WHEN booking a holiday, everybody dreams of getting a bargain deal on their flights.
And there are rare chances when passengers can find tickets for much cheaper than they should cost.
GettyPeople can set up alerts to be told when cheap flights are available[/caption]
However, those incredibly affordable deals are often mistakes and they need to be booked as soon as possible, before the airline realises and corrects the error.
That’s what happened to Paul Jebara, who found return flights from New York to Abu Dhabi for £150 – a price he claims is a tenth of what it should be.
This was because the airline had made a mistake and released the prices at the wrong price.
Other huge errors include one made by Cathay Pacific, who sold first class tickets for just £535, when they should’ve cost £12,000.
While these instances are rare, they do happen more than you might think.
What’s more, there are ways in which people can find such deals online, if they’re willing to be patient and can act fast.
Travel expert from flight booking site Going.com, Katy Nastro, explained how travellers might be able to find these deals when they arise.
She told Stuff NZ: “Finding a mistake fare is like coming across a four-leafed clover. When you do find it, it’s extremely lucky so act fast. Typically they have a very short shelf life.”
Their booking site has found several mistake fares this year, including round-trip flights between New York and Paris for US$230 (£189), Boston to Tel Aviv for US$209 (£172), and from Seattle to Tokyo for US$316 (£260).
People can subscribe to alerts from the site to be told when the prices are live, so that they can quickly take advantage of them.
However, airlines are usually quick to notice the mistakes and correct them, so they have to act fast.
Travellers can set up price alerts for certain flights on sites like Skyscanner and Google Flights, which let them know if there are any significant changes to routes they want to fly on in the future.
Spotting them can be a matter of luck but you can also improve your chances by signing up to newsletters that focuses on these error fares.
Secret Flying, Airfarewatchdog, the Flight Deal and FlyerTalk Mileage Run Deals are some other sites that will give people a heads up, travel blogger Sophie Anderson told The Washington Post.
While most people who manage to buy the cheap tickets will get to fly for the price they’ve paid, some airlines are known to revoke them.
Going.com claimed that around 10 per cent of mistake fare tickets that get bought are cancelled and refunded.
They said that if people haven’t heard from the airline two weeks after receiving their confirmation email, then should assume that they’ve got the tickets. in the bag.
However, Skyscanner told Stuff NZ that sometimes flights that were sold for cheaper than they should’ve been will sometimes be cancelled at a later date.
Laura Lindsay, their global travel trends expert said: “Some airlines will not honour fares that were priced unbelievably low and should not have been booked due to common sense.
“It’s also possible that flights with error fares will be cancelled entirely. In these cases, airlines will typically give you your money back, so there is no risk of losing it.”
This happened to British Airways once, for example, when they cancelled hundreds of bookings for £200 flights to the Middle East because the cheap fares were the result of a glitch.
Meanwhile, this is how other savvy travellers save money with mistake air fares.
And this is how to always find TUI’s cheapest flights.
GettyAirlines have previously sold tickets ten times cheaper than they should’ve[/caption]