Airline Mistake Fares: #1 Travel Hack To Big On Flights

Travel hacking enthusiasts are always on the lookout for the best flight deals—and the holy grail of airfare travel hacking is the world of mistake fares, also known as error fares or price-glitch fares.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about airline mistake fares. We’ll start with the basics, then show you real screenshots of incredible deals we’ve found so you can see the savings for yourself.

What Are Airline Mistake Fares?

Airline mistake fares are unusually cheap flight prices that appear because of a pricing error, technical glitch, currency conversion issue, or filing mistake made by an airline or online booking system.

These fares are not normal sales. They happen by accident, which is why they can be dramatically lower than the usual ticket price. In some cases, travelers find roundtrip international flights for hundreds of dollars less than they should cost, and sometimes even more.

A simple way to think about it is this: a normal cheap flight deal is discounted on purpose, while a mistake fare is cheap by accident.

Mistake Fare Example

New York's JFK Airport to Singapore for $161

Types of Airline Mistake Fares

• Published fare mistakes: This happens when an airline or booking site accidentally files the wrong fare. A ticket that should cost $900 might get listed for $90 or $190 instead.
• Currency conversion mistakes: These happen when an airline or booking platform converts a fare incorrectly between currencies. Changing the point of sale or currency can sometimes reveal a much lower price than what most travelers normally see.
• Fuel surcharge mistakes: Sometimes an airline or booking system fails to add fuel surcharges or carrier-imposed fees. When that happens, the total price can drop hard, especially on long-haul international flights.
• Tax mistakes: A fare may be missing certain taxes or government fees, which can make the final price much lower than it should be.
• Business- and first-class filing errors: These are some of the craziest ones. A premium-cabin fare can accidentally get filed at a price much closer to economy, or far below the normal business- or first-class rate.
• Geo-pricing or point-of-sale glitches: Some airlines show different prices depending on the country you are booking from. In some cases, changing the booking region can reveal a much cheaper fare or expose a pricing error.
• OTA or third-party booking glitches: Online travel agencies sometimes display fares incorrectly because of syncing problems, caching issues, or system errors between their platform and the airline’s fare feed.
• Fare construction errors: This happens when the rules for stopovers, layovers, multi-city routes, or fare combinations break in a way that creates an unusually low price.
• Hidden-city or married-segment pricing oddities: These are not always true mistake fares, but sometimes strange routing logic creates a fare that prices lower than it logically should.

Best Way To Get Mistake Fare Alerts

Finding and booking mistake fares requires a combination of vigilance, speed, the right tools, and a lot of luck. Having someone do the work for you is the most practical way for the average person who's not an expert on the differnt tactics one can use.

• Sign Up For Our Airfare Alerts: Jetsetter Alerts specializes in notifying members about airline mistake fares and flash-sale deals as soon as they’re spotted. Signing up for our email alerts is the best way to stay informed about some of the best flight deals around the world, personalized to your departure area.
• Social Media and Forums: Communities on platforms like Reddit, particularly the r/churning and r/travel subreddits, often share mistake fare deals. Twitter accounts dedicated to travel deals also provide real-time updates, and flight forums is a great place to find people sharing them. However, getting the alert yourself gives you a much better chance of getting flights booked before the price is fixed.

Is Chasing Mistake Fares Myself Worth It?

In my opinion—and I’m not just saying this because it’s what we do, but because it’s genuinely true—trying to find mistake fares on your own manually these days is nearly impossible unless you’re using the currency conversion, fuel dump, or geolocation glitch.

The currency conversion price glitch works because some airlines charge different prices based on a traveler’s nationality or perceived income level. It became such a problem that many airlines removed the ability to manually change the currency on their websites.

That’s why you need to use a platform that still lets you adjust both the currency and location settings—and Skyscanner is one of the few that still does.

Unlike Expedia, Booking.com, and most major airline websites, Skyscanner lets you change both your country and currency independently. As shown in the example below.

Many platforms will let you select a region but then restrict you to a currency that matches that region. That limits your ability seek lower better prices using this trick.

Skyscanner gets around this!

The currency and region settings you apply on Skyscanner can override those restrictions before you’re redirected to third-party booking sites like Expedia. This can make it possible to uncover lower prices and pricing errors you otherwise would not see.

Currency Conversion & Location Price Glitch

You’ll see two screenshots showing how I used Skyscanner to access fares being pulled directly from Expedia. These screenshots are from the intermediate/redirect page that loads just before Skyscanner sends you to their website directly to complete the booking.

This was for two lie-flat business class seats on Brussels Airlines from Denmark to Nairobi, Kenya. Take a look at the dates and flight times—they match exactly, showing it’s the same flight, just displayed at different prices depending on the location and currency settings I used.

The original price was $28,760 vs $1,871.20 for two business class passengers. Take a close look at the dates and flight details in the screenshots and you will see they're exactly the same. Again, this was done by switching the currency and telling Skyscanner my physical location was different than what it actually was.

Again, if I went to Expedia directly I would not have the option to play with these settings, or at least I'm not aware of a way to do it.

That's a $26,000 price glitch – and the biggest I've ever been able intentionally make happen.

Getting this glitch to work took nearly two hours of testing different country and currency combinations—literally hundreds of them. It was a ton of work, with no guarantee of finding anything. That’s the nature of this type of mistake fare: you learn by trial and error, and it’s smart to set a time limit for how long you’re willing to mess with it.

However, it's pretty easy with only a few attempts with this tactic to save $20-$50.

Out of all the different types of mistake fares, currency conversion glitches, and fuel dumps are the only ones you have a realistic shot of triggering yourself.

Random error fares that happen from an internal mistake by manually entry mistake, or technolgy/software glitch? That's a matter of pure luck, and for those you're going to need to sign up to receive alerts from a service wh's sole job is to alert their members of amazing deals.

Why? No one has the amount of time to sit there and search endless numbers of search variables in hopes to find these types of mistakes. You're odds are enormously against you.

Examples of Mistake Fares In The Media

The travel community is filled with stories of incredible trips made possible by mistake fares. Here are a few examples that have made headlines:

• First-Class to Southeast Asia: In 2019, a glitch led to first-class tickets from various U.S. cities to Vietnam being sold for under $700, a fraction of the airlines intended cost of $16,000.
• Business Class to Europe: In 2017, an error on a booking site allowed travelers to book business-class flights from the U.S. to various European cities for just $600 round-trip.
• Flights to Japan: In 2014, United Airlines mistakenly listed round-trip flights from the U.S. to Japan for just $10. Although the fare was eventually canceled, it sparked widespread discussion and excitement in the travel community.
• United Airlines: In 2013, United Airlines had a huge filing issue with their fares and sold a very large number of flights for free, while other travelers reported only having to pay $5 for round trip flights from Houston to Washington.

👉Check out many examples of mistake fare alerts we've sent out to our members.

Recent Mistake Fare Examples

Atlanta To Santiago Chile $63 Round Trip

Los Angeles To Auckland New Zealand $226 Round Trip

Paris to New York $8 Round Trip

Airline mistake fare alerts are always makes us feel like kids at Christmas when we find them, and get to send them out to our members.

What to Do After You Book a Mistake Fare

Scoring a mistake fare is thrilling—but the process isn’t over once you click “book.” Here’s what you should be aware of:

✅ Wait for Confirmation

Hold off on celebrating until you receive a confirmed ticket and payment receipt. If the fare is truly honored, you’ll get an email confirmation with an e-ticket number—that’s your green light.

🚫 Don’t Contact the Airline

Whatever you do, do not reach out to the airline to ask if the fare is legitimate. Doing so draws unnecessary attention, and is basically an admission from you that the flight has a pricing error. This would increase the chance of it being canceled, and would ruin it for everyone else as it would cause it to immediately be fixed.