United Airlines’ Cheap $50 To $100 First-Class Tickets Won’t Be Honored, Says United

The plethora of people who probably thought they got the deal of a lifetime from United Airlines when they bought first class flights from London for $50 can hang up their travel plans, reports the Washington Post. The publication states that thousands of hopeful wanderlust-loving travelers purchased the United Airlines’ $50 dollar first-class tickets on Wednesday. Now, United Airlines is telling those first-class ticket-holders that they won’t honor the flights — because they state the fault wasn’t with United Airlines, but a vendor who incorrectly calculated exchange rates. United Airlines also will not put an exact number to the thousands of people who booked the first-class flights.

The United Airlines debacle is reminiscent of the recent brouhaha that erupted when certain Amazon products sold for one penny due to a Repricer Express’glitch, as reported by the Inquisitr. However, unlike those Amazon shoppers who got away with products for pennies, the United Airlines consumers who bought thousands of tickets on Wednesday morning — like first-class flights from Europe to the United States for $50, $69, or less than $100 each — won’t get to enjoy their cheap steals. United Airlines is voiding those cheap first-class tickets, according to a statement from a United Airlines representative published on USA Today.

“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 level of bookings made with Danish Kroner as the local currency was significantly higher than normal during the limited period that customers made these bookings.”

It was via social media and certain travel websites where news of the cheap United first-class tickets spread like wildfire, reports Bloomberg. The site explains how Flyertalk.com members began discussing a glitch early Wednesday that allowed travelers to change their host country to Denmark, and book cheap international tickets. Dans Deals quoted a fare of $76.28 to fly from London’s Heathrow Airport to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on October 13.

Those who bought the cheap United Airlines tickets are sorely disappointed that United won’t honor their tickets, as United Airlines (UAL) has done in the past in honoring “mistake fares.” As such, some folks are vowing never to fly United again due to their decision.

[Image via Bloomberg]