Free Plane Tickets: United Airlines Fixes Glitch After Shopping Spree

Published on: September 13, 2013 at 12:54 PM

If you were on United Airlines website yesterday you may have been able to score a free plane ticket.

The airline accidentally offered airfare from $0 to $10 at around 2:45 on Thursday. The free plane tickets were available on the website for about fifteen minutes.

Maura Leahy, from Houston, said that she booked a Christmas trip to Washington for $5. Then, since flights were so incredibly cheap, she booked a couple more flights for her parents.

Leahy said : “It was $5 round-trip, no fees, nothing… This is nuts.”

United eventually realized what was happening and removed the free tickets from the site. It’s unclear how many people were able to purchase the extremely cheap airfare and United hasn’t said yet if they are going to honor the tickets.

United Continental Holdings Inc. spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said: “As always, we will do what is appropriate.”

McCarthy said that the mistake was a filing error and that nothing was wrong with the United Airlines website.

McCarthy said : “One of our filings today contained an error which resulted in certain fares displaying as zero… We have corrected this error.”

Newser notes that United made a similar mistake in 2008. The airline accidentally dropped a $130 fuel surcharge. The company decided that it would honor those tickets.

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