> 2- that the agent on the phone did something that allowed me to pay for the fare
I think you are overestimating the powers of telephone agents with respect to website errors. Their abilities tend to be extremely limited and anything like you describe would have to be escalated to a dedicated team that would not be responding in real time like you describe.
> 3- that the agent or someone was going to pocket out the 56 EUR difference.
Definitely not the agent. Could you imagine if agents had the ability to pocket any money from customers? I think the “or someone” you describe is AirFrance and the system wasn’t fully showing the CSR the right info.
There are sometimes sales commissions, but the CSR's main goal is to get you off the line as quickly as possible so that the next person doesn't yell at them for being on hold forever. I can't speak for Air France, of course, but I can't believe they would want to make the call longer to make 56 euros. If they quoted you 14 euros on the website, they would be most happy in the world where the software accepted your 14 euros and you never called them.
I'm guessing the original commenter just hit a bug. They should have retried some database call, but didn't in that one codepath, and it cost them the entire request. It happens.
Websites are very modern interfaces to the Sabre system that was originally developed in the 1950s. The way it was described to me at the time I was working in the travel industry (20 years ago, yikes!): Sabre is essentially a command-line system, which means the API-like interfaces that have been grafted onto it over the decades are not nearly as stable and robust as we'd like them to be. I'm sure they've improved tremendously since I first used them, but the entire system is still based on very old technology that just wasn't meant to do what we're doing with it. Connect to it with an airline agent's terminal, though, and it's quick and reliable, just as COBOL-based banking systems are.
> anything like you describe would have to be escalated
What they described seemed plausible if one assumes malice (not that they should). Naively, I suspect your take is more accurate but nothing as explained requires escalation if Air France is indeed engaging in the described behaviors.
I think you are overestimating the powers of telephone agents with respect to website errors. Their abilities tend to be extremely limited and anything like you describe would have to be escalated to a dedicated team that would not be responding in real time like you describe.
> 3- that the agent or someone was going to pocket out the 56 EUR difference.
Definitely not the agent. Could you imagine if agents had the ability to pocket any money from customers? I think the “or someone” you describe is AirFrance and the system wasn’t fully showing the CSR the right info.