British Airways review by Jeremy 2014-02-12

On Wednesday 27 April 2011 a travel agent advised my wife of a fare of $796, on British Airways, saying that it would be necessary to book and pay by Friday 29 April. That evening I looked on the British Airways website and at an online travel agent's website, and confirmed this information (the fares varied slightly, which I took to be slightly differing agent's commissions). On the following day (Thursday 30 April), after we had planned a trip, this fare appeared to be no longer offered, but a fare of about $915 was offered instead. (after checking two travel agents and the BA website, which again, offered very similar fares). The discrepancy in amounts was not due to changing availability of seats - mostly the above information relates to what I was told before we looked at which dates the required number of seats was available. That is, they advertised that a fare would be available until Friday, and then discontinued it basically overnight. This seems like "bait advertising", which in the case of retail shops in Australia, is illegal, and certainly unethical. It certainly had that effect - getting me to come along having planned a purchase, only to tell me the price was more than I had, based on their advertising, confidently expected. EDITORS COMMENT: Generally you will find that in the fine print it will say "until set number of seats has sold" or something to that effect. It is frustrating though but every airline does it