HONG KONG - Eagle-eyed travellers – including some Singaporeans – snapped up US$10,000 (S$13,300) business class tickets on Japan’s ANA airline for just a few hundred dollars, after the glitch circulated on some travel-related platforms.
But in the latest twist to the story, most may not get to enjoy their once-in-a-lifetime deal.
ANA Holdings said on Wednesday that the mistake stemmed from an error on its Vietnam website, which listed an erroneous currency conversion.
It did not state how many people had secured discount tickets and said it was investigating the cause of the bug and the size of its damage.
An ANA spokesman initially said the airline would honour the tickets for those who had bought them. But the carrier said later that a final decision had not been made, adding that one would be reached before the end of the month. The discounted tickets will still be valid for the people who fly before that decision is made.
Most of the tickets were for travel starting in Jakarta, through to Japan and then on to New York and back again into various South-east Asia destinations, including Singapore and Bali – business class all the way.
Mr Rishi Kumar, a 25-year-old Singaporean engineer and aviation enthusiast, told The Straits Times that he was alerted on Tuesday afternoon to the “error fare” by the SG Travel Hacks | Suitesmile Telegram group. Error fares or airline price glitches are hugely reduced flight tickets due to a mistake.
He told his friend, and they quickly booked return flights in September from Jakarta to Toronto for $460 each. The non-direct flights stop at Washington, DC, on the way out, and San Francisco and Tokyo on the return trip.
Mr Edwin Ang, 22, a full-time national serviceman, and two friends in local universities booked non-direct flights in January from Jakarta to New York for $471, he told ST. Mr Ang was alerted to the once-in-a-lifetime deal by a Telegram group on how to benefit from airline miles – The MileLion.
The trio then amended their bookings to have the flight originate from Singapore instead for a $56 refund.
Mr Ang, who had no idea yet what he would do in New York, said: “It’s a really good deal that I knew I could not pass up, given the rarity of such fare errors.”
Mr Johnny Wong, who works in the airline industry, snagged a round-trip ticket from Jakarta to Honolulu via Narita airport in Tokyo for 13 million Vietnamese dong (S$740). “I never thought I’d catch such a deal,” Mr Wong told Bloomberg News.
The 29-year-old said he felt the pressure to enter his details as fast as he could, racing against time before ANA realised its error. The fare is now US$8,200.
It is not the first time an airline has inadvertently sold premium seats at a steep discount.
Cathay Pacific Airways accidentally sold deeply discounted first and business class tickets from Vietnam to the United States back in 2019 for as little as US$675 when the normal price would have been as much as US$16,000.
It honoured those tickets. BLOOMBERG
- Additional reporting by Judd Siow Rui Bin
