Remember when Qatar Airways took a punt on honouring a mistake fare?

The holy grail for some frequent flyers is the mistake fare. Some employee at the airline has accidentally published a fare at far too low a price, people notice and the bookings begin to flow in.

Airlines have a variety of responses when they discover their error. Tickets can be cancelled and refunded, people can be moved down a class (from First to Business, for example) or they can close the bookings and let the lucky ones take the flights.

A Qatar Airways mistake fare

Qatar Airways became a member of the oneworld alliance on 30 October 2013. Up until then, frequent flyers in the alliance would not necessarily have elected to fly them, as they would not have had their benefits or earned points.

Once in the alliance, they became an option, but whenever I checked their prices, they were extremely high. Until that fateful day in May 2016 when someone in Revenue Management accidentally screwed up on a route in a flash sale on their new service to Auckland.

People discovered you could fly from Pisa to Auckland via Doha and back to Europe to a place like Frankfurt for a paltry €1,373 return. Did I mention that was in business class? An insanely cheap deal which should have been pulled instantly.

Naturally it began to be reported on in blogs and it spread like wildfire. I couldn’t really believe it, I’d check dates and could see the availability – it was pretty exciting all round!

Qatar Airways let it ride!

Usually airlines jump on a mistake fare and get rid of it fast. Qatar Airways took a punt and let it ride. The flash sale was for three days and there was so much press around it that they decided the free publicity was worth the cost.

While I have no idea how many people booked tickets, it must have been a good few. In the lounge in Pisa at the start of my trip, people got talking and there were five or six people in addition to me heading out on the same flight who had availed of the deal.

All of them were from the UK, and for all of us it was our first flight with the airline. By the time we hit Doha, judging by the comments as we walked along to transfer security, everyone was already impressed.

The outcome of this, apart from a sensational 18 hour flight to Auckland, was some brand loyalty. I’ve now flown with QR on 22 different occasions, almost all in business class. That one experience whet my appetite and caused me to keep the brand top of mind when choosing travel. I’d say the same happened for many people who got that deal.

Overall Thoughts

Finding a mistake fare is rare enough these days. Enough checks and balances are in place to make it something that almost never happens. Almost always the airline will pull the fare and refund the tickets, particularly when fares are ridiculously cheap.

It is a credit who whoever made the decision at QR to let the fare stand. Not only did it result in a lot of positive press for the airline, it made frequent flyers in the oneworld alliance give the airline a try. Qatar Airways has never looked back since!

Have you ever taken advantage of a mistake fare and did you get to fly it? Which airline was it, how much did it cost and what was the route? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by Darren Koch.