Boycott HIS/#1 Travel !!!!!!

[rach 1]

You beat me to it I was just about to ask the same.

[tsondaboy 0]

It would have been that way if the airline knew that the person isn’t travelling back. As long as you have a reservation, they cannot book your seat to someone else (although overbooking is something common to many airlines). So this means that they are loosing money because they have kept empty for you one seat that you were not planning to use anyway. If of course you notify them that you are not travelling back, then you will be asked to pay the difference between the one-way and the return ticket price.

What is stranger to me is why on earth the one way ticket is more expensive than the return ticket in the first place.

For example imagine if the return ticket for the trains would be cheaper than the one-way.

[Fattwins 0]

Well next time im gonna book then my wife is going to book. i want to see what they chargeb

[misorano 1]

The discount air ticket business is too cut throat now. Most agents used to charge a 10% commission, but now it is down to 2-3,000yen per ticket.

You need to sell a whole lotta tickets to make any money. Which is why we got out of it.

Also the fare calcultations now are so difficult with Airport tax, insurance, fuels surcharges that if you make a small mistake you wipe out your margin and end up losing on the deal.

[sunrise 0]

That's what I meant - I realise it's the airlines doing that - but WHY? And sure, they could put someone else in the seat, BUT if the said person was flying back on a return ticket they'd purchased there would have been someone in that seat anyway.... so the idea is to reconfirm the flight, and if it's not reconfirmed put someone else on it.... Still makes little sense to me since they have a way of knowing if the seat is actually going to be filled

[sunrise 0]

Remember also that nowadays you have to pay all those surcharges up front, so that's already paid for when the ticket is purchased regardless of if it's used.... but I see your point that it's easy to muck up and miscalculate, still, that's up to the agent to be precise about, and we shouldn't have to pay for any occasional mistakes they themselves might make.

 

I didn't know one way tickets were more expensive, I thought they were around 3/4 the price of a return flight. But I haven't looked lately, guess it depends on the destination.

[misorano 1]

Sunrise:

Like I say, there is no logic too it. The tickets are supposed to be sold as part of a package and packages generally are returning to the point of origin.

You are right though. It is up to the agent to be precise about it, but you are mostly dealing with unqualifed people, who have not been trained properly (hence the low wages I s'pose).

[bushpig 0]

Gotta say I agree with Sunrise on this. If you have paid for the seat, then you have paid for the seat. That's all there is to it. If the airlines want to make more money from the slight posiibility that you may not board the flight, then they are just being plain greedy. You shouldn't be penalised for their greed. It's like saying "OK, we'll rent you a car, but when it comes back, if you haven't put any kms on the clock, then we will charge you more because we could have rented it to someone else." Bollocks. They got their money. It's up to the purchaser of the service as to how they use it. Now I realise that what I just said actually backs up your argument Miso. It's not the travel agent but the airline policy that is to blame. But, how is it not discrimination against me (being a foreigner) for the travel agent to assume that I might not use the return leg of the ticket?? I live here with a permanent visa. I am being discriminated against if they choose to charge me more than a Japanese. To muddy the waters a bit more, I have two Japanese friends who use these return tickets to go out and don't plan on using the return leg (and have done so repeatedly over the last 10 years). It isn't only the gaijin that do it.

[eskimobasecamp 0]

I once got a return ticket for a boat to Latvia and never came back....... it's not quite the same thing though eh..... well actually my mates who took the return boat got a lot more space in our cabin haha.

 

Actually i booked my NZ flights through No. 1 Travel and wondering about this situation - will test it out next time by getting a J-mate to call up and ask for a quote...... my next flight will be to Vladivostok - which airlines go there anyway?

[misorano 1]

BP:

I know how you feel, but HIS in their stupidity made a policy decision based on how they thought they could get around a troubling issue. They could have handled the issue better.

All they had to do was get a contractual agreement in place with the customer (Japanese or Non) saying that if the return flight was not used, the customer would be charged the full fare.

If the conditions are there, it's up to the customer to accept or decline them. If they decline them they don't get the cheap fare.

 

I've had Japanese mates do the same thing, but I imagine that had the figures to back them up on the gajin Vs Japanese aspect of this.

 

I imagine it was a group of upper level suits, all 50+ yrs, who are totally insensitive to issues like this. Ignorance may not be an excuse, but these guys don't exactly think outside the box. It was probably the only option they could come up with.

[daver 0]

i think you have to take the boat. my friend did it, said the visa work was hell. was denied twice with no real explanation despite having all the required hosting and invitation documents.

it is interesting to hear people blame the airline for this issue, despite ANA's demands that HIS cease the practice.

 

regardless to whether or not this practice is justifiable from a finacial point of view, which it is clearly not, descrimination is never justifiable. lets imagine they went a little bit further and started to penalize individual nationalities on "common" travel practices. would more people get upset about the issue? lets imagine they were creating policies for religious groups and using finicial reasons as their grounds, would more people be upset? i think so.

 

how far off is the current scenerio really? is discrimination OK if it is broad and sweeping?

 

there is an option though, choose a different provider. there are others out there; ones that show the airline's quoted prices, and thus cannot shaft you with different "service charges" or "policies".

[bushpig 0]

Misorano, what are you actually saying? You seem to be agreeing/sympathizing with what we are saying yet you say it isn't discrimination. You admit that they could have handled the issue better, but instead a bunch of suits came up with this clumsy policy. Do any of these things make it not discrimination? Take it the extra degree (ie, singling out specific nationalities)as Daver just pointed out and then it is clear disrimination regardless of what the execs intentions were. And you are right Dave, just don't use them if you are aware of such practices. As I said above anyway, I don't use them. I almost always use local Japanese travel agents.

[eskimobasecamp 0]

*** sorry off topic a bit folks...... daver - yeh yeh russian visas are a nightmare, i've been to russia before - i crossed the border from estonia to russia and got interrogated and my passport examined for a LONG time - but by far and away the most interesting country i've ever ever been to... i know about the boat it's like totally expensive though - i heard you could fly there, but i'll have to check it out..... ok back to the debate of travel agents....

[sunrise 0]

I flew to Russia's far east from Niigata on (owch) Aeroflot. But I think we flew in and out of Khaborask (spelling) or Komselmosk (spelling), not Vladivostock. If my memory serves me right it was Valdivostock that we took an overnight train to (this was in 1992, so awhile back now).

[indosnm 0]

I was going to buy a one way tix to bali to return to OZ with my wife.

my travel agent suggested a return ticket for almost half the price and to not use the return leg. we did so and it saved us around 6-7man yen.. thanks travel agent!

[eskimobasecamp 0]

Sunrise - yeh yeh that's what i thought, out of somewhere like Niigata or Toyama.... haha aeroflot, i cancelled aeroflot flights into Moscow once and ended up taking ground transport along the most pot-holled road in the world. What was eastern Russia like back in 92? i'm so curious about this!!!!

[misorano 1]

bp:

What I'm saying is that HIS was in a bind. No doubt they were losing money on a certain type of ticket after being invoiced by the airline for no shows on the return flights. They must have had the figures etc that showed the the largest percentages of these were non Japanese.

Based on these figures they decided not to sell these tickets to Non Japanese.

They based this decision on economics, not on race. They were losing money on a certain demographic and chose a course of action to cut their loses.

I think their motivation for this was not racism but $$. That being said there were better ways of going about it that would not have left them open to this criticism.

[misorano 1]

Daver:

ANA may be saying to cease the practice, but they are the ones setting the conditions on tickets, and the one's invoicing HIS for the no shows.

 

If they tell the agent that they can sell a ticket, but they will be charged if the passenger fails to show up for the return flight (something the agent has no control over), how is the agent supposed to protect themself?

[misorano 1]

OK Here's another situation.

 

Our company refuses to accept credit card transactions from most of Africa.

Is this racist, or is OK because we've been burned several times in the past through credit card fraud?

[daver 0]

well you have your reasons and rights to not provide a service to any one you choose. but that isn't the issue.

if you were charging more for the services to all africans then yes, racist.

[misorano 1]

Daver:

When an agent books a ticket they get data that looks like this:

 

C9 D6 I6 Y0 B0 M0 H4 Q9 K9 L9 U0 T0

 

What this is the the various fare categories on the plane. Basically the go from expensive to inexpensive from left to right. But as you move from left to right the conditions get stricter. For example the Y is the full fare economy class seat. With this you can change flights, dates etc right up to the time of booking and get a full refund if you cancel. Once you get to the K and L brackets you are looking at heavily discounted fares with strict conditions.

What HIS is doing is saying that they will not sell the cheapest (above T) tickets to Non Japanese. They will sell them the more expensive tickets with more flexibility (i.e. if they do not show up for the return flight then there is no penalty).

They would sell the same ticket to a Japanese at the same price.

 

This works in reverse also. Many of the hotels we deal with, in an effort to attract the foreign visitor, have a inbound FIT rate that is usually cheaper than the standard Japanese rate. What they are doing is valuing the non Japanese guest higher that the Japanese guest. The reason being that the odds are a person coming from overseas will stay several nights rather than the 1 night average for Japanese.

 

Is this racist or just good business sense?

[Fattwins 0]

well i will speak with my wallet and not use HIS or No 1 travel anymore. Thats what i will do.

[bushpig 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by misorano:
bp:
What I'm saying is that HIS was in a bind. No doubt they were losing money on a certain type of ticket after being invoiced by the airline for no shows on the return flights. They must have had the figures etc that showed the the largest percentages of these were non Japanese.
Based on these figures they decided not to sell these tickets to Non Japanese.
They based this decision on economics, not on race. They were losing money on a certain demographic and chose a course of action to cut their loses.
I think their motivation for this was not racism but $$. That being said there were better ways of going about it that would not have left them open to this criticism.

OK Miso, your point is taken and understood. However, just because something is good business sense doesn't mean that that decision isn't at the same time discriminatory. I wouldn't call it a case of racism but a case of discrimination. As you yourself suggested, they should stipulate that extra charges will be born by the user if the return leg is not used, or increase fares across the board to cover their expected losses. Then their policy would cease to be discriminatory. Until then, and as long as they refuse to give me the same price as a Japanese customer then this is discrimination. As for your hotel example, that is discrimination too. If I were a Japanese wanting to stay more nights I'd be pissed if I knew that gaijin were getting cheaper fares because of the company wanting to maximise profits at the expense of fairness to the customers. It is discrimination regardless of the reasoning and who is benifitting (us or the Japanese). Reason and justify it all you want, but it is still discrimination.

Anyway, I will do like FT said and just not use them.

[damian 0]

Are differential insurance premiums discriminatory? Based up behavioural characteristics leading to probability of loss, women pay lower car insurance premiums than men. Data and actuarial mathematics supports this business decision.

[damian 0]

As for using another agent, I think all of them would suffer the same bind that Misorano described and have to cover the cost somehow. As a business traveller I was always moving around the world with a return booking from which I would use only one leg. It was simply cheaper to buy returns rather than one way, even when we knew that the return date and route was uncertain. The nice girl at work who arranged all the travel was once commented that the agent gets really pissy when we dodnt use the return leg. Now I know why. They didn't complain too much as our company account was worth big $$ to them. (The company I used to work for was BA's biggest single client).

 

Welcome to the free market and all the laws required to protect us from it.