If you have paid in full and already have a ticket with your name printed on, ie not e-ticket, can they still charge you extra?

Like I said, I'll let you know how it goes, cuz I'm not paying more and I'm off to the airport.

Me too, I have ticks for tanegashima that I paid in full 2 months in advance, but not from #1 travel.
If they call me and ask for more money I will tell them to F-OFF.

Maybe..depends on what the ticket says and what the consumer protection legislation says but absent a clear confirmation on the ticket (fairly unlikely) and decent legislation (in Japan, I wouldn't hold my breath) the answer in common law countries is, yes they can. Because you don't have a contract until you're on the plane - you haven't accepted their offer until you're on the plane. Until that point there is no contract and so they are free to do what they want with the price. The important point is when you, the passenger, accepts the airline's offer - after which point the contract exists and they can't change the price. It isn't when you pay for the ticket, nor is it when you take delivery of the ticket, it is when you get on board the plane. It is just one of those funny quirks of contract law.

Here's the small print:

Even though you agreed on a price for your flight and have paid up in full (including a ton of cash for fuel - you thought that was included!? Duh!) and the cash is in the bank at this end, that means dickshit. Mwahahahaha. We can charge you more. Much more in fact. It's up to us. So if you think you're gonna get on that plane without handing over a wad of cash, think again matey. How much we'll demand from you, not sure yet. We'll decide later. But it'll be lots. So just prepare 'a lot of cash'. (Sucker!)

>Maybe..depends on what the ticket says and what the consumer protection legislation says but absent a clear confirmation on the ticket (fairly unlikely) and decent legislation (in Japan, I wouldn't hold my breath) the answer in common law countries is, yes they can.

Yup, it sucks RD... I am getting the fax/email today with how much more I have to pay.

Oh, its Northwest Airlines who are raising fees. Anybody else (americans) flying with them?

Credit card companies seem to be free to jack up the cost of borrowing to way over their advertised rates long after folk have borrowed from them. We always pay ours off pronto, so I can't say anything from experience though.

The next time I get a flight, I was thinking of going for the "pay up front and get the ticket in hand to stop increases" approach, so good luck to you all and let us know how you get on.

Ok guys - I can't say for Japan - or Northwest Airlines - no idea...BUT one of my jobs at the minute is interpreting for a Diploma of Tourism course. In that course one of the units was 'ticketing'. From what was taught at TAFE to prospective tourism/travel industry workers....:

**If you have booked your flight, but have not finalised the payment and been ticketed then price rises will effect you.

**Usually with petrol rises and across the board increases they will make a dealine that is 24 - 48 hrs from giving notice - how quickly your travel agent contacts you will dictate how long you have to get the money together and in. If you pay before the deadline and your tickets are issued then further price rises will not effect you.

**If you have your tickets: e-tix, paper tickets...whatever. The price rises should not effect you.

I am sure that in case of extreme problems - skyrocketing fuel prices, the inability of the airline to carry the passengers without going under - they could do something ridiculous like ask you to pay extra or have a full refund. But I would expect that would be VERY unlikley in Australia at least. What generally happens is they increase the prices on the remaining seats - sometimes to more than they need per seat to cover the earlier pre-sold cheaper fares.

I think we should have more discussions on legal issues - they're fun, aren't they boys and girls?

Tickets are a funny thing in law. One of their problems is that they often contain the terms of the contract the parties have entered into but the buyer sometimes doesn't get them until after it is too late to back out of the agreement. The courts over the years have really struggled with how they should be dealt with. Here is an example of some of the hoops judges will jump through to reach the "right" conclusion.


MacRobertson Miller Airline Services v Commissioner of State Taxation - airline ticket
(1975) 133 CLR 125 WA

The case arose to see if the airline ticket was a concluded agreement which would be subject to stamp duty. The court said that there are many common situations where the standard analysis in terms of offer and acceptance breaks down. Here the court had to look at the purchase of an airline ticket in terms of offer and acceptance. The 3 High Court judges (Barwick, Stevens, Jacobs) each expressed a different view of the matter. Because obligations were excluded until the person turned up at the aircraft, some judges took the view that issuing a ticket amounted to issuing an offer, but was not itself the completion of a contract.

A similar diversity can be found in contracts of carriage:

Denton (1856) the offer is constituted by the announcement in a timetable - and accepted by the purchase of a ticket

Wilkie (1974) - the provision of buses constitutes an offer which is accepted by getting on the bus.

The Eagle (1977) A passenger making a booking makes an offer.
MacRobertson - the ticket is itself an offer.


Here is another one where the judge reckoned Ocean cruise tickets are legally different from airline tickets.


OCEANIC SUN LINE SPECIAL SHIPPING COMPANY v FA Y
New South Wales Court of Appeal 31 March 1987.
The Court of Appeal has upheld the judgment' of Yeldham J who held
that the plaintiff was entitled to bring proceedings in Sydney seeking
damages against the defendant cruise company, incorporated in Greece, for
serious injuries incurred in a trap shooting accident while travelling as a
passenger on board the defendant's vessel.
The majority judgment was given by McHugh J, with whom Glass J
agreed. The shipowner contended that the plaintiff, through the contractual
terms contained in the ticket, had agreed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the
Greek courts. However the booking had been made by the plaintiffs
mother-in-law, the proprietor of a travel agency in Sydney, as part of a
group booking. The cruise brochure had contained a statement that the
transportion was governed by terms and conditions printed on the
passenger ticket which could be inspected at any of the owner's offices. No
passenger ticket was available in Australia for inspection. After payment of
the final balance of the cruise price, the travel agency issued an exchange
order to the group leader which entitled the passenger to obtain a ticket from
the owner "when boarding the vessel". The ticket was issued to the tour
leader in Athens, and never given to the plaintiff.
McHugh J considered that the booking and the deposit constituted an
offer to the shipowner on the terms and conditions of the brochure, and the
reservation became firm on payment of the deposit. Furthermore, he
considered that, by reason of the brochure, the terms and conditions printed
on the passenger ticket were incorporated into the contract. He rejected the
shipowner's argument that no contract existed before the plaintiff boarded
the ship. [b]He distinguished the decision of the High Court in MacRobertson
Miller Airline Services v The Commissioner of State Taxation (WA)?
(concerning whether the issue of an aircraft ticket constituted a contract for
the purposes of stamp duty legislation) on the basis that domestic or
international flights were different to travel by sea.[/b] He rejected Yeldham J's
finding that the brochure did not become part of the contract. As the Court
of Appeal pointed out, since the law of New South Wales gave the plaintiff
the right to challenge the imposition of the conditions pursuant to the
1 Reported in E Q E Rev Vol I NO 2.
2 (1975) 133 CLR 125.
Oceanic Sun Line SSC 6 1
Contracts Review Act 1980 (NSW), the plaintiffs case was even stronger
than Yeldham J had thought.
Because the Contracts Review Act gives the New South Wales Court the
power to strike down any provision of a contract that is unjust, the Court of
Appeal thought it became almost inevitable that the action must be heard in
New South Wales.
In considering the shipowner's application to stay the action based on the
doctrine of forum non conveniens, the majority of the Court of Appeal
considered that in order to justify a stay the shipowner must be able to show
that the stay would not deprive the plaintiff of a legitimate personal or
juridical advantage that is available to him in the New South Wales Court.
As the plaintiff would probably not be able to invoke the Contracts Review
Act if the matter was heard in Greece, where the exclusive Greek
jurisdiction clause would be upheld (and no doubt a Greek court would hold
that the proper law of contract was Greek) the plaintiff would, if the stay
were granted, have been deprived of the advantage of being able to invoke
the Contracts Review Act.
Accordingly the appeal was dismissed.
In a forty page dissenting judgment Kirby J rejected the argument that
the legal principles governing air transport should be distinguished from
those governing sea transport. He considered that the shipowner did take all
reasonable steps to bring its terms and conditions to the attention of a
passenger. He thought the brochure clearly stated that there was a passage
contract, as did the exchange order which referred to the passage contract.
He considered that the contract had to be construed in accordance with its
language and not be subject to a strained construction in order to reduce the
ambit of terms which may be considered unfair.

Kirbo gets it right - Kirby J considered the contract was made when the ticket was exchanged
for the order in Greece or by the subsequent conduct of the passenger in
starting the journey, thereby by inference, accepting the carrier's conditions.
Alternatively, he thought that the ticket contained such express and
extensive limitations and exclusions as to preclude the existence of an
antecedent contract of carriage. Thus the ticket did not amount to an
agreement at all and the agreement was not formed until the passenger
boarded the vessel, thereby accepting the conditions of the ticket of which
he had notice and a copy of which was by that time with his agent. In the
third alternative, he thought that there may have been an executory
agreement so that the exchange voucher was an offer capable of acceptance
upon its exchange for the ticket of carriage, that the actual agreement was
not made until the exchange took place when the order was exchanged for
the ticket in Athens. Thus he concluded, on any of these alternatives, the
binding contract was made in Greece.
He refused to exercise his residual discretion to decline the stay of
proceedings, on the basis that the parties had agreed by the ticket to submit
62 (1988) 5 MLAANZ Journal
to the jurisdiction of the Greek courts. He also considered that Yeldham J
had wrongfully exercised his discretion concerning the most convenient
forum for the action. Firstly, Greece was the place to which the contract had
the closest and most real connection. Secondly, the proceedings could be
futile as there was no prospect of recovering the judgment against the
defendant. Thirdly, the Greek shipowner should not be put to the
inconvenience and annoyance of having to submit to the New South Wales
Court having no residence or presence in the country. Accordingly His
Honour refused to grant the stay.
The shipowner's appeal was dismissed by majority.
The shipowner has obtained special leave to appeal to the High Court and
the appeal will be heard in December.

The Japanese travel agents usually will not give you the ticket until you get to the airport! Very lucky if you can pull it off. That way, I guess they have you by the nads!

It is extremely easy.
Ask them to.
I always do, and they always send it.
Simple.
Or maybe I'm just really really clever. That might be it.

Rag Doll, I think we should stick to the traditional conditioning of fresh minds on Offer and Acceptance and only concentrate on English case law.

I'm not going back to my lecture notes, suffice to say I hated studying it.

this sort of stuff was ok it was administrative, constitutional, corporate and civil procedure and half a dozen other areas that drove me nuts. I loved crim though, if it paid better I would have gone for that instead.

I liked crim. Gave me a good perspective on what one could get away with.

I don't understand those posts. I think I'll just turn up too.

Hey CreekBoy, how much was it you had to pay? Any interesting tales since the original contact?

Yeah do tell. I am going to Canada in September and not heard anything on my ticket different airline.

when I was first given the info, it looked like 2man added on top, which is why I was pissed. But, in actuality, its 6000. Thats reasonable. I bet we will have to face these added taxes as part of our daily lives based on world oil prices at the time. Just wait till the next oil crisis...

so you pay or no pay gringo?

OK thats not too bad.
I still haven't been contacted so I suppose I'm ok with my issued ticket.