This week marks the 4 year anniversary of the first and quite possibly the best mistake fare I’ve ever seen. I thought I’d take a look back at what those of us in the travel hacking community affectionately called “The Great Dane”
The mistake fare
On February 11, 2015, I woke up to find several posts on the front page of Boarding Area regarding a mistake fare. Â United.com was selling FIRST CLASS tickets from Europe to the US for about ~$90. Â The only “trick” was that you had to set your billing country to Denmark to get the fare.
While I had never taken advantage of a mistake fare before, I did book 2 tickets from London to Cincinnati and then back to London
Total cost – 1,182 DKK, or about $170 USD (!)
United strikes back
I don’t know how many people booked these fares in the few hours the deal was up, but I’d imagine it was in the thousands if not more.  Later in the day, United announced that they were going to (attempt to?) void these fares.
We will void the bookings for those who purchased tickets as a result of a third-party currency conversion error. http://t.co/KBaXBJCwoQ
— United (@united) February 11, 2015
From the United press release,
United is voiding the bookings of several thousand individuals who were attempting to take advantage of an error a third-party software provider made when it applied an incorrect currency exchange rate, despite United having properly filed its fares. Most of these bookings were for travel originating in the United Kingdom, and the level of bookings made with Danish Kroner as the local currency was significantly higher than normal during the limited period that customers made these bookings.
Recourse from the DOT?
Some people complained to the US Department of Transportation, alleging that United should have to honor the fares that they published, but after receiving the thousands (or more) complaints, the DOT declined to act – the US DOT press release says
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings (Enforcement Office) has completed its review of the mistaken fares that appeared on United Airlines’ (United) Denmark website on February 11, 2015. During the past two weeks, thousands of consumers who purchased tickets from United’s Denmark website at the mistaken fare levels have contacted the Enforcement Office asking that United be required to honor those fares based on the Department’s rule against post-purchase price increases of scheduled air transportation.
After a careful review of the matter, including the thousands of submissions from consumers and information from United, the Enforcement Office has decided that it will not take action against United for not honoring the tickets.
Here is the full press release (PDF) from the US Department of Transportation
The aftermath
There was much talk in the aftermath of the Great Dane mistake fare, including whether bloggers should be calling them “mistake fares” and how that may have played a role in the US DOT’s decision to not make United honor the sale.
If this was your introduction to hot fare sales (be they mistake or not), I also wrote a few articles to help you take advantage of future fare sales – they don’t last long!
(SEE ALSO: 4 reasons why you’ll miss out on the next mistake fare)
(SEE ALSO: 5 steps to get you ready for the next mistake fare sale!)
How about you? Â Did you book one of these tickets? Â What’s the best mistake fare I mean fare sale you’ve ever seen?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
The best mistake fares are the ones that are honored!
LOL so true….
+1. The ones that are not honored are of no use.
Actually the 5-mile United fare mistake and first class would be the best fare mistake ever.
This was honoured if the booking was made through Lufthansa, which also had the DKK error.
Don’t forget UAL’s 4 miles island
I remember this! I bought 6 tickets….and obviously, it didn’t materialize….oh well. That was first attempt at a mistake fare. A year later, Virgin had a mistake fare from LA to Sydney Roundtrip. We paid $388…..and it worked 🙂
Umm, not even close., but you can be forgiven as you were probably in kindergarten when United offered a $1000 RR business class fare from California to New Zealand. And honored it for those of us who were lucky enough to book it.
Not even close. I booked two First Class R/T tickets JFK-LAX-HNL (with the JFK-LAX legs as lie flat seats) for $119 each on 12/16/13 Delta glitch.
It was Christmas Day not 12/16
Every mistake fare I’ve taken advantage of over the past 5 years my wife made me cancel a few hours later. fml…
What’s so great about it if it was not honored? I don’t get it. Did you still go on the trip? Or stay home and had a really nice time? What am I missing?
My best mistake fare was the Delta Christmas Day mistake fare a few years ago- I bought 6 !!!! Round trip first class tickets NYC to HNL .. $92 per person!!
What an incredible Christmas gift. And a nice chunk of Alaska miles at the time!
I did not book that one. I did however get that $ 137 fare from USA to Buenos Aires and had a fantastic trip.
In 2013, booked NYC to Milan, Italy for 12 family members for $158 per ticket.
Clearly you need to get out more. This was closer to the worst than the best.
$210 round trip from LAX to Auckland, New Zealand with an 11 hour layover in Brisbane. My husband was in such a hurry to book it that he spelled my name wrong and Qantas said they would deny me boarding as it did not match my passport. I took my chances and happened upon a fantastic gate agent who spent 40 minutes trying to help fix the issue. She was able to adjust my name on all of my bookings and off we went. I took my 8-year-old son and it was amazing!
I thought the best ever was the ~$400 AA J fares to Beijing. I believe it happened around the same time. I only went once, but I believe there were folks that did several turns. Amazing!