ANA Airline Sells US$10k Business Class Seats for US$300

whyisave on 20/04/2023 - 22:56

…alright, so, which one of you, got this?

Eagle-eyed travelers snapped up heavily discounted tickets in the fanciest cabins on All Nippon Airways after a currency conversion blunder, with one paying just $890 for flights in first class all the way from Jakarta to the Caribbean via Tokyo and New York, and back again.

That 14,500-kilometer (9,000-mile) journey would typically cost nearly 20 times as much in first class on ANA. Others grabbed tickets in business class for just a few hundred dollars instead of the usual $10,000 or so, with news of the glitch spreading on social media platforms.

ANA Holdings Ltd. said Wednesday the mistake stemmed from an error on its Vietnam website, which listed an erroneous currency conversion. It didn’t state how many people had secured discount tickets and said it was “investigating the cause of the bug and the size of its damage.”

An ANA spokesperson initially said the airline would honor the tickets for those who bought them, but the carrier said later that a final decision hadn’t been made, adding that one would be reached before the end of the month. The discounted tickets will still be valid for the people who fly before that decision is made.

Most of the tickets were for travel from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta to Japan and then to New York and back again to various Southeast Asia destinations, including Singapore and Bali, according to several people who spoke with Bloomberg News.

source: https://fortune.com/2023/04/19/all-nippo-airways-ana-acciden…

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Comments

    • whyisave on 21/04/2023 - 01:57

      Damn…I didn't even see that!

      Mods can unpublish this thread, then.

      • Ghost47 on 21/04/2023 - 12:56

        Why didn’t that OP post it as a deal!!!

        • immrnonamehello on 23/04/2023 - 10:34

          I didn't bother cause error fares aren't qualified as deals I think?!

          Still waiting for ANA to make a decision…

          • Ghost47 on 23/04/2023 - 12:33

            @immrnonamehello: I'm actually not sure if airline error fares aren't allowed to be posted, but there have been times heavily discounted products that (were pricing mistakes) have been posted as deals.

  • neil on 20/04/2023 - 23:13
    +4

    Bought tickets. Friend tipped me off late at night and managed to book return business class "The Room" seats ~A$700 from Jakarta to NY on . Pretty much no chance they're going to honour it however they aren't making a decision until the end of April so great deals for those flying in the next week or so.

    Years ago I managed to score a return economy ticket on Virgin Australia to LA for $350. But that's economy so not much of a loss to honour it.

    On the other hand, I snagged the error Qantas fare in 2015 and they not only cancelled it but never gave me my money back. I called, waiting on hold forever to find out that they had no record of me doing a booking. Only after some escalation did I get my money back months later.

    Flyertalk thread

    • Autonomic on 20/04/2023 - 23:29

      They are apparently honouring it.

      • neil on 20/04/2023 - 23:46

        Where did you hear that?

        • Autonomic on 21/04/2023 - 00:21

          Nevermind, they said it initially before retracting and saying decision by end of April.

    • whyisave on 21/04/2023 - 02:01

      until the end of April so great deals for those flying in the next week or so.

      Both Indonesia and USA still have COVID restrictions in place for their international borders
      ie.proof of vax required to enter both countries.

      (USA is supposed to remove this on 11 May 2023, or something like that.
      They are about 10 or so countries in the world, currently, with border restrictions ).

  • TheMindsetTraveller on 20/04/2023 - 23:20
    +1

    Not me, but I would have jumped on it if I had known.

    I have flown on mistake fares in the past, including RGN-xBKK-xICN-LAX and back, this time a decade ago, flying KE First Class for $450 (the RGN-BKK was on TG though). Got to experience KE First on the A380 on the long ICN-LAX-ICN legs.

  • areustillpretty on 20/04/2023 - 23:38

    I would have jumped on it had I known. How do you guys get alerted for deals like this?

  • mmd on 21/04/2023 - 00:19

    I read a news article saying they will qhonour, but it looks like they might think about it now.

  • HardQuiz on 21/04/2023 - 00:37
    +1

    ANA in premium class is awesome.

  • Almost Banned on 21/04/2023 - 11:11
    +1

    Do you think the flight attendants will give you the stink eye if you bought one of these deals???

  • Cluster on 21/04/2023 - 13:46

    Will they honour it? Depends how many tickets were bought. If it's a few dozen then I think they'll eat the loss. But if it's hundreds of tickets… expect a different response.

    • dahax77 on 21/04/2023 - 14:40
      +2

      it'd probably be more in the 1000s I'm thinking as these things are widely circulated and it was sitting there bookable for quite a while, including some flights being on partner airlines etc……

      If I was the boss of ANA i'd 100% cancel them from a business perspective as they'll be losing millions of dollars. Maybe offer those who bought them a downgrade to economy for the same price or a 25% off a Business Class flight coupon or something.

      People will still fly them anyway despite a few points/deal hackers being temporarily pissed off and the 'good' PR of honouring the deal won't get them that many extra customers.

      • SummerZero on 22/04/2023 - 15:17
        +1

        This man gets it 👍

    • whyisave on 22/04/2023 - 03:28
      +1

      That's a good sibling / relative / friend.

  • dahax77 on 25/04/2023 - 19:28
    +1

    Just to update - just announced these are being cancelled and refunded.

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