Error Fare, what are they? Can I trust them?
There are many theories regarding the nature of "error making" that sometimes give great joy to travelers ready to [...]
There are many theories about the nature of "error fares" that sometimes bring great joy to travelers ready to grab real must-have deals on the fly.
In this article:
What many people don't know is that these mistakes happen much more often than people think and that there are even websites that specialize in unearthing and disseminating these crazy fares, which affect not only airline tickets but also hotels, car rentals, and cruises.
First class on board Cathay Pacific
The most famous error making in recent years happened on January 1, 2019 when first class tickets on the Vietnam/New York route via Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific airline went on sale for just over 600$ versus about 18 thousand $ that they normally cost.
As always, these mistakes are short-lived, but in the sea of the web it only takes a few minutes for hundreds of tickets to be sold, which happened in the Catay Pacific example, as evidenced by the many posts on social media by the lucky people who took advantage of the mistake making.
Did you get your flight cancelled, miss your connection, land late?
You could get up to 600€ compensation per person
In these cases what happens next depends on the airline, will it honor the tickets or cancel the transactions by returning the money?
In Catay's case a few hours after plugging the loophole, when many were waiting to read a cancellation email, instead came a tweet in which the Hong Kong-based company wished all its followers especially the buyers of the "bargain" tickets a Happy New Year.
Happy 2019 all, and to those who bought our good - VERY good surprise 'special' on New Year's Day, yes - we made a mistake but we look forward to welcoming you on board with your ticket issued. Hope this will make your 2019 'special' too!
.#promisemadepromisekept #lessonlearnt- Cathay Pacific (@cathaypacific) January 2, 2019
Other times, of course, there is no happy ending, and within a few days buyers receive an "apology" email with which their ticket is cancelled, as happened to passengers who had purchased the British Airways flight from London to Tel Aviv and Dubai for just under £2
Recently one such error also hit Italy, last October 27, the airline Finnair proposed two errors within minutes of each other. The first on the route Bologna / Guanzouh and a second always from Bologna to Hong Kong..
In this case the fare for the business class flight was only 1€ plus tax, how did it work out? We tell it in this article, we only anticipate that the Helsinki-based company more than honored the ticket.
On the cause of the errors there are those who speak of human errors in typing the rates, others speak of bugs in the algorithms that calculate the rates, there are also those who think that these errors are actually intentional and fall under a broader marketing strategy.
Every time they occur, thousands of articles are published across the board on both specialized and generalist sites that indirectly advertise the company. Then there is word of mouth on social media, chat rooms, and messaging apps. In addition to this there is the possibility of having a guaranteed second pass once the company communicates whether or not it will honor the tickets sold, on balance then the seats sold at a bargain price may be worth far less than the communication campaign triggered by the error.
Our advice is just one, if you buy such a ticket wait as long as possible to book hotels and other transportation to get to the location from which you will need to leave for your trip.
