American Airlines has backtracked after seemingly agreeing to honor all fares booked at heavily discounted prices due to a glitch.
The currency conversion error occurred for flights booked in Brazilian Reals, offering about 90% discount on the regular fare.
The airline said it would ‘honor mispriced fares that were booked last week in select international markets,’ but some customers have had tickets voided for what the airline deems as ‘bad faith’ bookings.
The anomaly only worked for tickets priced in Brazilian Reals, so customers who could not prove they were actually in Brazil when making the booking have been penalised.
Frequent flier website Flyertalk reported many members finding their tickets were cancelled for bookings made with non-Brazilian credit cards, with billing addresses outside Brazil, or did not show customers had Brazilian residency.
"American is honoring the overwhelming majority of fares that were the result of a technical error in currency exchange rates. After reviewing the bookings, a small number have been canceled based on how the traveler portrayed their country of residence," said Matt Miller of American’s corporate communications.
Customers were able to get the low fares by changing the country of residence on the American website to ‘Brazil’ regardless of their true location.
