'Fat-finger' fares are a boon for travelers
By Laura Bly
USA Today
They're called "fat finger" — as in typing error — fares. And savvy, nimble-fingered bargain hunters have chased down a flurry in the past few weeks, from the prosaic (a $39 round trip from Seattle to Lebanon, N.H.) to the exotic (a $51 roundtrip from Los Angeles to Fiji).
Such accidental online deals, usually caused by human error while loading an airfare or hotel rate and corrected within hours, are nothing new. Last year, several hundred travelers took advantage of a short-lived CheapTickets.com snafu that priced roundtrip tickets from the East Coast to Iceland for $61, less than a tenth of the normal fare. In 2001, a series of high-profile glitches included a one-hour window in which lucky shoppers snapped up more than 140 international tickets on United for less than $100 round-trip total, including a roundtrip jaunt from San Jose, Calif., to Paris for $27.98.
But as fare-search technology becomes more sophisticated and the number of online bookers continues to soar, "there are a lot more people looking for (mistake fares), and a lot more awareness out there," says Mark Schonbach, co-creator of FareAlert.net, a mailing list that alerts subscribers when an unusually juicy bargain comes to light. Launched in 2002 as an outreach of the popular frequent flier forum FlyerTalk.com, the list has expanded from about 500 subscribers to 14,500 — most of whom have signed on since April 5.
That's when an eagle-eyed traveler posted an alert to FlyerTalk.com's Mileage Run about a $0 Air Pacific flight from Los Angeles to Fiji on Travelocity, plus $51 in taxes and fees (the $0 fare was supposed to be a companion offer and required a seven-day minimum stay).
Travelocity will not say how many people took advantage of the error, which FlyerTalk.com regulars say lasted a few hours. But the company scored brownie points when CEO Michelle Peluso, in a posting to FlyerTalk.com, reassured those who had nabbed the deal that they would be able to use their tickets.
As part of its new Travelocity Guarantee program, the booking site notes that "if, say, we inadvertently advertise a fare that's just 'too good to be true,' like a free trip to Fiji, we'll work with you and our travel partners to make it up to you and find a solution that puts a smile on your face."
Like the Web sites of other companies that have been burned by computer- or human-generated pricing mistakes, Travelocity's includes disclaimers designed to cover such snafus.
And, says San Francisco travel attorney Alexander Anolik, courts have ruled that companies needn't honor an offer if a reasonable person would recognize it was a mistake.
But in a cutthroat environment when legitimate, rock-bottom fares appear and vanish with dizzying regularity, it's not always easy to tell a glitch from the real thing.
And travelers lucky enough to be online at the right time have benefited.
