Priceless airline tickets — What’s up with that?

While most of the world’s airlines have gone to ticketless travel, the passenger receipt still remains. Now British Airways has begun issuing tickets without prices — priceless.

In the case of Southwest and Virgin America, for example, that receipt is generally just an email or a printed out piece of paper. But most larger carriers still give out passenger receipts, particularly for tickets booked through travel agents.

Anyone who has traveled on a consolidator ticket, which translates to a ticket booked at an unpublished discount fare has probably discovered the phenomenon of a receipt showing nothing but taxes, and sometimes the word “bulk.” The same also applies to some tour operator tickets and, now, to all tickets issued by consolidators, corporations or travel agents with a contract with British Airways.

As many frequent travelers know, while the airlines have largely cut commissions and discounts, many of these “overrides” and commissions are still out there for the airlines’ best customers.

This has advantages from a regular consumer point of view, because it often means lower service fees from agents for a published fare ticket and better prices sometimes from consolidators.

I understand when British Airways is selling a ticket at a rate that is not available to the general public, that they might not want the price printed on the ticket. But tickets issued with a travel agent contract are usually at published rates, so it seems a little odd not to have the price printed.

Moreover, for anyone submitting the ticket receipt as part of an expense report, this new policy has got to be an additional hassle. These passengers will have to turn to the accompanying invoice that will show the ticket price, and travel agents will have the fare on their internal office copy.

But the actual e-ticket copy shows no price, just taxes, which seems likely to lead to all kinds of fun at the airport if the passenger needs to change flights or exchange tickets.

Presumably, while airlines make some dumb moves, there is usually some underlying rationale. British Airways, unlike say a Southwest or Ryanair, isn’t known to march completely to their own drummer. So, I would have to assume that they do have a serious reason for this change, and that other carriers could follow.

One guess is that this is a step towards “net fares,” where the airline files a price in a market, that may or not be visible to the public, and sellers mark it up from there. Alternatively, this could be a step towards putting more and more fees on the ticket, if the airlines don’t need all the fare lines, presumably fees and extras could be put in their place.

The new ticketing procedure, at least as far as British Airways has implemented it, leaves the calculation of the commission or discount to the computer, so there is less chance for error. (But since airlines can easily bill agents or corporations after the fact, that seems like a relatively small potential problem.)

The paranoid explanation would be that no fare tickets make it simpler for airlines to raise fares or cut discounts, because as noted above, the computer calculates the charge. (Agents or corporate travelers simply enter a series of specific codes to get that calculation.)

It seems that with all of the new airline fees complicating the total ticket pricing, this change in recording total costs on airline tickets will only add to the confusion.

Time will tell. In the short run, my only advice to travelers would be in case of glitches or changes, to travel with a copy of an invoice copy showing the price, and making sure you keep one of those invoice copies if you need to be reimbursed.

Whatever the reasoning behind these changes initiated by BA, no doubt we’ll be hearing more about these “priceless” tickets. Let’s hope it’s not mostly horror stories.