Air New Zealand Honoring Business Class Glitch Fares To Australia! Rules Of The Deal You Need To Know Before The Next Price Mistake

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Last Thursday I wrote about business class fares to Australia that were being sold at coach prices.

After not hearing anything for 5 days, JJ wrote to Air New Zealand on Twitter with his confirmation number to ask if they were planning on honoring the deal.

And sure enough, they wrote back that he was good to go down under!

Congrats to everyone who got in on the deal!

Major price mistakes happen several times a year. Just last week Cathay Pacific confirmed that they would honor their price mistake that sold $30,000 first class tickets for $845.

I’ve been blogging since 2004, so there have been hundreds of incredible deals during that time period. The best deals don’t stick around very long, so it’s critical to know some of these “rules” beforehand.

Memorable past glitches have often happened around family birthdays.

In August 2017 on my wife Mimi’s birthday I had gotten up early to make her some belgian waffles, but wound up finding a fuel surcharge glitch causing insane deals on Air Canada flights and spent the entire morning blogging about the deals available. We spent Shavuos in Israel this year and dozens of people came over to me to let me know they were only in Israel thanks to the Air Canada glitch.

This past August I was in Miami for JJ’s son’s upsherin for his 3rd birthday as well as Mimi’s 31st birthday. So naturally Hong Kong Airlines had $553 business class tickets from the US to Asia during our travels. They decided to honor them.

On my birthday last year the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos had a price mistake on 2 bedroom grand suites. They honored that deal.

Home Depot had a price mistake on appliances shortly after that, which they honored as well.

United’s 4 mile island glitch that allowed bookings to Hong Kong in first class for just 4 United miles occurred on a Sunday afternoon just as we were starting Rafi’s first birthday party.

On a Saturday evening in late November 2010 there was a glitch for free Las Vegas vacations. Free airfare, free Bellagio suites, free Cirque tickets, free limo transfers, etc. Some friends had asked for us to hang out with them, but I was in the zone and blogging away about the possibilities. Eventually Mimi had to tell me that the friends asking to hang out was just a ruse and that there were several dozen people waiting at a surprise party to wish me a happy birthday. Sheepishly I turned off my computer and went to the party. Once there, everyone was incredulous that I didn’t bring my laptop. One guest went home to retrieve his laptop and when he returned I wound up booking free five star Vegas vacations for everyone at the party!

For some odd reason I haven’t had a surprise party since then.

On the day after Mimi’s birthday in 2013 there was a USAirways glitch with tickets to Israel from $302 and on a Saturday evening in late November 2013 Wideroe Airlines gave me another birthday surprise when they created a glitch on United with $127 tickets to Europe and $287 tickets to Israel.

Is it right to take advantage of a glitch? Sometimes a glitch isn’t a glitch at all, but it’s created to generate publicity or profit (just ask Wideroe!). But I’m not your Rabbi, Priest, or ethicist. If you are uncomfortable with a price mistake, then don’t do it. Or ask someone who is one. I’m just here to provide the information and people can do with it what they want. I wrote about some of the halachic (Jewish law) implications of airfare mistakes for the Yated a couple of years ago here.

I’m forgetting some of the other birthday glitches that have popped up over the years, but I suppose one rule might be to stay alert around my family’s birthdays 😉

Of course not all glitches follow that rule. The amazing Delta 2013 glitch with $50 first class tickets to LA, Alaska, and Hawaii happened on 12/26 just after I landed from a red-eye from LA to Cleveland from giving a DansDeals seminar there.

Virgin Australia has honored $291 round-trip tickets between Australia and the US.

Delta has also honored $150 tickets to Europe, $372 tickets to Israel, $10 tickets to Vancouver, and tickets for just 250 Skypesos.

JetBlue has honored completely free vacations.

My love affair with Hawaii started 13 years ago when I posted and grabbed a deal on Northwest that was honored, paying just $87 for airfare and hotel. 

And there have been many other great deals over the years.

Rules of the deal:

• Don’t call.
  • Don’t talk to the airline or companies offering a deal while the deal is live. You can always ask questions once the deal is gone.
• Don’t hesitate.
  • These deals never last long, you’ve got to act very fast. Luckily sites like Priceline and Orbitz provide the ability to cancel a ticket for free until the day after you book. That allows you to make a quick ticket and then analyze whether you want to use it after the craziness settles.
  • With some really crazy deals like 4 mile island, the only tickets that were honored were people who booked tickets to travel that week. Luckily there were DDFers who were able to drop everything and fly in first class around the world for just 4 miles.
• Don’t forget to book your baby!
  • A common theme that I’ve seen with price mistakes is that people forget to book tickets for their infant children. You need to pay 10% of the normal fare for the privilege of holding your child on international tickets. My opinion is that you should always buy a seat and have a carseat for your infant just like you would in a car. But even if that is normally cost prohibitive, when you are getting a tickets to Israel for just $350, surely you should book a seat for the infant rather than pay for the right to hold the infant.
  • Sometimes websites won’t allow infants or kids to book a ticket. The date of birth on a ticket isn’t actually matched up with anything, so I’ve been known to add 100 years to the age of my kids when I need to and I’ve never run into any issues.
• PGFHGS
  • A common acronym found on the DansDeals Forums is PGFHGS, or pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. Ordering a few items on a price mistake won’t raise any flags and your order may ship, but ordering hundreds of items in one order means that the order is unlikely to be honored and it may ruin for others as well.
• Browse incognito.
  • If a deal isn’t working for you, open an incognito browser window and try again. You can use the setting menu in your browser to open one up, or in Chrome you can click Ctrl+Shift+N to open one.
• Mobile browser/desktop browser.
  • Sometimes a deal will only work on a desktop browser or will only work on a mobile browser. If you’re on a mobile device you can go into your browser menu and click “Request desktop site” if your mobile browser isn’t working and you don’t have access to a computer.
• Follow @DansDeals on Twitter.
  • Every day I get mail from email subscribers about missing deals and I get dozens of emails when there’s a big deal. The email digest is just a roundup of the previous day’s deals, if you want real time alerts you’ll want to follow @DansDeals on Twitter and have Twitter send you a text message whenever a new deal is posted. If you have the Twitter app you can also enable push notifications of deals, or you can set your browser to enable push notifications.  Once you’re signed up you never have to go onto Twitter again if you don’t want to. Alternatively, you can signup for notifications on Telegram.

Follow @DansDeals

•  Join DDF
  • Many great deals are posted on the DansDeals Forums before they are posted on DansDeals.com, so it’s always a good idea to check there for the latest deals. Besides for deals, DDF is also an amazing resource for planning a trip, questions about credit cards, and much more.

• Create your own free trip!
  • I don’t get as excited as some people over fare glitches. I’ve been playing the mileage game for over 15 years, earning tens of millions of miles and points over that time period. Those miles allow me to travel the world on my own terms and in the cabin I want. You can read some of those trip reports here. I’m still sitting on a ton of miles and it’s not because I’m a hoarder. In 2018 I burned through over 3MM miles, in 2017 I used 1.375 million miles and in 2016 I used nearly 2.5 million miles. I’ve flown around the world countless times in private first class suites with miles earned from the credit card and mileage game.  And I still have a top-notch FICO score.

You can also learn more about my favorite hobby by clicking on the credit card and points menus on the top of this site or by browsing the DansDeals Forums to search and read about strategies.

What are some of the best deals you’ve nabbed over the years? What other rules would you add to this list? Hit the comments!