Australian airline Qantas mistakenly sold more than 300 first-class tickets worth more than £10,000 at an 85pc discount.
Qantas said the error resulted from a coding glitch on its website, which affected bookings for travel between Australia and the US placed over an eight-hour period last Thursday.
The business has declined to honour the mispriced tickets, but is offering people holding them business-class berths that usually sell for double what they paid.
A spokesman said: “Unfortunately, this is a case where the fare was actually too good to be true. As a gesture of goodwill, we’re rebooking customers in business class at no additional cost. Customers also have the option of a full refund.”
First-class tickets entitle customers to drinks including champagne, a la carte dining and lie-flat seats with a pillow menu.
The airline said its terms and conditions state that where an error is reasonably obvious from the level of available fare it may cancel a booking and return the money.
Australia’s competition authority confirmed that the country’s consumer laws do not require businesses to honour incorrectly advertised offers, though they must provide a suitable remedy if an erroneous price is subsequently withdrawn.
The foul-up comes less than four months after the regulator fined Qantas AUD$100m (£50m) for allegedly selling 85,000 tickets for flights that had already been cancelled on its internal systems, a debacle that led to the early retirement of Alan Joyce, the former chief executive.
Red-faced airlines
Qantas is not the only airline to be left red faced after mistakenly selling bargain-basement fares and having to subsequently claw them back from irked customers.
British Airways (BA) in 2018 cancelled thousands of tickets it said had been sold at “manifestly incorrect” prices.
The fares, available via online travel agents, had retailed at £1 plus taxes and fees, with news of the deals spreading on social media before BA became aware of the glitch.
The airline provided those affected with refunds plus a £100 voucher for future flights.
Other airlines have been more generous in standing by so-called “mistake fares.”
In January 2019, a technical issue led to Cathay Pacific selling thousands of first-class and business-class tickets at economy-class prices. The Hong Kong-based airline ultimately said these would be honoured as a new year treat.
China Southern Airlines last year opted to accept tickets for flights from Chengdu to Beijing erroneously sold via its mobile app for only about 5pc of the usual price.
Also in 2023, a currency conversion error on the Vietnamese website of All Nippon Airways meant premium seats were available at economy prices, with a roundtrip from Indonesia to Aruba in the Caribbean selling for the equivalent of £715 instead of more than £13,000.
The Japanese carrier initially pledged to honour the sales before totting up the cost and informing celebrating customers that the tickets were no longer valid.