United Airlines accidentally offers airfares for nothing
http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/united-airlines-accidentally-offers-airfares-nothing-8C11139753

For a little while on Thursday, United Airlines was giving away airplane tickets for free, or close to it.


Passengers reported buying tickets for $5 to $10. United says it accidentally filed fares for $0, although airport charges might have resulted in a small cost.

United stopped taking bookings through its website and phone centers to prevent more of the tickets from being sold or given away. The website was accepting reservations again around 2:45 p.m. Central time.

United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says the mistake was due to an error in filing the fares, not a problem with the website. The airline doesn't yet know how many tickets were sold at the unusually low prices.

She says United has not yet decided whether it will honor the tickets.
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It would smart of them to honor those tickets, might improve their image. Over the past few months they've gotten alot of bad press about the proposed merger and less flights.

United to let lucky travelers fly on $0 tickets
http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20130913&id=16898549

(AP) - United Airlines said on Friday that it will honor the tickets it accidentally gave away for free.

The decision is good news for people who snapped up the tickets on Thursday after United listed airfares at $0. Many customers got tickets for $5 or $10, paying only the cost of the Sept. 11 security fee.

The mistake was an especially good deal for any passengers who bought tickets for travel within the next week. For instance, a Houston-to-Washington Dulles flight for next weekend would have cost $877, according to United's website on Friday.

Airlines have posted so-called mistake fares before. They generally decide on a case-by-case basis whether they'll honor the ticket. On Friday, United Continental Holdings Inc. said it was honoring the tickets "based on these specific circumstances." On Thursday, United said there was an error in filing the fares to its computer system.

United would not say how many tickets it accidentally gave away, or how much the mistake cost. The wrong fares were available on its website for a few hours on Thursday. It eventually shut down bookings on the website until it could fix the problem.

Some passengers bought their tickets for flights on Friday, and then immediately checked in online and printed their boarding passes, figuring that would give them their best chance of being able to use their ticket.

Mike Nehmer bought a ticket for him and his wife to fly from Houston to San Francisco on Friday. But he chickened out after a United agent told him that his ticket would be rejected at the gate. He ended up changing his ticket to December.

"I decided it wasn't in my best interest to show up and be denied at the gate," he said. "I have a pretty unhappy wife, too."

they say gov overhead, subsidized, per passenger actually paying is: $800

who gets free mail and free airplane flights? gov workers.

surprised they are evne in business

pretty soon united will merge with another company take all the resources from the other, fire people. and the share holders will finally get a payout that otherwise would be only on paper.

happens all the time

even a $0 ticket costs $800.

that is what the study says.

maybe soon it will all be gov owned and run - since it isn't a business anyway

and fares will be run by gov workers just sticking the money in their pockets never paying out or doing service other than collecting, since the whole thing is actually tax funded and billed to whoever can't pay anyway

how to get free luxury, family, and home and sexy wife:

get a gov job. claim the need is critical. claim your proffesional and deserve $100,000 / yr and that children will be rotting if it weren't for you (which is a lie, ie, the farmer reaps and the seed and soil does the work and the trucking company is private). also hide the fact obamacare is free med care for feds who's costs skyrocketed, that feds aren't paying for medical like citizens in private firms.

yep thank you. no thanks. i'll take "willing buyer willing seller" any day.

Jon Adams: really didn't sell gov bear using threats and police. actually made beer and sold it to willing buyers. go figure he got rich doing it.

"United stopped taking bookings through its website and phone centers"

Ok, I can see where website bookings might not catch it but a phone center? Does the call taker not see anything is wrong with a five dollar non stop flight to San Fran? You would think they would have alerted a supervisor. But maybe in India the five dollar flight seems cool.

"how much is a one way ticket to the Fourteenth St. bridge?"
-Howard Stern