BA Back to Back tickets

"Malcolm Weir" <malc@gelt.org> wrote in message
news:be73109l02mecshdm6cl7q3d5hc37kqssm@...
> It is entirely false to even imply that "watching is all they can
> do"!!!

Just wondering, how do they "watch"? A lot of people in the same contries
have the same names so a computer can't just cancel a ticket even if the
names are the same?

And If I misspelt my name deliberately, Trent StensSnes, how would "they"
find me then?

In message <HJhQb.3414$hd.57325@news2.e.nsc.no>, Trent Stensnes
<some@one.no> writes
>Just wondering, how do they "watch"? A lot of people in the same contries
>have the same names so a computer can't just cancel a ticket even if the
>names are the same?
>
>And If I misspelt my name deliberately, Trent StensSnes, how would "they"
>find me then?

Frequent Flyer numbers must be a "dead giveaway". As would a Credit Card
Number.

And in more recent times, Passport Numbers (for transatlantic fights, at
least).
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bZmZv9iokaEAFAJk@perry.co.uk...
> In message <HJhQb.3414$hd.57325@news2.e.nsc.no>, Trent Stensnes
> <some@one.no> writes
> >Just wondering, how do they "watch"? A lot of people in the same contries
> >have the same names so a computer can't just cancel a ticket even if the
> >names are the same?
> >
> >And If I misspelt my name deliberately, Trent StensSnes, how would "they"
> >find me then?
>
> Frequent Flyer numbers must be a "dead giveaway". As would a Credit Card
> Number.
>
> And in more recent times, Passport Numbers (for transatlantic fights, at
> least).
> --
> Roland Perry

KLM record passport numbers on European flights too IME.

Res

In message <8dsa101p4g5f79po5092l85f2l6pi5ku79@>, Malcolm Weir
<malc@gelt.org> writes
>But if you _with the intent to n_ choose to misinform the airline as
>to the journey (not ticket) that you want to take, then that's a whole
>'nother matter....

All the time I've been flying (or travelling by train) no-one has *ever*
asked what my movements were going to be in between the outbound and
return legs.

Let's say I bought a London to Edinburgh train ticket today for
immediate travel but with a restriction that I couldn't come back until
next Monday. On Thursday I get recalled to London unexpectedly (but can
return to Edinburgh on Friday to finish my business there).

Are you saying my return ticket next Monday has somehow evaporated, and
I need to purchase a replacement single?
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 22:38:43 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>In message <8dsa101p4g5f79po5092l85f2l6pi5ku79@>, Malcolm Weir
><malc@gelt.org> writes
>>But if you _with the intent to n_ choose to misinform the airline as
>>to the journey (not ticket) that you want to take, then that's a whole
>>'nother matter....
>
>All the time I've been flying (or travelling by train) no-one has *ever*
>asked what my movements were going to be in between the outbound and
>return legs.

So? The point was not whether they chose to ask, but whether *if*
they decide to, they could do more than watch...

>Let's say I bought a London to Edinburgh train ticket today for
>immediate travel but with a restriction that I couldn't come back until
>next Monday. On Thursday I get recalled to London unexpectedly (but can
>return to Edinburgh on Friday to finish my business there).

Let's say the moon is made of green cheese! These examples get very
tedious, and prove nothing!

>Are you saying my return ticket next Monday has somehow evaporated, and
>I need to purchase a replacement single?

No. I'm saying that any blanket claim that it is still valid is
questionable. In your hypothetical, there was no intent to deceive or
manipulate the fare paid: your plans changed.

[ Ignoring the issue that train tickets are usually not tracked in the
way air tickets are; even if you have a paper ticket, there is
*something* in the airline's computers that correlates with the
ticket... ]

At this stage, you (or someone) is probably going to start on about
"well, how does the airline/railway know the difference?", which is
entirely irrelevant to the issue.

Most people can "fiddle" their expenses/taxes/VAT/whatever, and say
"well, how does the employer/Inland Revenue/customs/whoever know?"...

The point is that *if* they know (or think they know), they *can* deny
you travel, and point to the conditions of carriage.

YOU, not they, then have to justify your conduct in court, IF you want
to prevail.

Most everyone who gets off on this sort of argument totally fails to
get that point: it is up to you to prove your buying practice was
innocent, not them to prove it wasn't, simply because you would have
to be the plaintiff in a court action.

Malc.

In message <deib10lk0cehma0s2gt4dsntu0s18tgdde@>, Malcolm Weir
<malc@gelt.org> writes

> The point was not whether they chose to ask, but whether *if*
>they decide to, they could do more than watch...

Having read the conditions of carriage from end to end, NO.

>>Let's say I bought a London to Edinburgh train ticket today for
>>immediate travel but with a restriction that I couldn't come back until
>>next Monday. On Thursday I get recalled to London unexpectedly (but can
>>return to Edinburgh on Friday to finish my business there).
>
>Let's say the moon is made of green cheese! These examples get very
>tedious, and prove nothing!

It's an example of a situation (with a more compressed timescale than
you might have by air) where you'll end up with back-to-back tickets.

>>Are you saying my return ticket next Monday has somehow evaporated, and
>>I need to purchase a replacement single?
>
>No. I'm saying that any blanket claim that it is still valid is
>questionable. In your hypothetical, there was no intent to deceive or
>manipulate the fare paid: your plans changed.

However, intent is increasingly ignored in matters of air travel. You
must have seen the recent postings here that say it's a crime to go to
USA security points with a prohibited item, even if there was no intent
to carry the item.

>The point is that *if* they know (or think they know), they *can* deny
>you travel, and point to the conditions of carriage.

No they can't, the clauses simply aren't there.

>YOU, not they, then have to justify your conduct in court, IF you want
>to prevail.
>
>Most everyone who gets off on this sort of argument totally fails to
>get that point: it is up to you to prove your buying practice was
>innocent, not them to prove it wasn't, simply because you would have
>to be the plaintiff in a court action.

No, it's up to them to prove that the travel pattern was against their
conditions of carriage. Which it isn't. (And it would be simple to
insert a clause which explicitly forbad it. For heavens sake, they have
17 lines about what happens when one of the travelling party dies en
route. They can afford a couple of lines to ban back-to-backs (if they
wanted to).

For example, after the essay about death it says:

"We will not honour your ticket and it will no longer be valid
if you do not use all the coupons in the sequence provided in
the ticket."

To which they could add: "or interrupt the sequence by using any coupons
from any other ticket" [1].

But they haven't.

[1] This rather elegant clause copyright me, a royalty of £1M due from
any airline incorporating it in their conditions of carriage ;-)
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 03:24:29 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>In message <deib10lk0cehma0s2gt4dsntu0s18tgdde@>, Malcolm Weir
><malc@gelt.org> writes
>
>> The point was not whether they chose to ask, but whether *if*
>>they decide to, they could do more than watch...
>
>Having read the conditions of carriage from end to end, NO.

*Sigh* That's not true.

The paragraph I cited gives them the power. You may, indeed, prevail
in court with your argument and vague arm waving about what you think
"journey" should mean, but you are WRONG in your statement that they
cannot deny you boarding if _they_ (not you) decide that you haven't
paid for your journey.

>>>Let's say I bought a London to Edinburgh train ticket today for
>>>immediate travel but with a restriction that I couldn't come back until
>>>next Monday. On Thursday I get recalled to London unexpectedly (but can
>>>return to Edinburgh on Friday to finish my business there).
>>
>>Let's say the moon is made of green cheese! These examples get very
>>tedious, and prove nothing!
>
>It's an example of a situation (with a more compressed timescale than
>you might have by air) where you'll end up with back-to-back tickets.

And it proves nothing. You are attempting to construct a scenario in
which there is a reasonable construction, and then demanding that your
scenario must apply in all cases.

Reality doesn't work that way (which is why we have courts, for
example).

>>>Are you saying my return ticket next Monday has somehow evaporated, and
>>>I need to purchase a replacement single?
>>
>>No. I'm saying that any blanket claim that it is still valid is
>>questionable. In your hypothetical, there was no intent to deceive or
>>manipulate the fare paid: your plans changed.
>
>However, intent is increasingly ignored in matters of air travel. You
>must have seen the recent postings here that say it's a crime to go to
>USA security points with a prohibited item, even if there was no intent
>to carry the item.

And I'll repeat, since you appear incapable of grasping the point,
that the blanket claim is questionable.

If (and it's *another* questionable claim) "intent _is_ increasingly
ignored" then what, precisely, does that mean? Answer: Nothing.
Because *you* are the one making the blanket claim, and I am simply
pointing out that there exists holes in your blanket.

Consider, if you would, the difference between "intent is increasingly
ignored" and "intent is unfailingly ignored"...

>>The point is that *if* they know (or think they know), they *can* deny
>>you travel, and point to the conditions of carriage.
>
>No they can't, the clauses simply aren't there.

Wrong. The words are clear, and your attempt to apply your own
construction is not absolutely persuasive.

If, as you allege, the intent of the paragraph I cited was to prevent
you from traveling if you hadn't paid for your ticket, why *does* it
say "journey"???

That is *your* problem, and pretending that it doesn't exist, or that
your construction ("it means point-to-point") is correct, simply
ignores the facts.

>>YOU, not they, then have to justify your conduct in court, IF you want
>>to prevail.
>>
>>Most everyone who gets off on this sort of argument totally fails to
>>get that point: it is up to you to prove your buying practice was
>>innocent, not them to prove it wasn't, simply because you would have
>>to be the plaintiff in a court action.
>
>No, it's up to them to prove that the travel pattern was against their
>conditions of carriage.

Nope. You aren't getting it! YOU are the one denied boarding. YOU
are the one who has to sue them. YOU would have to demonstrate that
your actions were within their terms.

> Which it isn't.

You misspelled "I don't believe it is"...

> (And it would be simple to
>insert a clause which explicitly forbad it. For heavens sake, they have
>17 lines about what happens when one of the travelling party dies en
>route. They can afford a couple of lines to ban back-to-backs (if they
>wanted to).

Yet there is virtue in keeping it simple, so as to avoid the situation
where one questionable practice was mentioned and another wasn't.

So it's far simpler to simply add a blanket "no travel without paying
the fare for your journey".

>For example, after the essay about death it says:
>
> "We will not honour your ticket and it will no longer be valid
> if you do not use all the coupons in the sequence provided in
> the ticket."
>
>To which they could add: "or interrupt the sequence by using any coupons
>from any other ticket" [1].
>
>But they haven't.

Yet it is *your* construction that this means that they *couldn't*
choose to apply the blanket restriction.

>[1] This rather elegant clause copyright me, a royalty of £1M due from
>any airline incorporating it in their conditions of carriage ;-)

Dream on!

Malc.

In message <guhd105sjp84a2p8938fgr82ng6nmca8pu@>, Malcolm Weir
<malc@gelt.org> writes
>>Using two 'day' returns as a single period return is an entirely
>>different situation to buying overlapping tickets and using
>>*all* of the coupons.

>In both cases you structure your purchases so as to gain financial
>benefit by misrepresenting what you want to do.

The difference, evident to everyone but you, is that the former involves
*not* travelling on all the booked segments, but the latter does.

--
Roland Perry

In message <8htd10p3pqcjdeplgogc8v7pnrs41fcb69@>, Malcolm Weir
<malc@gelt.org> writes

>>No, you are misreading it.
>
>No, I am not. It gives them the power.

Endless contradiction isn't getting anyone anywhere.

>> That paragraph is in a section about forged
>>tickets, and so on. "Not paid for the journey" means exactly that: your
>>cheque bounced.
>
>That would be "not paid for the TICKET".

The ticket is just an acceptable means to prove you've paid for the
journey.

>>Because you pay for a *journey* and the *ticket* is merely *evidence*
>>that you've paid.
>
>But that fails to address the question of what, exactly, is your
>journey?

Surprisingly, BA fail to define what a "Journey" is. So the normal
dictionary definition applies (stop me when you recognise this) which is
that a journey is from A to B, and not A to B to A.

>But you are indeed right, but not in the way you think:
>
>If your ticket is for Out1 and Back2 (with another ticket for Back1
>and Out2), then that is clear evidence that your journey is
>Out1-Back1-Out2-Back2 (all four legs).

What you are calling a "leg" is close to a "journey", except it can
several of what I think the airlines call "sectors".

> And the airline NOT YOU
>determines the fare for that journey.

Indeed, and when one describes to them what journey one wishes to make,
they invent a price, and one pays it. Sometimes the price for a journey
depends on a second journey (the return). Never does the price depend on
any further journeys. They simply don't ask, so they have no place in
the equation.
--
Roland Perry

In message <icud10t0q9g31ooperhe904bmb2kr91t8k@>, Malcolm Weir
<malc@gelt.org> writes
>If you *knowingly* limit
>the information provided so as to obtain advantageous terms that would
>NOT have been offered had all the information been provided, then
>deception is present.

An interesting proposition when airline booking sites *never* have
anywhere for you to "declare" any interwoven trips.
--
Roland Perry