Error Fares - What Are They And How To Book One
If you've ever wondered how people manage to score insanely cheap flights when you're still getting the same old fares from your travel agent then hopefully this article will enlighten you to the world of error fares or mistake fares, and how easy they are to find and purchase. This is the story of my latest error fare flight that is coming up in November and how to book one for yourself.
If you've ever wondered how people manage to score insanely cheap flights when you're still getting the same old fares from your travel agent then hopefully this article will enlighten you to the world of error fares or mistake fares, and how easy they are to find and purchase. This is the story of my latest error fare flight that is coming up in November and how to book one for yourself.
My Latest Error Fare
At the start of September I was exploring Baltimore for the first time and visiting the Museum of Art. After a couple hours of art appreciation I decided to take advantage of their wifi to post some of my day so far on my Instagram Stories when an error fare alert popped up that there was a new error fare from Toronto, where I am currently based, to Paris for only $169 CAD round trip ($135 USD). A flight like that is usually closer to $700 at its cheapest.
I knew I would have very little time to decide so I quickly checked my calendar, made sure I was going to be in Toronto when the deal was on, chose some dates that looked okay and booked. This took less than 10 minutes. This error fare flight lasted just over an hour and I got in about half way through. If I had taken any longer I would have missed out.
I’m often asked how I can afford to travel as much as I do and error fares are one of the main reasons why. These insanely cheap flights make travel affordable since airfare and accommodation are usually the biggest expenses when you travel.It helps that I’m flexible but I believe that if you’re prepared anyone can take advantage of a fare like this one. Here’s some information on how to book your very own error fare and you might also get to experience world famous landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower sooner than you think!
This will be my view in November :D
What is an error fare?
An error fare or mistake fare is a pricing mistake by the airline or travel agency. It could be a technical issue or come down to something as simple as someone forgetting a zero. It’s basically a fare that was never meant to be but someone stumbles upon it and thanks to the glory of the internet, we all get to find out about it before it gets fixed.
There are error fares for one way flights, return flights and even business and first class flights. Sometimes there are even error fares for hotels. I’ve gone into more details before about how to find great deals for your next vacation, including which sites usually post error fares.
I often get asked if I can find an error fare to a particular destination but that’s not how this works. Error fares pop up for random destinations and most of the time it’s not something that you can use. Namibia to The Seychelles was a recent one, if only I lived near Namibia…
When the stars align, though, and it’s a place that you actually want to go to AND the flight leaves from your home city AND the dates fit in with your schedule, it’s your duty to book that ish.
How to Book An Error Fare
Step 1
The alert that pops up from Secret Flying
Firstly set up an error fare alert so that when an error fare flight is discovered, you find out ASAP. Error fares can last 20 minutes or on rare occasions a whole day but you never know before hand how much time you’ll have.
Travel Pirates offers a Facebook Message option that can alert you when there are really good deals. Secret Flying, Scott’s Cheap Fares and Fly 4 Free all have Facebook and Twitter pages that will be updated as soon as they discover a deal. You can turn on notifications but this will give you ALL of their deals, not just error fares.
My personal preference is to set up an IFTTT error fare alert. IFTTT (If This Then That) is a website that connects all the websites and apps that you use with a trigger system to perform certain actions on your behalf. In this instance, if Secret Flying sends a tweet that uses the phrase “error fare” then I get a notification on my phone. I also have one set up just for my home city.
This is the exact alert that I use on IFTTT: https://ifttt.com/applets/37951669d-error-fare-from-secretflying
Just follow the instructions on the IFTTT website and you’ll be all set up ready to get an error fare alert when the next error fare flight is found.
Step 2
Now you want to make sure you’re as clear as possible about when you’re available to take a vacation. Error fares are all about flexibility. Are you willing to go on your own or do you need to have a friend or family with you? If the latter is the case then make a rough plan so if an error fare does come up and they’re not contactable, you’re confident enough to book on their behalf.
Secret Flying gives you some sample dates that they were able to find with the error fare price but you can allow a little bit of time to experiment for dates that work better for you. Not too much time though!
Example dates for booking an error fare flight
Step 3
Don’t hesitate! There was an error fare recently to Lima, Peru and it lasted half an hour. I missed out by minutes! The reason why it took me so long was I just wasn’t sure I wanted to go to Peru. I’d already been twice before but I knew there were a lot of places that I had missed out on. I messaged friends and asked their opinion and by the time I made up my mind it was too late.
Once you’ve booked
Don’t book anything else. Don't pay for any hotels or tours for at least a couple of days. An error fare flight is never guaranteed and some airlines are notorious for not honouring the fares. Once you’ve received an e-ticket, then you’re in and shouldn’t need to worry.
Wait for 48 hours and there will either be an announcement by the airline or the booking agent or you will get contacted to be advised that you got a refund. The best thing about booking an error fare is that if it doesn’t happen then you get a full refund so there’s no harm.
The other important thing is to not contact the airline or the travel agency. Sometimes people freak out about whether the fare is real or if they’re going to get their money back and will get in touch with the airline to ask questions. This is just ruining it for everyone else and also reducing the chances that you will get an e-ticket in time. If the deal gets shut down in between you booking the ticket and them sending you an e-ticket then you’re also out of luck.
So that’s it! Sounds easy and it is once you’ve got everything prepared for your chance to book your very own error fare. Good luck and come back and let me know what insanely cheap flights you manage to score!
Want more great travel tips? Check out these posts!
How to Find The Best Travel Deals For Your Next Vacation
Sometimes a holiday can be a carefully planned affair and sometimes if you let it, you can have a Spontaneous Travel Experience. Luckily for everyone, there is a travel deal out there no matter your preference!
I’ve compiled below a full list of all my travel deal resources that I refer to no matter what type of trip I’m planning and there are a couple of luxury options in there as well!
Sometimes a holiday can be a carefully planned affair and sometimes if you let it, you can have a Spontaneous Travel Experience. Luckily for everyone, there is a travel deal out there no matter your preference!
As someone who usually has more time than money I often place a huge emphasis on finding the best deal that I can to make sure my dollar goes further. This can mean 10+ hour flights on super budget airlines, sleeping in hostel dorm rooms and often opting for the 3 stopovers over the direct flight. This kind of travel is definitely not for everyone! Sometimes when I travel with friends or family, I've found I can relax my frugal ways a bit and indulge in hotels, direct flights and full-service airlines but still find a great deal to help me save.
I’ve compiled below a full list of all the travel deal resources that I refer to no matter what type of trip I’m planning and there are a couple of luxury options in there as well! This list is part of The Ultimate Guide to Booking Affordable Travel On Your Own series and you should definitely couple these sites with my list of Top Travel Websites and Top Travel Apps to help when booking your next holiday.
Error Fares
First things first is an explanation on one of the most exciting things to happen in travel in recent years - the ability to widely share a magical fare called an Error Fare. What is an error fare exactly? Well, an error fare (aka mistake fare or glitch fare) is basically a pricing error that has occurred when issuing the ticket. It’s interesting to note that the error in pricing usually comes down to human error. Simply missing a zero on the end of a number can cause a pricey business class fare to cost as little as an economy one.
This is a great article from Secret Flying on What Causes An Error Fare for those that want to get into the details of how it works.
There are three golden rules when it comes to booking an error fare:
- Book it as soon as possible!
- Do NOT book anything else
- Do NOT contact the airline
An error fare can get shut down as quickly as an hour after being made public. Once the airline figures out that there is an unusually large amount of interest in their Washington to London flight in December and hang on, why is it being bought for only $200 RT??? They put a stop to our fun pretty quickly! Do not think about it too hard. If it kind of works then just book it.
Even though it’s not likely, some airlines have been known to not honour their error fares and will cancel your ticket. Don't worry, they'll always refund you your money. It is just very important that you do not book any accommodation or other flights until your ticket is issued.
Even more important: Do not contact the airline! You will ruin it for everyone else who is yet to book this juicy deal. In the past people have been known to call the airline to check if the deal was for real or to find out when tickets would be issued and this is the quickest way to make sure the deal is discovered.
Deal Aggregators
For those who are happy to let the deal come to them and plan their holidays around whatever flights tickle their fancy. You can get notified of specials through your favourite medium: Twitter, Facebook, emails and even set up app notifications for the truly obsessed. The best thing is that all of these services are completely free and you as the saying goes, it doesn’t cost anything to just take a look!
I've split my recommendations into three levels to make it easier for you to choose how involved you would like to be and how high your comfort level is booking your deals online.
Level 1 - The deals nicely packaged for you
These are usually my recommendation for people just starting out who might be used to booking holidays through travel agents or like packaged deals.
Travelzoo
Travelzoo was my first dip into the travel aggregator world. They are best known for their weekly "Top 20" compilation of travel deals which include flights, hotels and package deals. Sitting in my office dreaming about the places I wanted to go, I would drop everything when their Top 20 email came into my mailbox every Wednesday filled with so many possibilities.
Now that I'm more knowledgable about finding these deals for myself I might not regularly read my weekly Travelzoo newsletter but I still subscribe and will have a quick look if I'm in need of some inspiration. They're also a great company to deal with. They are very quick to act if I've ever had any questions or needed to change anything.
Example of deals from travelzoo newsletter
Solo Traveler
http://solotravelerblog.com/solo-travel-deals/
SoloTraveler is a similar service with a focus on travel deals for single travelers. This is important when you start looking at package deals and realise that they are all priced for couple or group travelers. That deal which would have been amazing for a couple is not so great for a single person.
Solo Traveler looks for deals that are beneficial for just one person including cruise trips and groups tours when you would usually be expected to pay a single traveler supplement.
Deal Websites
This includes websites like Groupon and LivingSocial. These could be a great option for a long weekend or shorter trips away. It often includes a full package with flights, accommodation and sometimes car hire and activities. The one thing to be careful about with these is to make sure you really are a getting a good deal. A midweek break (Tuesday - Thursday) is sometimes your only option or the hotel may not be the pick of the litter once you check the visitor reviews.
I did book an awesome weekend break in Niagara for $40 (including breakfast!) with my cousin through Groupon where we got a further 50% off an already significantly reduced deal. It was only one night so we didn’t really care about the 3-star ratings and the hotel was actually quite nice. Just make sure you manage your expectations and these deals can be a great saving.
Tip: Look for "first timer" type deals If it's your first time using the website. Sometimes you can save as much as 50%!
Level 2 - A bit of effort involved in piecing together your own trip
Secret Flying
Secret Flying is everyone’s favourite travel deal website. They regularly post deals that they find on their Facebook and Twitter pages and you can even receive an email newsletter to make sure you don’t miss out on anything. It's a very easy way to stay abreast of travel deals and even better, you can tailor your email notifications to just the locations you are looking to travel to or flights out of your home country.
The Flight Deal
The Flight Deal focuses on mostly US deals but is great for travel in and from the states and also includes some hotel deals.
Secret Escapes
This is my top "luxury travel" deal website. If I want to go somewhere nicer than the usual, maybe for a girls weekend or a family holiday, then this is a great option with deals for 5* resorts and hotels, some with fights included.
Airfare Watchdog
Airfare Watchdog is a good option if you really just want to be notified about great prices to locations that you're interested in. You choose your desired destination and it gives you some cool stats on cheapest times to travel and the option to be notified of significant price drops.
Next Departure
This is a great website if you’re located in Canada. They compile specific deals for travel out of Canadian cities so you could really just ignore the other websites. Lucky Canadians :D
Level 3 - Only for the travel obsessed!
Traveldealtree
Traveldealtree is not for everyone. Firstly, it's only available on Twitter so you'll need an account to be able to follow and access the deals. You need to request to Follow the account as the tweets are protected. Once you've been allowed access you will first see how overwhelming the feed can be. They estimate that they auto-tweet 60 flight deals every 15 minutes so there is a lot of information to sort through!
These deals come from all over the internet and you might see some deals from some of the websites I've mentioned above and even from some foreign language websites. My biggest suggestion is to log in occasionally (every day if you're me!) and do a search for either your home airport or the location that you'd like to visit. You do this by typing "from:traveldealtree searchterm" and replace searchterm with the city that you want to search for. So if I want to find flights from my home city of Brisbane I would search with "from:traveldealtree Brisbane" or "from:traveldealtree Australia".
If you're extra techy, you can even set up an IFTT recipe for airport alerts or glitch fares so you can be one of the first to be notified of those all important error fares. Here's one that I've amended and that works pretty well:
Happy to discuss more ways of getting value out of traveldealtree or IFTT for those that are interested. Just let me know below!
Remember that you can still search for flights and accommodation the old fashion way and still save some money. Check out my post on Top Travel Websites For Planning A Trip for some of the best ones out there.
That's all for now but I'll definitely keep adding to this list as I find more excellent ways to be in the know for the best travel deals. Everyone has their go-to travel websites to find great deals, these are just mine! What are your favourites?