A Mistake Fare is an accidentally mispriced ticket caused by a currency conversion error, data entry mistake, or pricing system glitch.
Mistake fares are the stuff of legend in the frequent flyer community. Imagine finding a round-trip business class ticket from New York to Sydney for $600 instead of $6,000. These unbelievable prices usually result from a human typo—like dropping a zero when entering a fare into the global system—or a computer glitch involving complex currency conversions or misapplied fuel surcharges. They are typically only live for a few hours before the airline realizes the error and pulls the pricing. If you spot one, you must book immediately without hesitation. However, there is a major catch: airlines are no longer legally mandated by the Department of Transportation to honor mistake fares if they can prove it was a clear error. While they often do honor them to avoid bad PR, they sometimes cancel the tickets and refund your money. Therefore, the golden rule of mistake fares is to never book non-refundable hotels or tours until you actually have the e-ticket number and a few weeks have passed.
It is a coin toss. Sometimes they honor them as a gesture of goodwill; other times they promptly cancel and refund the purchase.
They are completely unpredictable. Travelers usually rely on subscription flight alert services or frequent flyer forums where users rapidly share the glitch.
A Published Fare is a publicly available retail airfare filed with global distribution systems and visible on airline websites and search engines.
A consolidator fare is a heavily discounted airline ticket sold in bulk to specialized travel agencies, who then pass the savings on to consumers.
Our travel experts have access to unpublished fares not available online.
Save up to 40% on business class flights.