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Snagging a mistake fare can feel like hitting the jackpot.
Also known as “error” or “glitch” fares, these unintentionally low-cost flights are rare — but substantial, with discounts of up to 90% off standard tickets, according to new research by Going, which showed a record-breaking number of them occur in 2025.
“Mistake fares are like four-leaf clovers: rare, but when found, they are super special (yet super fleeting),” Katy Nastro, travel industry expert for Going, told The Post.
If a savvy traveler stumbles upon one of these tickets, they could be getting a free first-class upgrade or flying internationally for the price of a domestic flight.
“They honestly may seem too good to be true, but they do happen occasionally,” Kyle Maltz, COO and Partner at Dollar Flight Club, told The Post.
How do mistake fares happen?
These fares occur due to issues during the pricing or publishing process, such as human errors, technological hiccups, communication issues, currency changes or omitted fees.
Especially now, when global fares are posted across multiple booking systems in real time, there’s room for error, Maltz explained. Something as simple as a typo or data entry mistake by an airline employee can drastically change the airfare.
Evolving travel tech shakes things up, too. Automated systems that set prices could act up and accidentally publish really low fares, or faulty system communication between the airline and online booking tools could result in errors.
While most of the time price glitches are likely due to human or system errors, the specific issues stem from currency conversion issues or added fees or charges not being applied to the price properly, he said.
How common are mistake fares?
Mistake fares account for just a very small percentage of total flight deals on average, according to Going.
Travel experts estimate mistake fares only pop up once every few weeks or months, lasting anywhere from just a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how quickly the airline notices the blunder.
Why did so many mistake fares happen in 2025?
As Nastro explained, these fares have become less common over the decades as technology has improved and been able to catch mistakes faster.
“This past year, however, was an anomaly since our [Going] experts found roughly 1 per month, an abnormal amount,” she shared with The Post.
Going shared in its 2026 State of Travel and Flight Deals report that mistake fares hit record-breaking levels in 2025, and there were several factors driving that.
It’s possible that as more airlines rely on AI and dynamic pricing tools to automatically put out prices, it has become more likely that the systems will put out errors.
A spokesperson for Going told MoneyWise that about half of the mistakes last year came from new airline partnerships. For example, one airline might have priced a round-trip fare like a one-way fare, while the partner airline kept the initial round-trip pricing.
International airlines accounted for most of the mistake fares tracked during the year, potentially because non-US carriers may not have the same technological safeguards that US carriers do.
Maltz added that at the end of the day, the whole system is very quick, dynamic, and global: “The distribution of fares is super complex and only increasing in complexity so more mistakes are bound to happen.”
How can I find mistake fares?
“At the end of the day, speed is the main factor when trying to get a mistake fare,” Maltz said.
“If you can act quickly and book it before it’s gone and are flexible with the timing and destination, you can score a really awesome flight.”
Signing up for fare alerts and using flight-tracking tools is a great start to being on the lookout for mistake fares.
Will airlines honor a mistake fare?
While airlines can’t retroactively charge you the full price of a ticket after purchasing a mistake fare, they can instead cancel the booking and issue a refund.
A traveler’s best bet is booking directly with the airline rather than an online travel agency as it’s the quickest way to confirm a ticket.
“That said, a lot of airlines will just honor them instead of dealing with annoyed customers,” Maltz admitted.
Considering it’s possible a mistake fare won’t be honored, Maltz recommends waiting a few days before booking hotels, transportation or other activities before everything is officially confirmed.
Will there be more or fewer mistake fares in 2026?
The experts at Going anticipate there will be fewer mistake fares in 2026 thanks to technology and artificial intelligence.
“We will see them, but they will likely get detected quicker and will probably see less volume of mistake fares,” Maltz said, noting that AI will be able to recognize errors across a much wider distribution of data.
Nastro added that AI will have the potential the reduce inaccuracies and detect mistakes at a much faster rate than human detection.
Additionally, there are fewer airline partnerships coming in 2026, so carriers have likely worked through system integration errors, causing pricing differences.
“The last thing an airline wants is to sell tickets at a deeply discounted rate when they could have sold them at a higher rate that people would still be willing to pay,” Nastro said. “Getting this dialed in has always been top of mind for airlines.
“We hope we are wrong about mistake fares being less plentiful in the new year. Fingers crossed.”
