[Lamplighter]

tw, some people already beat you to it...


Modern Readers
David Romanski
September 14, 2013

United Airlines Shuts Down Site After Posting $0-10 Fares

<snip>The airline said that it erroneously filed certain fares for $0.
This has happened to a number of airlines before, and is typically due to an airline
accidentally dropping a digit when entering fare prices into its online system.

Customer Maura Leahy was able to book a ticket from Houston to
Washington, D.C. (at Christmas, no less) for a whopping $5.
“It was $5 round trip, no fees, nothing. This is nuts,” she said.
She also noted that two of her co-workers learned about the glitch
and bought their own discount tickets for the holidays.

United won’t say yet whether or not it will honor the zero-cost tickets it sold.
“As always, we will do what is appropriate,” company spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said.

United experienced a similar outage in 2008. In that instance,
the airline mistakenly dropped its fuel surcharge,
which reduced ticket prices by as much as $130.
It ultimately decided to honor the tickets that were sold during that period.