Advisors saw this one coming. After mistakenly issuing USD$10,000 business class tickets for just $300, All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced it will not honour the underpriced fares sold in error and will cancel and refund all itineraries.
As reported in Karryon last week, a currency conversion error on the ANA Vietnam website on 17 April saw the Japanese airline display heavily discounted tickets – mostly from Jakarta (via Japan) to the US and back to various Asian destinations.
Business class seats that normally retail for USD$10,000 (approximately AUD$14,800) were as low as USD$300 (AUD$445), several people told Bloomberg News.
One opportunist nabbed around USD$250,000 (approximately AUD$370,000) worth of airline tickets for just USD$17,000 (AUD$25,000).
While ANA initially told Bloomberg News it would honour the ticket price, it has now decided to cancel and refund the bookings.
Commenters on the Karryon: Together in Travel Facebook page thought the airline wouldn’t honour the mistake, and it turns out they were correct.
Luxury Travel Manager Lucy Bellamy commented that she saw the mistake on the error fares page.
“No way will they honour them. Too good to be true,” she wrote.
Other agents noted that in similar situations historically, airlines have either refunded the tickets or sometimes honoured the mistake.
In this case, ANA stated it will cancel and refund the flights that were erroneously processed and notify each customer affected by the mistake by email.
In a statement on its website, ANA said: “We truly regret that this issue occurred, and deeply apologise to our customers for any inconveniences.”
