Air Asia Misleading Advertising - Watch out Qantas

[markis10]

Correct. They listed at $119 and didnt offer, which was the basis of complaint.

They retracted after I would say some commentary from certain members of the public.

Regards

SPRUCE :mrgreen:

I think we need to do something about the OP then, after all your complaint mentioned the lack of availability of both the $119 and $149 fares , which I found misleading .

 

[oz_mark]

Correct. They listed at $119 and didnt offer, which was the basis of complaint.

They retracted after I would say some commentary from certain members of the public.

It wasn't a retraction, it was a correction. If you look through the papers, there are usually quite a few corrections over a week from various retailers.

 

[anat0l]

It wasn't a retraction, it was a correction. If you look through the papers, there are usually quite a few corrections over a week from various retailers.

A correction does not mean that the public will be happy about it.

If a supermarket accidentally advertises bananas at 25c per kg when they meant $2.00 per kg, which price would they honour (especially when customers come to the store and the price says $2.00/kg then they flash the catalogue)?

If an electronics store accidentally advertises a TV at $2500 when it should be $3500, what happens?

Now we get to the airfares case. Airfares are a sticky thing because

• They are a service
• They are high volume, quick moving sale items
• They may be very cheap but also inordinately expensive
• It is not easy to gauge the relative prices of air fares to a particular benchmark that the public is familiar with.
  Funny enough, the public are usually not too bad with feeling the price of their fruits and veggies from the supermarket, or a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk. Even things like cars houses in a certain area. But certainly not electronic goods, furniture, hardware, cruises, hotels and airfares.

So the retraction may be there, but the repercussions and what happens to those errant fares that were attempted to be bought (or rather, could not be bought or were bought, whatever the case may be)?

 

[Standby]

I have some sympathy for the originator here.Reasonable availablility is a real grey area.Until the ACCC pushes for greater clarity no-one knows what the definition is. Is it 5% ,10% OK on a day with an X in it??
Whilst I avoid the bottom feeder airlines generally,and this is my opinion only, when QF go on sale they actually have seats...more expensive than their competitors pricing mostly but they have seats.
DJ are pretty good too ,JQ dodgey at times (offers of xx_ seats over a travel period could equal 5 per flight =grey area on the reasonable test)at least identify which days of week the special is available which Tiger and Air Asia seem to get away with non disclosure and little media scrutiny .Just ripe an an exclusive ACA investigation
Having said that I believe as much of these claims of too good to be true deals as much as I do spam emails promising "Gland enlargement"
If you snag one your a winner and goodluck ,if not "build a bridge &..."