United Airlines is refusing to honour many thousands of premium fare transtlantic tickets it sold at bargain prices in error over a short period yesterday morning.
The tickets were bought through the US carrier's own booking systems.
Due to a technical error, the airline sold "first class transatlantic tickets for as little as US$51", according to USA Today.
It is understood that thousands of these erroneously priced tickets were made available at different prices and travel classes and that many, or most, bookings originated in Europe.
The mistake seems to have been caused by third-party software which incorrectly calculated the currency conversion between the Danish kroner and the UK pound sterling.
But only the savviest of travellers would have known how to acquire such tickets as the incorrect fares were available on United flights departing the UK, but only when reserved on the booking section of United's Danish website.
This incident in some ways resembles the Singapore Airlines mispriced ticket saga in Australia last December (see news, December 8).
Airlines will always defend their booking systems and initially SIA refused to back down. But the publicity was so bad that eventually the airline had to retreat.
United, too, may eventually be forced to climb down depending on how bad the publicity becomes and how many, if any, passengers take legal action against the airline.
Initially, however, United is refusing the honour these mispriced tickets.
In a statement, the airline said: "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 levels of bookings made with Danish Kroner as the local currency was significantly higher than normal during the limited period that customers made these bookings."
Alex McWhirter
