Fucked gaijins fucked over by HIS travel

[rooboy]

Get a load of this shit - [url]search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060704zg.html[/url]

Geez - with principles like HIS:puke: has got, who needs the Yakuza running businesses? I used these bastards a couple of times but won't do it again. Hit them where it hurts - in their sneaky pockets. Spread the word!

[rooboy]

Sorry bout that! Just type into a search engine like yahoo:

Japan Times online - travel firm rapped over foreigner ticket policy.

Or go to today's Japan Times online - http://www.japantimes.com

Spread the word!

[(1VB)freels]

Can't see link. Please try again.

[dimwit]

Try quoting the article so at least we know what we are looking for.

[GuyJean]

Try quoting the article so at least we know what we are looking for.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060704zg.html

Foreigners trying to buy discount tickets through the company were quoted higher prices than Japanese customers purchasing discount seats on the same flight.

The policy came to light when the company offered a discount ticket to Los Angeles over the telephone to a Japanese caller, but said it was no longer available at the quoted price after finding out a Canadian was the intended traveler.

It then informed the caller that the price for the ticket would be higher for a non-Japanese customer.

However, Japanese Air Law, Article 105, Paragraph 2, clearly states that "no specific passenger or consigner will be unfairly discriminated against."

The company, which has acknowledged the ticketing policy, has defended its actions, denying ticketing pricing discrimination and suggesting foreign customers pose a threat to profits.

Jason, a Canadian resident of Japan, wanted to fly on All Nippon Airways to Los Angeles just after Golden Week and asked his Japanese girlfriend to check for cheap tickets online.

She eventually found a return ticket to Los Angeles listed on the HIS Web site for 57,000 yen.

Jason's girlfriend called HIS in Shinjuku to find out if the tickets were still available and was told that they were. She relayed this information to Jason in English.

"She was speaking to them in Japanese and then talking to me in English," he said.

Soon after, the sales assistant asked if the ticket was for her, and, having been told it wasn't, asked about the nationality of the person who wanted to buy it.

Jason's girlfriend explained that the customer would be Canadian, and was promptly told that the ticket "is not available, and (that) the price for a non-Japanese person is 70,000 yen."

That's interesting.. I always thought they'd offer cheaper quotes to gaijin since Japanese tend to be more willing to accept a good price reaming..

I generally tell the agent I was quoted cheaper price from one of their 'competitors'; they usually match it..

GJ

[(1VB)freels]

So does this mean that they will be issueing a refund for all the people that they screwed over throughtout the years or will we who had to by overpriced tickets just have to eat our hats????

[Blah Pete]

Looks like I will be giving Bobby from #1 Travel a call.

[Mulboyne]

From their site:

[CrankyBastard]

I've used HIS for flights to and from the UK twice a year for the last twenty years and they've never pulled that shit on me.
I've always chosen the cheapest discounted flights from their web site and gotten it, no questions. 'Course you can't get mileage points on those flights, but I always think, what you gain on the roundabouts, you lose on the swings.

I hope this isn't a new policy they've introduced recently.

[Tsuru]

Never had any trouble with them... despite being Dutch I've always enjoyed the German offers from their office in Dusseldorf, no problem.

There's a lot of airlines that do exactly the same... prices at the Japanese website of, for example, JAL are always slightly higher than on their European sites.

[Mulboyne]

There's a lot of airlines that do exactly the same... prices at the Japanese website of, for example, JAL are always slightly higher than on their European sites.

Offering different prices in different regions is common. I always buy my Europe-Japan tickets in Japan for that reason. This case is the first I've heard of offering different prices to different nationalities in the same region. It doesn't sound like a systematic policy - it may well be that HIS does it only with particular packages as they say in this instance. That doesn't justify it though.

[Charles]

Never had any trouble with them...

How do you know you never had any trouble? Did you have a nihonjn friend get a competitive quote? Maybe you've been getting screwed all along and didn't know it.

[Tsuru]

How do you know you never had any trouble? Did you have a nihonjn friend get a competitive quote? Maybe you've been getting screwed all along and didn't know it.

I know I've never had any trouble with them because I never had any trouble with them I work in the industry and I have many ways of getting price information. Their prices are very reasonable, whether you book in Japan or Europe. I must admit I don't know about Canada or the US, but then again I'm not lucky enough to live there.

"Do I have a nihonjin friend get a competitive quote"

She's out shopping now but I'll make sure I ask again when she gets back

[Greji]

I must admit I don't know about Canada or the US, but then again I'm not lucky enough to live there.

I have used them back and forth between Japan and the US with good prices and results, but again my wife, a certified rice cooker, always makes the reservations, so I don't know if that played in to it.

As for where you are lucky or not lucky to live, certain other European teams also didn't advance in Doitsu either!
hehehe

[Tsuru]

I have used them back and forth between Japan and the US with good prices and results, but again my wife, a certified rice cooker, always makes the reservations, so I don't know if that played in to it.

As for where you are lucky or not lucky to live, certain other European teams also didn't advance in Doitsu either!
hehehe

I wouldn't know anything about that... I was rooting for Italy from the start

[mr. sparkle]

This kind of behavior surprises you? After all: T. I. J.

[rooboy]

Who work in the travel industry.

You're talking about high prices of Jp airlines (high prices for some of the shittiest service I've ever received in Japan especially on domestic flights where it's too much for them to serve anything without us paying too much for it - contrast with Oz domestic flights where you'll get free beverages and a free meal or substantial snack).

Contrasted with policies that blatantly cheat non Japanese out of the best prices going - because we happen to be non Japanese. There's nothing fine about that and I emailed an Aussie friend of mine who works in the travel industry in Oz.

She pointed out that if any Oz travel agency had two categories of prices, one for Aussies and one for any foreigners including our delicate Japanese friends who wilt at even the suggestion that 'we Japanese are being discriminated against', that travel agency would have its licence suspended the minute a foreigner could prove they were paying higher.

A simple legal authorities' check on the differing services offered by HIS' separate offices for foreigner customers and Japanese customers would turn up enough evidence. Further proof would ensure that travel agency could have its licence revoked, and the company would also face discrimination suits under Oz's Anti Discrimination Laws which do take action.

Bottom line - no iiwake of HIS can alter the facts. They have made trillions of extra yen classifying customers as desirable and less desirable, worthy of real discounts, unworthy of benefiting from the same discounts that Japanese do.

[dimwit]

You certainly have a thing about vomit! I know one of the HIS salespeople as he used to be a student, and funnily enough when I deal with him the prices are about 10-15% lower than when I deal with staff who don't know me, so suspect you may be correct.

[ichigo partygirl]

This is not really that different than the policy of charging different prices to get into nightclubs based on your nationality - you're just dealing with more cash, and in this case the Japanese are getting the bettter deal.

If i was a Japanese id be pretty pissed at the prices i would have to pay to get into a club compared to gaijins
Example - Vanilla night club - Gaijin girls/Japanese girls = 1000yen(Sometimes i get in for free cause im blonde - Japanese doorguys are so easy), White gaijin guys - 1000-2000yen, Asain gaijin guys - 2000yen, Japanese guys 3000yen.

This sorta thing goes on all over Japan - its blatent racism and in most other countries these buisnesses would have their licences revoked or something.

But......... T.I.J!!!!!!!

[AssKissinger]

I must admit I don't know about Canada or the US, but then again I'm not lucky enough to live there.

Huh? I can understand Canada but if you think people who live in America are lucky you're out of your Goddamn mind. America's a fucking nightmare.

[Charles]

Huh? I can understand Canada but if you think people who live in America are lucky you're out of your Goddamn mind. America's a fucking nightmare.

There's only one place worse than America: everywhere else.

Where you live is what you make of it. Wherever you go, there you are.

[AssKissinger]

First off, congrats on making it through that post without making some retarded comment about Australia.

Second, where you live is not what you make of it. If it was their bellies wouldn't be sticking out in Sudan and they wouldn't be walking around on stumps instead of feet in Cambodia.

Third, please go buy a shotgun, load it, point it at your head and squeeze the fucking trigger.

[Tsuru]

AK: I was being sarcastic.

[Kuang_Grade]

There's a lot of airlines that do exactly the same... prices at the Japanese website of, for example, JAL are always slightly higher than on their European sites.

There also might be some tax issues involved there as well...It is possible that tickets could be the same but the total cost varies because of local tax variations on the base travel cost.

And partygirl, your example is not quite the same, since in many cases your price maybe lower primarily to get you into the club so presumably those Japanese guys will pay MORE to get into a club with Gaijin girls rather than one with only J girls in....although the club economics in general, both on the owner side and the patron side, can be fairly non-rational and, I think in Japan this is likely to be doubly so.

In reading this piece, I had two thoughts....1)Who the hell uses travel agents in the first place and 2)It was nice to read that H.I.S.' initial response was not something like "of course we charge them more...we need that extra $ to remove the cooties from their payments" and more of a pretty guilty sounding "we're not doing anything wrong" and then refusing to explain it.

[nullpointer]

First off, congrats on making it through that post without making some retarded comment about Australia.

Second, where you live is not what you make of it. If it was their bellies wouldn't be sticking out in Sudan and they wouldn't be walking around on stumps instead of feet in Cambodia.

Third, please go buy a shotgun, load it, point it at your head and squeeze the fucking trigger.

AK, that was brilliant.

[GomiGirl]

Update on the story.

HIS rep just phoned trying to get my business. I asked about the dual pricing policy and he claimed that it only happened when the person making the enquiry askes initially for a one-way ticket and then when finding out a return is cheaper books the return flight. The dual pricing is because that the travel agent is charged a fine by the airline if the return leg of a journey is ditched and the cost of the fine is added onto the quoted price but of course ONLY if the person has initially asked for a single leg ticket.... but he assured me that everybody who intends to return to japan gets charged the same price regardless of nationality.

YEAH RIGHT!! If you believe that then I have a bridge to sell you!!

But in any case, seems though that they now have their story straight and the reps are sprouting it off verbatim. Must have suffered a bit from the bad press. However, it is unlikely that they would be caught out again for a dual pricing policy.

[Tsuru]

You're right Gomi. Why the hell would they charge a fine when they actually save money? It's the best customer an airline can hope for. Seat paid for, but not using it. One less mouth to feed, a few hundred kgs of fuel they don't need to uplift.
On busy routes the airlines even tend compensate for this by selling more tickets than there are seats on the aircraft, because they know x% of people always end up not showing up for their flight.

[Behan]

If it's true that HIS has been gouging gaijin, isn't it ironic because I thought that we FGs made up a large part of their clientele. I remember seeing their ads in the Japan Times a long time ago and they always seemed to have a lot of English-speaking staff for us linguistically challenged gaijins.

[eddie]

tempting to believe this is 'policy' but i can't believe it. it's just bad business...i can't believe our amazingly materialistic hosts wouldn't turn down a good buck out of xenophobia (at least without being able to see the victim)

[Iraira]

Strange, I book on-line with HIS, so they can't see my lovely pale skin and round-eyes. They just offered me a 2000 yen fuel rebate for a trip I am taking to LA this month....probably offered the Japanese clientele a 4000 yen rebate.