United WILL NOT Honor “Mistake Fares”

by Enoch

This morning, United’s Denmark website priced many tickets at incredible low prices, including flights on Lufthansa, Swiss, and United’s own First Class. Though only itineraries departing Europe and “booked from Denmark” saw the price drop, many took advantage of the “mistake fare” as an opportunity to travel in premium cabins on the cheap by changing their country to Denmark. Travelers reported that inputing a U.S. billing address while leaving the country as “Denmark” would allow the booking to go through with no problem.

For the most part, United ticketed all booked itineraries shortly after the reservations were made.

Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 6.20.36 PM

United has stayed mostly silent during the day, with the exception of a tweet in the morning, in response to an inquiry:

We are looking into an issue whereby a third-party software provider applied an incorrect exchange rate for tickets sold from our Danish website. We have temporarily suspended sales from the Denmark website we’re working to resolve the issue with the provider.

Twitter (@United)

Shortly after the tweet, United removed “Denmark” from its selection of countries, and all attempts to price itinerary in Danish Kronor were automatically routed to the US site, which didn’t suffer from the error. As of this posting, Denmark is still not an available option from United’s “point of purchase” list.

Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 6.22.02 PM

United has now issued a statement saying that the mistake fares had resulted from a third-party placing incorrect currency conversion rate from US dollars to Danish Kronor, and that United has filed the fares correctly. As a result, they will be voiding bookings from travelers who took advantage of the mistake.

United is voiding the bookings of several thousand individuals who were attempting to take advantage of an error a third-party software provider made when it applied an incorrect currency exchange rate, despite United having properly filed its fares. Most of these bookings were for travel originating in the United Kingdom, and the level of bookings made with Danish Kroner as the local currency was significantly higher than normal during the limited period that customers made these bookings.

From United Hub

So it looks like United will not be honoring those mistake fares after all. Did you get in on the mistake fare? Do you think United should honor them?

UPDATE

While most got in on this fare by manually selecting Denmark as the country of purchase, and purchasing the fare by using a U.S. credit card, it seems that United is cracking down universally on tickets purchased in Danish Kronor. A good friend of mine, who lives in Denmark, purchased one of these fares with her Danish credit card. Unfortunately, she was frustrated to find that her previously confirmed ticket is also canceled.

 

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Related Articles

7 comments

tiger February 11, 2015 - 5:10 pm

will they issue the refund? I see message saying you can apply the portion to other flight…so wasnt clear if they are going to issue a refund or not? should i call to cancel or confirm about the refund?

Reply
Enoch February 12, 2015 - 3:44 pm

It looks like a refund will be issued, but it’ll probably shake out in the next few days.

Reply
scibuff February 11, 2015 - 5:17 pm

well, we’ll see what DoT has to say about this …

Reply
eric February 11, 2015 - 6:06 pm

I was one of those who got a seat for my family in first for our return trip home, we will see how this plays out

Reply
DOT Likely Will NOT Hold United Responsible for Denmark "Mistake" Fares - Point Me to the Plane - Point Me to the Plane February 13, 2015 - 9:06 am

[…] United WILL NOT Honor “Mistake Fares” […]

Reply
ClickHole Nails the "True Secrets" for Saving on Airfare - Point Me to the Plane - Point Me to the Plane May 5, 2015 - 7:21 am

[…] to do posts on “how to save money on plane tickets,” and they are usually not talking mistake fares like the ones you would see here. Instead, they are talking about tips to actually save you […]

Reply
United Awarding Up to 1 Million Miles...as Bounty for Security Bugs - Point Me to the Plane May 16, 2015 - 2:07 pm

[…] wonder if anyone would have reported those mistake fares in order to make 50,000 United […]

Reply

Leave a Reply to Enoch Cancel Reply