Mistake fares are both highly coveted by frequent flyers and also the bane of their existence. When the airline honours these fares, the steep discount is cause for celebration. However, when it is not, it causes frustration and bad press.
There are two schools of thought around this. One, that human error meant the wrong fare went online, therefore the tickets should be invalid. Two, that the tickets went on sale, so they are fair game to use as they were offered to consumers.
The Traditional Airline Selection
I’m going to use myself as a data point of one to illustrate what a mistake fare can do. When travelling between Europe and Australia, I would always take Qantas or British Airways. What was affordable to me then was anything up to around €1,400 return.
The Unbelievably Cheap Ticket
In May 2016, someone at Qatar Airways accidentally put up the wrong price for some flights during a flash sale. You could fly from Pisa, Italy to Auckland, New Zealand for the extremely low price of €1,373 return. In business class! For context, at the time this is what I would pay for premium economy.
I knew of Qatar Airways and their excellent business class, but never thought I’d be able to afford to fly them. Prices north of €4,000 at the pointy end are completely out of reach for me.
When I eventually took the flights, there were at least five other people on my flight from Pisa alone who had taken advantage of the fare and were flying Qatar Airways for the first time. It was that popular!
Mistake Fares Changed My Buying Habits
So the airline ostensibly lost money on mine and everyone else’s tickets, right? Well, here’s the thing. That flight was in April 2017 and a few months later I received a redundancy pay out from my employer as they outsourced our function to another country.
With a few months to kill before heading off to get my Masters, I decided to head to Australia again. After having such a good time on my flights, I booked with Qatar Airways in business class again.
All of this came about from one mistake fare, which they could have pulled. They were within their rights to remove it from sale and let those who had booked fly, or pull it from sale and cancel the tickets of anyone who booked. Not doing this and letting it run for three days was some good thinking.
Overall Thoughts
I’d love to know how much subsequent business those mistake fares from Pisa sent in Qatar Airways direction. You have the initial effect of people mentioning the fare, but then the subsequent glow of people telling others about their experience.
From what I can gather, it leaves a bad impression when these fares are cancelled. There are stories of airlines doing just that, and having all sorts of ire directed at them by disappointed customers.
Have you ever taken advantage of mistake fares? Did you end up flying or was the ticket cancelled on you? What are your thoughts – should they be honoured or not? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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I’m not sure Airlines have the right to cancel in these situation, certainly not as a blanket statement.
It all depends on the situation really.
Agreed. I’m suing one of the world’s largest airlines in court on this very issue right now and won against a large flag carrier four years ago.
It’s good to stand up for your principles. Good luck with it!
That’s very nice of you to continue to give your business. However, I don’t believe the majority of the population would act in such a symbiotic way. Most travelers are cost driven, especially leisure travelers. A mistake fare won’t lock in their loyalty.
I have taken over a dozen mistake fares in the past 15 years. Not 1 of them compelled me to fly those airlines any further. Why? Because the mistake fares were to places that I only would fly to once, or a handful of times. And the other times I want to fly them to a destination they served, they were 20% or more over priced.
On top of that, I have told dozens of friends who also flew on similar mistake fares over the years, and none of them have continued giving the airline that honored their mistake, any additional business.
Your explanation of why they should honor mistake fares is a well-worn argument used on Flyertalk forums whenever a mistake fare shows up. At the end of those discussions, none of those posts ever could actually overcome the overwhelming reality that airlines who lose hundreds of thousands or more would ever make back enough in replacement revenue to justify honoring the fares.
I can see your point. I have seen instances where people will fly out to some random place half way around the world to get a mistake fare to somewhere else random on some random airline. I guess I’m different in that I am not one to pick up a ticket like this just because it’s cheap. That seems rather pointless to me, but for some people it is a hobby.
For the rest of the world, those of us who don’t generally do these things as a general rule, I would argue that they would use the airline again. The people I met on the flight from Pisa to Auckland were all British and they were all going to New Zealand or Australia as they had family and friends there. As Qatar Airways fly from various UK cities, I daresay that rather than those people sticking blindly to BA, there is a good chance they would have used Qatar for their travel in the future.
Everyone has different circumstances around their reasons for travelling. I think your point is quite valid, and those that use one of these fares for no reason other to take advantage of the price should have at it. But I do think there are a subset who would switch as well. Thanks for the comment, it was nice to see another opinion.