Airline accidentally sells $10,000 US-Asia business class tickets for $300

A airline ticketing website's technical glitch resulted in business class tickets worth $10,000 (£8,045) selling for just $300 (£241).

The currency conversion error on Japan's All Nippon Airways' website saw some quick-thinking travellers bag business class flight tickets in All Nippon Airways' fanciest cabins on several routes between Asia and USA, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday (19 April).

One bargain fare hunter paid just $890 (£716) for first class flights from Jakarta to the Caribbean via Tokyo and New York, and back again - a trip which should have cost almost 20 times as much at $16,300 (£13,113).

While other luxury tickets with prices ranging from $8,300 (£6,665) to $10,400 (£8351) were listed and snapped up for between $300 (£241) and $550 (£442).

Pexels/@Ahmed Muntasir

Some bagged return flights to multiple Southeast Asian destinations, including Bali and Singapore.

The spokesperson for the airline initially said that it will honour tickets for passengers who had booked and paid for tickets, while those who only reserved them will have to pay a 'just price'.

But, in the latest twist to the story, All Nippon Airlines then tweaked that message to say that a final decision hadn’t been made yet, but advised passengers that a decision would be reached before the end of the month.

However, the discounted tickets booked will still be valid for those who are flying before the decision is made.

The airline said that the error stemmed from a bug on their Vietnam website, which resulted in the currency conversion.

It didn’t state how many people had secured discount tickets and said that it was 'investigating the cause of the bug and the size of its damage'.

Pexels/@Josh Sorenson

Johnny Wong, who works in the airline industry, told Bloomberg that he had booked a return ticket on business class from Jakarta to Honolulu via Tokyo’s Narita Airport for 13 million dong ($444), racing against time before the airline realised its error.

“I never thought I’d catch such a deal,” he said.

However, the fare has now gone back to $8,200 (£6,584).

Mistake airfares, also known as error fares or glitches, occur when an airline or travel agency accidentally list the wrong price for a flight.

Sometimes, these mistakes can be up to a 90 percent discount.

These mistakes can be caused by a number of reasons, including currency conversion errors, miscalculated airfares, revenue management automation, or just plain human error.