Don’t Book a Mistake Fare Until You Read This

Have you ever heard people talking about how they scored flight tickets to an awesome destination for a ridiculously low price? Maybe it was even on a flight that you paid full price for and the person next to you paid $800 less? If it was a deal that sounded too good to be true, it was probably a mistake fare.

What is a Mistake Fare?

A mistake fare is when an airline makes a mistake when pricing a flight ticket for sale. Sometimes they accidentally publish a ticket price online that is way lower than they intended to sell it for.

How do I Book a Mistake Fare?

The best way to be alerted of a Mistake Fare is to sign up for a premium subscription to Scott’s Cheap Flights and Dollar Flight Club. For around $40/year, you will get alerted whenever super cheap flights pop up in your area, along with the occasional ridiculously cheap mistake fares.

This is how I booked a roundtrip flight from Los Angeles to Barcelona for $256.

And how I booked a roundtrip flight from San Francisco to Bali for $629… in business class!

When Should I Book a Mistake Fare?

When an amazing mistake fare comes around, you should book it immediately! Since this is a price the airline didn’t mean to publish, it could disappear at any moment.

The fastest mistake fare I remember disappearing was gone within 30 minutes. It was an incredible deal from all over the US (including San Diego) to New Zealand for $245. If you know anything about flights to New Zealand, it’s that they’re incredibly expensive. We booked regular flight tickets there in 2018 for $1400 round trip per person.

Don’t wait to book these. When we booked our Barcelona flight, we were waiting to hear back from a boss before booking dates. As we waited, we watched the dates we wanted disappear in front of our eyes. Had we booked immediately, we could’ve got an even better deal.

After we missed out on the New Zealand deal, my husband and I said if either of us saw an incredible deal come in, we would just book it. Waiting to hear back from the other person for confirmation could mean losing out on a trip of a lifetime.

The good news is, whenever you book a flight, you have 24 hours from the time of booking to cancel it. So if it turns out you forgot an event or those dates don’t end up working, you can always cancel with no damage done.

What Should I do After I Book a Mistake Fare?

Congratulations on booking a mistake fare! After you book, celebrate a little bit, then pray to the airline gods that the ticket holds.

Don’t book anything that’s non-refundable within the next 48 hours. Sometimes airlines won’t honor the amazing price you just paid, and they’ll refund your ticket.

That’s why you don’t want to book any accommodations or activities that you can’t get a refund for in case your amazing trip falls through. After a few days go by, you should be safe to plan out your trip. If you booked through a third party ticket seller, you can call the airline to confirm your ticket went through.

Mistake Fare Pro Tips

Pro Tip #1: Consider airports outside of your closest airport.

Since mistake fares are often such incredible deals, it usually still makes sense to book from an airport that isn’t closest to you. It might still be worth it to buy an additional ticket to that location. For example, when we booked our round-trip business class tickets to Bali out of San Francisco, we booked additional Southwest flights from San Diego to the Bay Area.

Pro Tip #2: Set up email alerts so you never miss a mistake fare.

When a mistake fare email comes through from Scott’s Cheap Flights or Dollar Flight Club, it usually has the word “mistake” in the email. In Gmail, you can set up a filter so whenever an email sent from those email addresses contain the word “mistake,” it marks the email as important.