On August 20th, fares for international flights bought through United and American Airlines with the country of origin set as Brazil were mistakenly converted from Brazilian Reals to US Dollars, instead of the other way around. Because 1R$ = 0.29US$, the discount was estimated to be up to 90% on some flights. One picture posted on Flyertalk showed a round trip from São Paulo to Hong Kong for R$1,255 which would be around $350 US dollars. Normally that flight would cost $3,350 US dollars so of course once people started talking about the discount, a lot of people bought the discounted tickets. United Airlines blamed the glitch on people setting the reservation site to Denmark. As those fares were not intended for US citizens, the Department of Transportation backed their decision to make those who bought discounted flights pay full price. American, on the other hand, chose to honor the glitched discounts in the hopes that customers will remember how nice they were and book with them again in the future.
I think American was really nice about it considering it's not bringing them immediate profit by allowing consumers to buy tickets for up to 90% off. If I was a person who bought a ticket through United, I would never book with them again because they obviously only care about their money and not their customers.
In US history there have been other times when people have been needlessly selfish to further themselves instead of help others. Some examples are: giving the Irish immigrants the worst land, keeping slaves in slavery, putting people of Japanese descent (and other Asian-Americans) into internment camps because they posed a "terrorist threat" to other Americans after Pearl Harbor, segregation, deporting people who come here from the Carribean, South and Central America, and paying people less than the minimum wage. We all need to be more like American Airlines because everyone deserves 90% off of an international flight!
“I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”
― Dr. Seuss, Yertle the Turtle and Gertrude McFuzz
http://consumerist.com/2015/08/28/american-airlines-will-honor-super-low-mistake-fares-that-discounted-flights-up-to-90/
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