Most people arrive here after seeing a price that made no sense. Here is how these fares work, what to check before you pay, and what happens if the airline decides the price was a mistake.
What a mistake fare actually is
Most fare mistakes are not a fault in the system. A price gets loaded with the wrong number, a route is briefly priced to clear seats before the load is corrected, or a currency conversion lands in the wrong direction. The result is a ticket that is technically for sale at a price nobody meant to offer. Airlines find these and cancel them, sometimes days later, and that is the risk you take when you book one.
Not every good price is a mistake. Some routes simply drop sharply, and a genuine sale can look like a glitch. We do not pretend to know which is which before we post, so we tell you what the route normally costs and let you decide.
What every post tells you
Each fare on the board carries three numbers: the price, what that route usually sells for, and how far below the normal price this one is. If the price is not well below the normal price, it does not get posted. The date is there too, because a cheap fare for a Tuesday you cannot travel is not a deal.
Before you pay
- Check the fare rules. A very low fare often excludes checked luggage, seat choice and any change. Sometimes the total with a bag is higher than the headline price.
- Check the travel dates and times. A fare can look cheap because it departs at 6am and arrives at 2am, or because it lands two days later than expected.
- Check that the name on the ticket matches. Airlines charge to change a passenger name, and some refuse outright.
- Pay in a way that is easy to reverse. A card is usually safer than a bank transfer for a fare that might be cancelled.
- Look at the total, not the fare. Taxes, card surcharges and the checked bag are where the price comes back.
How to book one
Open the fare, read the details, then use the booking link on the page. The link is prefilled with the route and the dates, so you land on the airline’s own checkout with the right itinerary. Confirm the total there, including bags, before you pay.
If a fare looks too good to be true, it sometimes is. Check the airline’s site for the same route and dates at the same time. If the airline’s own site shows a normal price while the fare link shows something much lower, the fare is either very short lived or it is a mistake fare. Both are worth taking seriously, and both can be cancelled.
If the airline cancels the fare
When an airline pulls a mistake fare, the usual outcomes are a full refund to the original payment method, or an offer of a voucher for future travel. Which one you get depends on the airline and on where you are when the cancellation lands. If you have travel insurance that covers airline cancellation, that is the moment to use it.
If you booked with us, write to us and we will tell you honestly what the airline is doing about that particular fare, and put you in touch with the right desk at the airline.
How we check fares
Every route we cover has a normal price we track, what it sells for through the year, by month, rather than a figure from a press release. A fare has to break that normal price by a clear margin before it earns a post. Then the price, the dates and the bookability get checked again before it goes up. Fares that do not survive that do not make it onto the board, however good they looked the first time.