The truth about Error Fares on airline tickets.

Error fares are the best....when they work.

I follow several error fare sites on twitter like @errorfares, @hacktheflight, and fly4freecom. I follow many others. They are easy to find. search for flights, cheap flights, errors, or other similar terms.

Here is a flight that I took from Washington DC to Santiago Chile.

An amazing price! The only problem was it was flying out of DC, I live in New Jersey. No problem though. I book what is called a positioning flight for $152 round trip and I'm all set.

It Also included a 22 hour stop over in Panama. I was fortunate to be able to meet up with @hilarski and his wife @anahilarski and had a great time getting to know each other in real life.

On the return I was able to go see the Panama Canal which was kind of nice.

BUT.

There is a bad thing about Error Fares. They are NOT guaranteed. As a matter of fact no flights are guaranteed, ever. Read the small print.

Recently I booked a flight for to travel from Newark NJ to Niarobi Kenya for $335. This is an amazing fare. Its presently $729 in October as found on Momondo.com at the time of this writing. The problem with the error fare is that it used a technique called "fuel dumping".

“Fuel Dumping” is the term generally given to when an aircraft disposes fuel mid-air prior to landing. This often occurs when a plane is forced to make a landing short of its intended destination to lighten the aircraft’s weight.

However, there is another more secretive meaning to the term “Fuel Dumping”. It involves intentionally pairing two separate flights on the same airfare ticket in the hope that the fuel surcharge component of the main, more-expensive flight is either partially or fully dumped/eliminated.

This post on secrect flying explains it in detail. http://www.secretflying.com/posts/fuel-dumping-basics/

Well the flight I booked and paid for had a third leg a week later that created a fuel dumping component. The flight got cancelled about a week later and all money was refunded. Not too bad for a chance to go there for a great price.

Things to remember when buying an error fare ticket. DO NOT book a hotel without the ability to cancel at any time up until the day of the resevation. You will either be beat for the hotel cost or end up buying a ticket for more than you had hoped.

Error fares are great. I love them. I've used them to fly all over the world for a fraction of full price.

enjoy your day and upvote, upvote, upvote!

mark
enjoy the journey not just the destination.

PS I may look again at going to kenya, $726 is really a great fare.