.
clearly have no idea?
Colossal waste?
Outrageous?
Absolutely no empathy?
Immigrants working long hours for terrible pay, harmed by Ricky getting off a stationary airplane?
Ummmm… I’ll leave this thread to cooler heads. Had my say.
Buddy, you are the one out of touch in this one.
C’est incroyable! Bravo.
Holy F*ck !
An epic read Ricky. Had no clue all this were behind the screens when we were texting while you were boarding La Premiere.
One of the best travel blog posts in recent times. Kudos 🙏🏼
That’s what I exclaimed too, right about 6:33am local time. 😉
Goddamn I’d pay to see the on-screen adaptation, a true hustler.
…. Gee… Thought I was reading an Indiana Jones movie script….
Can’t wait to watch this in a cinema. Who would you choose to play you? 🙂
Pierre Poilievre
I think like everyone said, best points and miles blog post I’ve read in my years of reading these blogs. And it perfectly illustrates that THIS is why we do what we do!
Legend!
This is well worth the read! Lesson learn from this:
– Keep on trying and trying until the very last second (literally)
– DO NOT CHECK BAG and ready to move anytime anywhere
– Take any and every option available at that moment
Now we can’t wait to hear your review of La Première – hope that it was well worth all the stress!
Exactly. Stay in the game. You’ll always get that one last chance.
Prince of Dragon Ballz travel. I salute you Sir!
What a terrific read. I was on pins and needles the whole time. Enjoyed every word, and now I can’t wait to read your review 🙂
Ricky, you just stressed the hell out of me! One way to start one of my last work days before xmas! Way to persist, but I know there is no way i would have been able to push through like you did. Well done!
Great story Ricky. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful story. Can’t find anything in there to make me regret my policy of never, ever checking a bag 😉
Rookie mistake I know, but I truly didn’t believe we had any chance at all at that point. I figured I’d check my bag and make it easier for myself when filming the flight.
If you’d not checked the bag, AF wouldn’t have come through for ya. It’s the Law of Persuasive Kinetics
You’re probably right. Always with the wisdom DenB.
Well, my heart sure was pumping reading this insane story! Wow!! And you didn’t even have to pay the €1500 AND got 100,000 AP points refunded? For your dedication, effort and resilience here, you need to get upgraded to King of Travel. I know I would have given up immediately at the Vueling debacle 😂
Oh GOD don’t tell him that
WOW that may have been the best internet piece I’ve read all year! Did you get refunded for the Lufthansa flight though?
All points and taxes refunded at 6:43am. Turns out Aeroplan’s refund policy of 2 hours before departure isn’t strict at all.
This is for sure the travel story of the year. The Prince of Travel continues to amaze me and has become the premiere source of knowledge, inspiration and pure fun in the travel community. It really was an exciting read!
Loved this story, I could see a Prince of Travel movie in the offing!
Amazing experience…but I say not enough stress with COVID that you have to go and make your own? I am waiting for Act X about you getting your Aeroplan Lufthansa points reimbursed or some sort of flight voucher from Lufthansa 😀
Now that you mention it, at some point during Act 6 I had to go to the testing centre at BCN for an antigen test… for one of my two possible US-bound flights the next day.
All 100,000 Aeroplan points were refunded when I got the Lufthansa agent to cancel my check-in and cancelled online at 6:40am. We only took Ws on this day. 😉
What a crazy story. I’d say it was pretty exciting reading that!! I guess the motto is: keep trying never give up even to the last second! Beauty
I’ve always known that persistence pays off. I’ve never seen it in action quite like this.
I am sure it was totally worth it, but I am 32 and my heart and brain just couldn’t take the adrenaline rush just reading! Did you collapse after the entire fiasco? 😂
For shizzle his nizzle he collapsed , right after finally getting to experience those amazing privacy shades separating the 4 exclusive la premiere seats that nearly cost him 2 grand
Tenacity always win 👏
I probably spent a whole hour laughing to myself and at myself onboard the La Première flight after my fifth glass of Taittinger Comtes 2007.
and just imagine the END OF THE WORLD you would have had if your LH flight had taken off! 😅
I do not dare imagine how I would’ve felt if Rachel had been on hold for just a few minutes longer… and my Lufthansa plane were already taxiing when I got reinstated in First!
*kills self*
Man, this was too stressful to read. Next time please just pay the $15,000+ euros and dont make us hang like that. 😋
These errors do happen though. I was once able to score 4 nights @ $11 USD / night in brand new overwater bungalows at the Moorea Sofitel (regularly $1,350.00 night, and yes I was going there anyways). It was a fight to hold that, but Expedia did. Apparently after succumbing to honoring these prices for me, Expedia.ca actually changed their pricing policies.
We need a Pure Madness tropical version from you, Nathan!
Pure madness! Good you were alone and not traveling with P2. Too much stress…. So what’s not clear from your story/timeline: did you have to pay the 1500 EUR in the end for the initial economy downgrade starting in CDG?
Nope! The agent downgraded me to economy and reissued the ticket for no charge. He probably felt like there was no grounds levying a little-known €1,500 fee when I was getting downgraded to economy without mercy.
As for P2 – maybe an Act 10? 😉
Also… what happened to the Aeroplan Lufthansa booking? Were you able to cancel without a penalty?
Here’s a little Act 8.5: Aeroplan publishes a rule that you have to cancel or change your flight at least two hours before departure or the ticket will be forfeited. Since my Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt was departing at 6:45am, I wavered at about 4:45am in terms of whether or not to continue.
Eventually I told Rachel: “It’s only 100,000 Aeroplan points. We’re going for it.” And we continued.
At 6:40am, as I got off the jet bridge, I asked the Lufthansa agent to cancel my check-in, and then I was able to cancel online with Aeroplan for a full refund of the 100,000 points & taxes. It seems that at least with Lufthansa, the two-hour rule isn’t well-enforced at all.
I assumed you’re 100K SE member so that you can cancel the ticket free.
I have to say that you caused a delay to all the passengers in the LH flight and that was pretty selfish move.
I actually went to look it up thanks to your comment – turns out the LH flight actually got in early: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DLH1051/history/20211213/0545Z/LFPG/EDDF
All’s well that ends well.
Nope – I was able to cancel for free because I had booked the ticket within the past 24 hours.
Was it selfish? Yes. I’ve learned my lesson to never check a bag in this kind of high-pressure scenario again.
I was thinking the same thing as Dino but didn’t want to call you out on it. If I was in that LH flight, I would be pissed regardless of whether it ended up arriving on schedule or earlier. But I’m glad you acknowledge a key lesson here and will remind your fellow readers: don’t check bags in any type of potential situation like this…
This was an amazing read.
Looking forward to the review.
Indeed, I’m looking forward to writing it. La Première was all worth it!
Wow! Absolutely incredible read Ricky, you had me on the edge of my seat the whole way! I can’t even imagine how it was for you haha. Looking forward to reading more about your experience.
I couldn’t believe what was happening at the time, and I still can hardly believe it looking back. A story for the ages!
I’m trying to watch the Steelers game but I couldn’t stop reading this amazing story!!!!!!!