What Is a Mistake Fare?(And How to Book One Before It's Gone)

Why Do Mistake Fares Happen?

Airlines set prices through complex, largely automated systems, and those systems occasionally break down in ways that work in the traveler's favor:

• ▸Human error. Someone enters a fare manually and drops a digit or misplaces a decimal.
• ▸Currency conversion mistakes. A fare priced correctly in one currency comes out wrong after conversion to another.
• ▸System glitches. Automated pricing engines occasionally publish fares that were never meant to go live.
• ▸Missing taxes or surcharges. A new route or a system update sometimes launches without fuel surcharges or taxes properly added in.

None of this is intentional generosity — it's a mistake. That's exactly why the fare usually doesn't last long.

Are Mistake Fares Legal to Book?

Yes. There's nothing illegal about booking a fare that's publicly available for purchase, even if it was posted by accident.

Whether the airline has to honor it once they notice the error is a separate question. In the United States, a 2015 rule change means airlines are no longer strictly required to honor mistake fares the way they once were. In practice, though, most airlines still choose to honor them, because canceling a large batch of confirmed tickets creates bad press and angry customers — and the financial hit from a batch of underpriced seats is usually smaller than the reputational one.

According to Going.com founder Scott Keyes, roughly 10–20% of mistake fares end up getting cancelled — so it's a real possibility, not a rare exception, and worth planning around.

How to Improve Your Odds of Keeping the Fare

1. 1
   Book directly with the airline whenever possible.Airline websites usually issue your ticket immediately. Third-party booking sites have to relay the purchase back to the airline for confirmation — and that delay gives the airline more time to catch and correct the error before your ticket is fully issued.
2. 2
   Book fast, plan slow.Mistake fares can vanish in minutes. Book the flight first and sort out the details — time off work, connecting travel, who's coming with you — after. Most airline tickets in the US can be cancelled free within 24 hours of booking anyway, so there's little downside to moving quickly.
3. 3
   Don't book anything else non-refundable right away.Hold off on hotels, tours, or other non-refundable purchases for at least a couple of weeks. If the airline does cancel the mistake fare, you'll get a refund on the ticket — but a nonrefundable hotel booked around it is your own risk to carry.
4. 4
   Watch for "ghost fares."Sometimes a fare shown in search results has already sold out or already been corrected by the time you try to book it. If the price jumps the moment you select your flight, that's usually what happened — the deal is already gone.

How to Actually Find Them

Mistake fares aren't something you stumble into by casually browsing flight search sites — they show up briefly and disappear. The realistic way to catch one is a service that's actively monitoring fares across a wide net of routes and airports and can alert you the moment something unusual appears.

That's the whole idea behind Jackpot Travel: we watch for mistake fares, flash sales, and unusually low prices from airports around the world — not just a short list of major US hubs — and get the alert to you while there's still time to act.