Over recent years many friends, relatives and workmates have asked me how I manage to fly so often in business and first class. My answer is always the same – Most of the time I use airline loyalty programs to pay for the flights using points or miles attached to those programs, usually the hardest part is finding an award flight at a time you’re able to travel.
While I opportunistically jump on any cheap flights that suit my budget and timeline, there is another, rare, but much more fun way of ending up at the front of the plane – an error/mistake fare.
Where to find?
These mistakes usually involve glitches in the IT systems of major airlines and can often require jumping through some unusual hoops to make the booking, and so it was in this case.
Step one involved browsing the brilliant Premium Fare Deals section of the international travel forum known as Flyer Talk. Each day people in this thread post deal from around the world, but the catch is that they must only be in premium cabins. No economy deals are allowed.
If you venture to the forum, be warned that most of the users are experienced frequent flyers and can sometimes be short with newbies. Better to read and learn in most cases.
Bargain business
While I was in my lunch break at work last Tuesday I took a look at the forum and saw the following thread – Cx j: Dps-ams $402 – business What started as a thread discussing a Cathay Pacific *flash sale from Denpasar, later morphed into a discussion about cheap ANA business flights from Indonesia to North America.
*flash sale – PFD frowns on the use of the terms error/mistake fare on the forum, preferring to use the term “flash sale”.
When I got home, I logged in to PFD and began reading the discussion. Booking these flights involved some obscure steps. First you had to navigate to ANA’s Japanese website then change your country of origin to Vietnam. Once on the Vietnamese ANA website you had to convert the language to English before searching for flights from Jakarta or Denpasar.
I decided to look for CGK – JFK departing early in 2024 but there was one final trick before you hit the search button – it was important to uncheck the broad search box (marked + or – 3 days). If this step was not taken regular prices would be seen.
Are you serious?
Early on I found flights on this route that would astound regular travelers – Jakarta (CGK) to Tokyo (HND), then on to New York (JFK) return, all in business class, for around $350 USD, or a little over $520 AUD !
As I kept reading the discussion it became clear that some people were able to book ANA first class for much the same price. I spent around half an hour looking for first class flights but could only find the return flight at the cheap price, the departure was full fare.
Realizing the cheap fares were beginning to evaporate I booked the CGK-HND-JFK business return I’d found earlier for the bargain price of 8.1 million Vietnamese Dong (Vietnam’s currency). It was important to pay in VND, any other currency repriced the fare by over $10,000.
The waiting game
A few minutes after booking ANA sent me my E-ticket and my credit card was debited. With these mistake fares this does not mean that you will actually get to take the flight. Sometimes the airlines, on realizing their mistake, cancel all tickets and refund you money. That is exactly what happened to me on a mistake fare to South America from Europe.
On the other hand, there have been several occasions when I’ve managed to fly a mistake fare. The most memorable of those was the 3 business and first-class flights I took with Cathay Pacific in 2019. To this day I haven’t spent all the frequent flyer points I earned on the flights. Media reports give me confidence this fare will “stick”
Mistake fares rarely happen out of Australia, I’ve never seen one, but some of the best happen out of Asia. Getting to Jakarta will involve something called positioning. To position to Jakarta, I will use QFF points to fly business each way. Availability on this route is often good.
On final note about Premium Fare Deals forum, if you come across a mistake fare thread, under no circumstances should you call the airline for a week or so after a deal is found. This practice can prematurely alert the airline that there is a glitch and will result in fewer people getting on the deal.
April 27, 2023 Update
Yesterday I noticed ANA had quietly refunded the error fare highlighted above. As of today, ANA has not contacted me at all. Apart from the refund, I noticed the following article which gives more detail:
Airline cancels passengers’ cheap first class seats after fare blunder
While I have flown several of these fares in the past, the reality is that that airline cancels about 50% of the time. Not bad at all, when you consider the price.