This Airline Sold $10,000 Business-class Tickets for Just $300 by Mistake
Some lucky travelers were able to score the mistake fares.
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Frequent flier detectives who parse the internet looking for mistake flight fares seemingly struck gold this week after Japan-based carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA) accidentally discounted international tickets.
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The mismatched pricing on business-class tickets was for flights from Jakarta, Indonesia to North American cities like New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Houston, and Toronto. A flight from Jakarta to New York City, for example, should have cost $6,197 but was priced at only $355, according to the aviation blog Secret Flyer. Some travelers even managed to snag $10,000 tickets for just $300, Bloomberg reported.
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The mistake fare was celebrated online by dozens of travelers who got the deal. One traveler wrote on a Facebook post from Secret Flyer: “Paid 950$ for 2 biz class bookings to both Mexico and Ecuador. Next step is to pray for the airline honor these bookings! 😆.”
Other travelers shared the concern that the tickets would ultimately be canceled, which is not unusual for this type of fare glitch. Some carriers even have provisions that allow them to void mistake fares. For example, American Airlines states in its carriage agreement: “When we issue a mistaken fare, we'll void the ticket, give a full refund, and notify you." (It's best practice to be cautious before making firm plans when buying a ticket that could be a mistake fare in the event the airline decides to not honor the booking.)
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ANA said the glitch is due to a currency conversion mistake on its Vietnam website, Fortune reported. While the carrier didn't disclose how many travelers scored the discounted tickets, it said it is “investigating the cause of the bug and the size of its damage.” (ANA did not respond to Travel + Leisure's request for comment at the time of publication.)
ANA is not the first carrier to accidentally sell underpriced tickets. Back in 2019, Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific mistakenly sold first- and business-class tickets for a steep bargain, CNN reported. First-class tickets from Vietnam to New York that retailed for $16,000 at the time were sold for $675.
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