Yesterday I wrote in my protected post how to (potentially) get a free award ticket by exploiting a glitch in the system, it struck me as so ludicrous that this could even exist that I felt like it was a prank, but thus far I haven’t heard anything to the contrary regarding being able to exploit the glitch. Unsurprisingly many people felt this was outside of their moral comfort zone, what does surprise me is attitudes towards the mistake fare booking space, so I would like to open the floor to a discussion of the morals behind this, and see why one is worse than the other.
The 0 Mile Award
This is a potential exploit where you can change the date of your travel AFTER flying, so you can take the journey again in the future for zero miles (potentially you could do this many times, until 1 year from the date of the original reservation). This seems to work on Trans-Pacific (TPAC) routes connecting Asia and North America in any class of service.
The 4 Mile Award
This was a mistake fare that happened on United last year where biz/first class awards on TPAC routes were bookable for 4 miles, thousands of people clamoured to book these, and then when United refused to honor them threatened legal action.
My Take
I think the difference between the two awards is exactly 4 miles, which I would value at 8 cents. I think both are wrong to exploit because if you know what the price of something should be, and are knowingly taking advantage of a ‘glitch’ it is fraudulent, whether a court of law would agree or not I don’t know, but to my moral compass these two things are no different. That doesn’t mean I would or would not necessarily do them, but I know they are both equally wrong on some level.
If I know that a flight should cost say 60,000 miles, and I only have 10 in my account, but I manage to book that trip regardless, either with a remaining balance of 0 or 6 miles, either way, i’m making out like a bandit.
What do you think? Are they different, or the same, would you do it, and what is your rationale behind the decision?
It is not the same.
0 miles deal. You are paying for 1 cookie and you put a second cookie in your cart knowing that the cashier will not notice.
4 mile deal. The cookie is priced 4 cents and you buy it at the sticker price. You know it is most definitely a mistake price, but you are paying what is asked from you.
I love cookies. But I don’t see the difference. Sure I know there are lots of anecdotes to justify a position, but this is the same thing:
The 0 miles deal, you are paying for one cookie and you put a second cookie in your cart knowing that it is a mistake, and are paying what is asked of you: zero.
No, Matt, you don’t just put the second cookie in your cart. With a mistake fare, the cookie is on a shelf, for the taking – inaccurately priced, but for sale.
With the zero fare, you need to do some finagling at the shelf to simply get it in your cart in the first place, and the example cited had the reader who told you about it changing the destination as well. It would be like finding an extra cookie that wasn’t for sale, changing the ingredients or packaging, and then pricing it to appear that it is indeed on sale.
The amount of finagling you need to do to use the zero price option is the clincher for me.
Hi Elaine, reading that appears that you are chastising me for my view that both are equal. But since I also state both are bad, does that mean your real message is that I should lighten up and abuse mistake fares?
I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but I do think it is OK to book a trip using a mistake fare.
I struggle to find a difference between the two. In both cases, you know that it is wrong and you have the advantage over the airlines. Now would I do it? I’d be lying if I said no. I have no problems with getting one (or more) over on “the man.”
Remind me to never refer to myself as ‘the man’ around you 🙂
Just an observation – according to your logic of “knowing” the “right” price and hence not going for these “deals” would mean that you shouldn’t book the 20k biz routing from NRT to PPT (while it still lasted)…
I would likely book that ticket with no qualms. As I said in this post, I think it is wrong to book the zero and the 4 mile tickets, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t ‘be wrong’. I just wanted people to think about their wrongness in this post, and not try to make rationalizations for one being ok when one is not.