If You Stumble Upon Them, Seize Travel Pricing Errors

Wall Street Journal

Mistakes are never good—unless, ofcourse, they are made in your favor.According to a article,consumers are increasingly pouncing onslip-ups made by online travel companies.For instance, in April Travelocity posted around-trip flight to Fiji from the West Coastfor the very reasonable price of $51, includingtaxes and fees. Several consumerspounced before the blunder was discovered.Although legally they didn't have to,Travelocity decided to honor the fare bookingsas a gesture of goodwill to their customers,although they may not repeat theirgenerosity in the future. In another incident,US Airways posted a roundtrip fare to orfrom eight minor-market cities at $1.86.Around 1000 tickets were snatched up, andthe airline resolved to honor them all.Several other occurrences have involvedselling hotel suites for one tenth the price,simply because the offer was erroneouslyentered as, say, $35 per night instead of$350. So if you have an eagle eye you mayjust spot a mistake like this and be able totake advantage; however the law statesthat if a reasonable person can acknowledgethat the price is a mistake, then it canbe ruled that there is no offer and the travelsite is not liable.