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Summary:The price difference will be refunded and a certain amount of compensation will be given after negotiation.

"First, my ticket was changed to an Open ticket, and then I refunded and bought a new ticket twice." Looking at the "ticket change" record displayed on "Air Travel", citizen Ms. Hu (pseudonym) was confused: she was very sure that after purchasing the ticket through the online ticket purchasing platform on June 23, she had never made any refund or change operations.

With the arrival of the peak of summer travel, such strange "ticket exchange incidents" have become common on major social platforms in recent days. Many consumers who have had their tickets exchanged have found that the difference between the new and old tickets is mainly concentrated in the face value. The price difference of several hundred yuan has inevitably made consumers question this unauthorized "refund high and buy low" situation.

The refund was changed twice, but the consumer was not informed

Through the "Air Travel" system message, the reporter saw that Ms. Hu originally bought flight MU6317 from Shanghai to Altay on July 14, with a departure time of 7 a.m. that day and a face value of 1,661 yuan. On the evening of July 6, this ticket was changed to an OPEN ticket, that is, an "open ticket" with no confirmed flight and departure time. Almost in the same minute, the OPEN ticket was confirmed as a ticket departing on August 11. Immediately afterwards, this ticket was changed to an OPEN ticket again and successfully refunded. At around 9 p.m. that night, the "ticket issuance reminder" appeared in the service message again. The new ticket was still flight MU6317 departing on July 14, but the face value was changed to 1,199 yuan, which was more than 400 yuan lower than before.

△Ms. Hu’s ticket change record.

According to Ms. Hu's recollection, from the time she completed the ticket purchase on the platform on June 23 to the time she discovered the series of changes on July 7, she did not receive any text messages or phone calls from the platform or the airline. "That is to say, if I hadn't downloaded 'Air Travel' and happened to browse the service messages, I wouldn't have discovered that my ticket had been changed until takeoff."

Ms. Hu's experience is not an isolated case. Ms. Zhu, a citizen, found the opportunity to "exchange tickets" because of a phone call from the airline.

In June this year, she also ordered two tickets from Xining to Xuzhou for her family on the same ticket purchasing platform. Two days before departure, she found that the price of a single ticket was 300 yuan lower than when she bought it. Recalling the new ticket refund and modification regulations issued by many airlines at the beginning of the year, Ms. Zhu found that the Changlong Airlines where she bought the ticket also implemented a preferential policy since May 10 this year: within 2 hours (inclusive) of ticket purchase and between 48 hours (inclusive) and 4 hours before the flight departure, only a 5% handling fee is required for refunds. So she tried to contact Changlong Airlines, hoping to "refund high and buy low" according to this policy, and then she learned from the airline that the ticket had been refunded twice, and this was her third time to buy this low-priced ticket, so she could no longer go through the refund procedure.

"My family and I have never taken the initiative to refund our tickets, nor have we received any notification from the platform about changes in our ticket orders." Ms. Zhu was suspicious. "I paid a higher ticket price to the platform, but the platform took advantage of the price fluctuations of the airlines' tickets and used my information to complete the operation of 'refunding high and buying low'. Isn't the price difference between the new and old tickets maliciously earned by the platform?"

It is a "violation of regulations" by the platform supplier

This change and refund operation affected Ms. Zhu's mood for traveling, and she immediately reported the situation to the platform's customer service. However, according to the customer service staff's reply, these unauthorized and uninformed refund and change operations were just "misoperations" by the staff. On the other hand, the explanation Ms. Hu received was "price adjustment", which did not involve the platform's private refund and change. The reporter saw on the social platform that recently, the response to this kind of operation can be described as "overwhelming", and the explanations that consumers received from the platform's customer service staff were not unified. Most consumers said that it was difficult to be convinced.

What is going on with these quietly changing air tickets? Recently, the reporter also contacted some online ticket purchasing platforms. After verification by the relevant person in charge,These orders do have records of cancellations and changes. The platform supplier privately carried out the operation of "cancel high and buy low" in order to earn the price difference.The relevant person in charge further explained: "There are roughly two modes for selling air tickets on the platform: 'direct purchase' and 'agency'. Among them, consumers who choose the 'agency' channel purchase tickets from ticket suppliers." Recently, air ticket prices have fluctuated greatly, and some "second setters" have started to think about "making a profit from the price difference."

"For these consumers, we will refund the price difference and give a certain amount of compensation after negotiation." The relevant person in charge told reporters, "In the subsequent operation process, the platform will strictly require all suppliers of air ticket products to ensure that the actual ticket issuance, change of cabin and price must be consistent with the cabin and price pushed in the system list. Once the supplier's illegal operation is verified, it will be severely punished in accordance with the platform rules, including but not limited to fines and suspension of supplier service qualifications."

Recently, in response to the frequent occurrence of such incidents, reporters also suggest that consumers pay more attention to ticket changes after purchasing tickets, especially through platforms such as "Air Travel" that link personal information to travel information. At the same time, when purchasing tickets, consumers can try to choose the "airline direct sales" channel on the platform, or go directly to the official website of the airline to book tickets to avoid unnecessary disputes.

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