How To Get Cheap Flights Through Mistake Fares

How would you like to fly from Detroit to New Zealand for $335 roundtrip? 

Or Vancouver to Los Angeles and back for 250 Delta SkyMiles? 

Maybe Manila to Dubai in business class for $83 is more your style? 

Those airfares resulted from pricing mistakes made by airlines and online travel agencies. And although they’re becoming increasingly rare, mistake fares like these still pop up occasionally. 

Snagging one can help you fly for a fraction of the price you would normally pay! 

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What Is a Mistake Fare?

The terms “mistake fare” or “error fare” refer to a flight unintentionally marketed and sold for a very low price — sometimes up to 95% below its regular fare! 

These errors can be reflected in a flight’s cash price or its cost as an award fare — i.e., travel purchased with points or miles.

Mistake fares typically result from three issues:

1. Missing fuel surcharges

Fuel surcharges make up a substantial portion of some airfares, and an airline’s reservation system may accidentally drop them from complex itineraries. 

The chance of this occurring increases for multi-airline and “open-jaw” itineraries with different arrival and departure cities.

A fuel surcharge may also be dropped due to a glitch in the ticketing system of an online travel agency (OTA), like Expedia, Priceline, or Booking.com.

2. Input errors

Airline or OTA employees occasionally make errors when manually inputting a flight’s base fare amount or a sales system’s currency exchange rates. 

For instance, a fare may be entered with a missing zero (e.g., $107 rather than $1,070), or the yen to USD exchange rate may be entered as 15.3 yen per $1 instead of 153 yen per $1. 

3. System errors

Outdated airline software and IT systems become buggy, increasing the likelihood that an airline will publish mistake fares.

In other circumstances, mistake fares may result from communication glitches between airlines and third-party vendors, as was the case with this Manila to Dubai business-class flight:

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Do Airlines Have to Honor Mistake Fares? 

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) doesn’t require an airline to honor a mistake fare provided the airline:

• Can prove it was a mistake
• Refunds you for the fare purchase
• Reimburses nonrefundable hotel, tour, connecting travel, visa, and other purchases made on the assumption a mistake fare would be honored  

Choosing not to honor mistake fares can damage an airline’s brand, and reimbursing travelers for nonrefundable expenses may cost more than simply swallowing the loss from the mistake fares themselves. 

But experts like Willis Orlando, a travel ops and insights manager for Going Travel App, say there’s always a strong chance an airline will choose not to honor a mistake fare.

“Honoring the fares, either through not realizing they were made or as a goodwill gesture to customers, is becoming less common by airlines,” says Orlando. 

“In my estimation, we’re seeing somewhere around 50% of mistake fares honored in the last year or two. That is down from maybe 75% or so pre-pandemic.” 

How To Find Mistake Fares and Use Them

Improved airline technology has made mistake fares rare, and those that slip through the cracks aren’t always useable. 

But the potential for significant savings makes these unicorn fares worth looking for if you love to travel.

Adopting these strategies increases your chances of finding and benefiting from the few mistake fares that are published.

Track flight prices

You can track flight prices with Google Flights if you’re only interested in flying to specific destinations or your potential travel dates are limited due to work or family obligations.

Toggling “email notifications” instructs Google Flights to email you when prices for your selected routes change “significantly.” 

But your definition of what is or isn’t a significant price change may differ from Google’s, so check Google Flights daily to see if prices have dropped. 

A major price dip may justify further investigation to see if a mistake fare is available for your tracked flights.

RELATED: Use This Google Flights Trick To Find Cheap Flights

Subscribe to mistake fare alerts 

If your schedule and preferred travel destinations are relatively flexible, it’s worth signing up for at least one cheap flight alert service. 

These companies use custom algorithms and employ travel industry experts to find mistake fares and share them with subscribers.

One of the few services that offers completely free mistake fare alerts is Secret Flying, which in 2023 alerted its readers to 27 mistake airfares — four of which were for flights departing from U.S. airports. 

Aside from its website, Secret Flying shows subscribers mistake fares via email alerts and its WhatsApp channel. It doesn’t have a mobile app.

You can also pay $39.99 annually for alerts from Going, an app that focuses on finding cheap flights departing from the U.S. 

These flights from multiple U.S. airports to Dublin are examples of mistake fares that Going found in May 2024:

Monitor new partnerships and elevated cabin classes

Focusing on higher cabin classes offered by newly formed airline partnerships may increase your chances of finding mistake fares, according to Orlando.

“A solid chunk of the mistake fares we’ve seen tend to be miscoding of fare classes, allowing folks, for example, to get access to business class fares for premium economy prices,” he says. 

“This happens most often when airlines sell partners' flights — i.e., in situations where internal pricing systems aren’t perfect. This is especially the case as new partnerships first begin to integrate.”

RELATED: 13 Tips and Tricks for Saving Money on Travel

Be discreet

If you’re lucky enough to find a mistake fare, you may be tempted to share the discovery in online travel communities like FlyerTalk. 

But going viral increases the likelihood that a mistake fare will be brought to its airline’s attention and canceled.

Another blunder to avoid is calling the airline after purchasing its mistake fare and attempting to upgrade your cabin class, add a frequent flyer number to your booking, or modify your flight date. 

A service representative might notice the low fare and notify their management.

Flex your elite status

An airline may honor only the mistake fares purchased by members of its upper elite status tiers.

December 2023 mistake fares from Flying Blue offered business-class award flights between multiple Canadian and European airports for 13,500 miles and about $240 in taxes and fees. 

The mistake gave some award flights a value per mile of about 28 cents based on their usual cash prices! For context, anything above two cents per mile is generally considered a good award deal.

After quickly correcting the error, Flying Blue’s director announced that most of the mistake fares sold would be canceled, taxes paid would be refunded, and miles transferred from programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards® and American Express Membership Rewards® would be reversed.

But members of Flying Blue’s three highest elite statuses were allowed to use the mistake fares “in recognition of their loyalty.”

FAQs

How common are mistake fares?

Mistake fares are rare.

Going has found only five mistake fares in 2024. The app’s spokesperson Katy Nastro estimates mistake fares make up less than 0.2% of all cheap flight deals they send subscribers.

How long do airlines take to correct mistake fares?

Airlines usually correct mistake fares within a few hours. But they can take up to three weeks to decide whether to honor or cancel tickets purchased during brief windows when the mistake fares were live. 

Why are airlines allowed to cancel mistake fares?

The DOT allows airlines to cancel mistake fares because news of these fares spreads rapidly through travel sites and forums. 

And while an airline may be able to honor the occasional mistake fare without jeopardizing its profitability, a legal obligation to honor them all may cause an airline to operate at a loss.

TL;DR: Booking Mistake Fare Flights

Catching mistake fares may help you fly to destinations you otherwise couldn’t afford or luxuriate in cabin classes beyond your budget. 

The companies that accidentally publish mistake fares can legally cancel them, but they must reimburse you for the fare and any other nonrefundable purchases you made for the planned trip.

These consumer protections mean there’s usually no harm in buying mistake fares if you see them. But wait a few weeks before making related travel purchases, so you can avoid reimbursement bureaucracy if the mistake fare is canceled.

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