In its early decades, aviation was reserved for the rich and famous, with the dream of flight off-limits for most people. However, as the 20th century progressed, the sector became increasingly democratized, with the advent of the ‘Jet Age,’ which was an era as much of social change as technological progress, seeing commercial air travel become more accessible as costs per seat were reduced.
Early widebodies
were a particular catalyst on this front, with their greatly increased capacity resulting in further cuts to per-seat costs and opening up air travel to the masses. Furthermore, the late 20th-century boom in low cost carriers
opened up a new avenue for budget air travel, with price-conscious passengers able to reduce their expenditure on flying by only paying for what they needed. Even so, we all still love a bargain today, with error fares being an interesting loophole to high prices.
What exactly is an error fare?
In order to best understand the matter at hand, it is important to establish what exactly is meant by a mistake or error fare
. However, while such accidentally cheap tickets often make the headlines for their low prices, not everyone is aware of the reasons as to why they might arise, seemingly, out of nowhere. Secret Flying, a website specializing in helping passengers book such fares, has highlighted three main reasons as to why passengers might find error fares. These are:
- Self-dump.
- OTA glitch.
- Human error.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
According to Secret Flying, self-dump error fares refer to instances when components of a given fare, such as the fuel charge, are missing, resulting in an overall price. The site notes that “these dumps typically occur when more than one airline is present on the same ticket.” Meanwhile, OTA glitch error fares refer to when pricing glitches cause an Online Travel Agency’s website to mistakenly display a fare that is available at a lower price than would normally be the case.
As for human error, this is what it says on the tin, and it refers to a mistake made by a human employee when uploading and setting ticket prices within an airline’s reservation system. Jack’s Flight Club also highlights a fourth kind of mistake fare, known as a fare class error. These arise when a glitch in the booking system accidentally allows passengers to book a high-class fare at the cost of a low one.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
All of these reasons can ultimately result in passengers being faced with much lower fares than they might have otherwise expected when making a booking via an online travel agent or an airline’s reservation system. Over the years, they have quickly become a popular loophole among price-conscious travelers, with online communities such as Secret Flying or Jack’s Flight Club helping to share knowledge.
Are error fares valid?
A key concern among the general public when encountering and booking error fares is whether or not they will be accepted as valid bookings. After all, with airlines operating with the purpose of making money, some users may have the impression that they would not want to let such a mistake slide on account of the revenue lost, which could potentially amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
The reality is different, as airlines will often honor error fares, as the negative PR that might arise from not doing so is considered to be a worse outcome than the financial loss of accepting such bookings. According to Secret Flying, around 85% of the error fares that it has shared have been honored, with “airlines such as Qatar Airways and Emirates [being] far more likely to honor such mistakes as they care more about retaining their high customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.”
Jack’s Flight Club, while not quite as high, has still seen the majority of its error fares honored by airlines, noting that its success rate currently sits at around the 70% mark. In actual fact, the site highlights that, in some countries, carriers are bound by law to honor their listed fares, preventing the prospect of any unwelcome cancelations. In short, canceling error fares often isn’t worth the bad PR.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
Still, it is important to be aware of your rights in the unlikely event that their error fare booking isn’t honored. First and foremost, airlines can only cancel error fare bookings if they provide a full refund, meaning that, at worst, users will get their money back. Furthermore, they cannot charge passengers more money without their permission, meaning that you won’t suddenly be upgraded to a full-price ticket. In any case, it is best to book with a credit card to make any refunds easier to obtain.
What are the best ways of finding error fares?
Given the popularity of error fares as an online phenomenon among aviation enthusiasts and members of the general public looking for a cheap getaway, there are various ways in which passengers can find error fares. As noted above, websites like Secret Flying and Jack’s Flight Club have built sizeable online communities, with users able to sign up to receive email newsletters detailing new error fares. Of course, this does come with the downside of having other users able to nab them!
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
While this can be a quick and easy way of locating error fares, the ones that you get sent may not suit your personal travel plans. Therefore, if looking for cheap tickets on specific routes, Going notes that users can use flight tools and fare alerts on websites such as Google Flights and Skyscanner to dig out bargain tickets. As sites like these offer price tracking tools that analyze trends in fares, they can be a good (if manual) way of seeing for yourself when prices on a given route take a drop.
To make this process even easier, Traveler’s Choice and Forbes highlight the fact that users can even sign up for fare alerts on websites such as Google Flights, Kayak, and Skyscanner, meaning that the work is done for you in the form of a simple notification. For passengers who have booked error fares and want to ensure that they remain valid, Traveler’s Choice notes that tools such as the Check My Trip app allow users to monitor the status of their booking in the uncertain early stages.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
Going also highlights that social media can be a good way of finding error fares, with many users keen to share such cheap tickets that they come across in order for as many people as possible to benefit from them. Reddit communities are also useful resources where users can pick up tips, if not the error fares themselves. However, error fares being shared on social media increases the likelihood that an airline will notice and remove them, so users should act fast if finding them this way.
Booking error fares is the easy part
In many ways, finding error fares is the most difficult part of the process, and can often be an attritional battle between the user and their search engine as they scroll on and on in the hope of finding the error fare needle in the full fare haystack. Once such a fare has been found, users should book it as soon as possible, as they often don’t last long, with Going noting that booking directly with the airline is the best course of action, as they issue tickets quicker than travel agents.
Traveler’s Choice also notes that booking directly with the airline gives passengers more flexibility should they change their mind on the matter, with the US Department of Transportation mandating a 24-hour grace period for flights to or from the United States. However, as well as making sure to book with a credit card in order to protect the transaction, there are certain things to be aware of.
As noted earlier, the chances of an error fare not being honored are relatively remote. However, with Secret Flying noting that it can take up to three weeks for an airline to decide whether or not to honor such tickets, it is advisable not to book any non-refundable aspects around the trip, such as accommodation and transfers, in the immediate aftermath. Instead, refundable rates offer better peace of mind.
Often in the news
A quick search of the term ‘error fare’ on Simple Flying will bring up a decent selection of articles dating back as far as 2019, showing that such cheap tickets have long been a hot topic in the world of commercial aviation. Indeed, just over six years ago, Cathay Pacific had to swallow a bitter financial pill when it listed 16,000 return tickets from Da Nang (Vietnam) to New York for $675 in all classes. This figure was a good deal for economy class passengers, but a bargain in its premium cabins!
More recently, Iberia was in the news after being fined $260,000 for canceling 4,000 return tickets between Rio de Janeiro and Paris that had been bought for error fares as low as $118. Meanwhile, in April 2023, business and first class tickets on All Nippon Airways (ANA) appeared online for as little as $330, although they were canceled within a few days. While it has been speculated that technological advances could render error fares extinct in the future, they are here to stay.