United will not honor $50 transatlantic tickets after glitch

Wednesday, 12 Feb, 2015 0

A computer glitch which offered transatlantic fares for as little as $51 round trip in both economy and business class on the United Airlines website will likely not be honored.

The mistake came about after third-party software wrongly converted currency rates between the UK pound and the Danish Krone.

The bargain fares were only available for customers booking through United’s Danish homepage and departing from the UK.

A thread on frequent flyer website Flyertalk showed hundreds of successful transactions at the ultra low fares, with most customers hoping rather than expecting tickets to be honored by United.

The airline seemed to confirm these fears.

"United is voiding the bookings of several thousand individuals who were attempting to take advantage of an error a third-party software provider made when it applied an incorrect currency exchange rate, despite United having properly filed its fares,"  United said in a statement to USA Today.

"Most of these bookings were for travel originating in the United Kingdom, and the level of bookings made with Danish Kroner as the local currency was significantly higher than normal during the limited period that customers made these bookings,"



 

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TravelMole Editorial Team

Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.



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