Airline Gltiches - Gotta love them!

[lovetravellingoz]

Glitches in airline booking systems happen from time to time, and manifest in various ways from cheaper (wrongly priced) paid fares, to airline awards being able to booked at cheaper point costs, or to gain availability to numbers of tickets ( ie their may be a cap of 2), or types of tickets when ordinarily you should not be able to.

So I have learnt to be alert, and to just try different things. ie Booking 5J seats on SQ on the one flight, and also to be alert when something looks different.

My next trip to Europe has been quite fruitful as I have managed to get flights, for 2, from Europe back to Australia upgraded from J to F for no points and only a few Euro extra for a slight difference in taxes and charges.

This was after, on another airline, gaining intra-Europe award flights (several hours long) for 2 for 2 J flights and 1 Y flight each for only taxes and charges

I am being deliberately vague as I am yet to fly, but the moral of the story is that it pays to "look" and make "dummy" bookings and to be alert for unusual things.

The other key point with glitches, is that they are normally very temporary...so you have to act. Often immediately. In the case of these recent good deals, I think all were just temporary computer glitches, that would not have lasted. so in each case I booked immediately without logging out. Oh, and never ever be silly enough to ring and check with the airline!!!

In the past with SQ, it was often fertile ground to "look" when equipment changes were happening, as various possibilities could occur. Though this seems less prevalent now.

 

[casanovawa]

Yes, i wish i could set up an alert for when the people at Flyertalk find these $5 UA fares etc... Never really able to find any of these or availabe to fly when those SQ F glitch fares from Myanmar came up...

Any particular sites you use for searching or the actual airlines websites, if its not giving away to much info??

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Glitches in airline booking systems happen from time to time, and manifest in various ways from cheaper (wrongly priced) paid fares, to airline awards being able to booked at cheaper point costs, or to gain availability to numbers of tickets ( ie their may be a cap of 2), or types of tickets when ordinarily you should not be able to.

So I have learnt to be alert, and to just try different things. ie Booking 5J seats on SQ on the one flight, and also to be alert when something looks different.

My next trip to Europe has been quite fruitful as I have managed to get flights, for 2, from Europe back to Australia upgraded from J to F for no points and only a few Euro extra for a slight difference in taxes and charges.

This was after, on another airline, gaining intra-Europe award flights (several hours long) for 2 for 2 J flights and 1 Y flight each for only taxes and charges

I am being deliberately vague as I am yet to fly, but the moral of the story is that it pays to "look" and make "dummy" bookings and to be alert for unusual things.

The other key point with glitches, is that they are normally very temporary...so you have to act. Often immediately. In the case of these recent good deals, I think all were just temporary computer glitches, that would not have lasted. so in each case I booked immediately without logging out. Oh, and never ever be silly enough to ring and check with the airline!!!

In the past with SQ, it was often fertile ground to "look" when equipment changes were happening, as various possibilities could occur. Though this seems less prevalent now.

and the downside with 'glitches' is the potential trade-off against the airline failing to honour the ticket. There is a current major dispute between pax and Swiss Air Lines over mistake fares from Burma.

but when they work it's great

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Any particular sites you use for searching or the actual airlines websites, if its not giving away to much info??

In my case I am speaking of Award Flights (and not Paid flights as for a while now I have had ample points for my international travel needs and so only buy domestically where redemptions are not generally good value), and so it is the airlines own award booking sites.

You just need to be alert to when the site is acting "flakey" and when what is presented is cheap etc. Or if it flakey, I might try different bookings and see what bobs up.

It is obviously random. This is also why I am not being specific on my bookings as there are way to many airlines reps on this site these days. ( like the Virgin two tip posted not long ago, that had the Virgin Rep posting later in the thread that that loophole was to be closed down).

However computer software will always have issues, and that means that there will always be opportunities that will come and go. The more complex the database, the more likely there will be the occasional glitch, or human error. So if you see something, experiment, and then act! As most glitches will not last, or indeed some will be a one off glitch. I strongly suspect that my recent bookings have been random faults that did not execute the points in the correct manner. Probably some weird combination of circumstances, that just happen from time to time, where some aspect of the process hangs or does not complete.

Others will last till they are "fixed" as in the Virgin row booking trick, as they are more a design flaw in the software than a one off glitch.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

and the downside with 'glitches' is the potential trade-off against the airline failing to honour the ticket. There is a current major dispute between pax and Swiss Air Lines over mistake fares from Burma.

I think quantity has a lot to with the airlines honouring it or not. With some of the MISTAKE fares, the number of tickets booked can be huge and so one can understand the airlines not wanting to honour them. ie the AA MISTAKE fare for Qantas tickets between the USA and Australia of a while ago where vast numbers of F tickets were booked for peanuts. The scale was such that AA had to reneg.

With one off glitches my experience is that they are always honoured.....but then again I would estimate that sometimes the airline just never knows about it.

 

[under the radar]

if you find a 'mistake'/'glitch' fare ...take a screen shot...and fight for your rights .. the airline has 'advertised' the fare .. bad management of its website isn't your fault

 

[MEL_Traveller]

if you find a 'mistake'/'glitch' fare ...take a screen shot...and fight for your rights .. the airline has 'advertised' the fare .. bad management of its website isn't your fault

may not always be correct in general law, may get some support in consumer law.

 

[under the radar]

may not always be correct in general law, may get some support in consumer law.

point taken... I suppose airlines then 'rely' on no one 'taking them to task' and thus 'getting away with it'..so the airlines win!! i'm not saying it's right...

 

[JohnK]

I have been working in IT most of my life.

It is almost impossible to reproduce some glitches. If you happen to come across some glitch and you can reproduce it and it works in your favour then take advantage of it. To sit there for hours trying to find a glitch is foolish.

 

[mrfreeze]

The other key point with glitches, is that they are normally very temporary...so you have to act. Often immediately. In the case of these recent good deals, I think all were just temporary computer glitches, that would not have lasted. so in each case I booked immediately without logging out. Oh, and never ever be silly enough to ring and check with the airline!!!

Sure does pay to book straight away as when making a search straight after can return different (i.e more normal) results.
With the double SC offer for December / January I started looking a a J Multi City fare that usually prices around $2400 and would earn 720 SC (360 doubled) on the domestic legs + the 160 (normal) on the International.
Playing with dates etc. it popped up at $1500.
I then made the mistake of looking at another date and then original date and it was gone

 

[Robbi]

Sure does pay to book straight away as when making a search straight after can return different (i.e more normal) results.
With the double SC offer for December / January I started looking a a J Multi City fare that usually prices around $2400 and would earn 720 SC (360 doubled) on the domestic legs + the 160 (normal) on the International.
Playing with dates etc. it popped up at $1500.
I then made the mistake of looking at another date and then original date and it was gone

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

i have to say that without any useful information this thread is rather.... useless??

 

[anat0l]

i have to say that without any useful information this thread is rather.... useless??

Except possibly to shoot the breeze, viz. not necessarily to educate or provide leads.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

i have to say that without any useful information this thread is rather.... useless??

Well there as some tips given;

1/ If you get one...act immediately (or cross check on a different computer)
2/ If you find one...DO NOT RING THE AIRLINE INVOLVED!!!!
3/ If you find that the search engine is acting strangely...try some dummy bookings (this has been quite fruitful for me...)

With SQ, it used to be the case that when metal changes were happening that one could get some interesting results. System is more stable now.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

if you find a 'mistake'/'glitch' fare ...take a screen shot..

Agree wit that.

And yes on my last "free' upgrade from J to F glitch I did exactly tat. A screen shot of both the confirmed and prelim stages. Better safe than sorry!

I also do this wit all promos etc....if they are web-vased as the "deal" can vanish, or have amended t&c..

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I have been working in IT most of my life.

It is almost impossible to reproduce some glitches. If you happen to come across some glitch and you can reproduce it

Some glitches you cannot reproduce. Many may lose an opportunity because they may not act before trying to reproduce it.

Others can be. I scored a F once to Milan for 3 as someone reported a glitch for a certain time of year....and I then searched and found it also worked at another time period, and that also found one could book as many F's as the cabin had seats..

and it works in your favour then take advantage of it. To sit there for hours trying to find a glitch is foolish.

Foolish I may be, but at least I am a fool that flies in the pointy end for less.

Part of the art is knowing when to look for glitches...or to not hesitate when they do randomly happen. The fish that got away....

I would not spend hours per week doing it. But I would have spent some hours in a coughulative way each year doing it, and for the a last 5 years I have made glitch bookings of one type or another each year. Benefit to time cost is definitely in the positive.

 

[Grooba]

2/ If you find one...DO NOT RING THE AIRLINE INVOLVED!!!!

This is the absolute golden rule of mistake fares or glitches, never call the airline.

I'm yet to take up one of these mistake fares but have come so close to pulling the trigger. Sometimes I wish I was single!

 

[froggerADL]

Sometimes I wish I was single!

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence!

 

[JohnK]

Foolish I may be, but at least I am a fool that flies in the pointy end for less.

Unless you are in IT (or should be in IT) then you are extremely lucky.

Trust me. I am about as good as they get when it comes to investigating glitches and I cannot reproduce each one even when I am looking at the exact same thing the consultant/user was doing at the time of the glitch. The values in a set of variables cannot always be predicted and only 1 path in the code out of hundreds and/or thousands possible paths can produce a similar result.

Buy a lottery ticket....

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Unless you are in IT (or should be in IT) then you are extremely lucky.

Trust me. I am about as good as they get when it comes to investigating glitches and I cannot reproduce each one even when I am looking at the exact same thing the consultant/user was doing at the time of the glitch. The values in a set of variables cannot always be predicted and only 1 path in the code out of hundreds and/or thousands possible paths can produce a similar result.

Buy a lottery ticket....

Poor value there as the odds are stacked against you, and you cannot influence the result.

When I was at Uni, the Snow Ski club was running a raffle for 3 sets of skis. I initially said no thanks...but then I asked them how many tickets they had sold. The answer was twenty, and so I bought a book, I won a set of skis. This one little story sums up why you think I am lucky and why I do not. I think to ask that question ( or to try something different), and then act.

Back on glitches. I don't work in IT, but I do know that some glitches are one-offs and others are reproducible. I have already given an example above on how someone found a glitch for one time period, and then by looking I found another window at a period that suited me.

Chasing an out performance of earning points, or redeeming points, can be a bit like fishing. One cannot always guarantee you will catch a fish, but if you think about what you do, then you can massively increase the odds of getting the desired fish.