How I’m approaching the ANA mistake fares

What do Garfield and ANA Corporate HQ have in common?

They both hate Mondays — at least this one in particular — when a currency conversion bug on ANA’s Vietnam website led to First and Business Class fares between Jakarta and North America pricing for as little as US$300.

This sparked a feeding frenzy that lasted for the better part of a day, and when the dust had settled, an unknown number (presumably large, given how the news spread like wildfire online) of tickets had been sold to customers worldwide.

Thus began the emotional stages of a mistake fare. The “golden hours” (the 12-24 hour period after a mistake fare where most bookings end up being automatically cancelled) passed without incident, but the real drama was yet to come: an initial assurance by an ANA spokesperson that the mistake fares would be honoured was quickly walked back, and now we’re in a state of will-they-won’t-they limbo. 

For those of you who missed the action, here’s a recap of how things went down, what’s happening now, and how I’m approaching my ticket.

ANA’s mistake fare: A recap

Around midday on Monday, 17 April, news broke on FlyerTalk that ANA Business Class fares from Jakarta to the USA were pricing at around US$300 round-trip, provided you ticketed them via the ANA Vietnam website.

This turned out to be the result of a currency conversion blunder, leading to tickets selling for less than 20 times their face value. 

ANA was slow to react, and the fares remained available all the way till midnight in Jakarta. The airline eventually disabled the ticketing function via its Vietnam website, with customers redirected to the Japanese website to make bookings in Japanese Yen.

But there’s more.

One complication with mistake fares is that they tend to be route-specific. In this case, passengers would have to originate and terminate their journeys in Jakarta, which though relatively close to Singapore, is a hassle nonetheless. For example, there would be additional costs arising from repositioning flights, and potentially another day’s leave or hotel stay required.

But on Tuesday, 18 April, ANA’s website began allowing ticketed passengers to change their departure and/or arriving city to Singapore (or other cities), while paying a small top-up or, inexplicably, getting refunds of various amounts.

In some cases the refund could be more than the cost of the ticket (whether said refunds will actually process is a completely separate matter)!

What’s happening now?

It’s complicated.

ANA remained silent in the immediate aftermath, but on Wednesday 19 April, an article by Bloomberg quoted an ANA spokesperson saying the mistake fares would be honoured:

ANA has said it will honor the tickets for those people who saw the mistake and jumped on its website quickly to book and pay (the glitch was circulating widely on some social media platforms) but those who only reserved the tickets will have to pay a “just price,” according to an airline spokesperson Wednesday.

-Bloomberg

However, four hours later, Danny Lee (the Bloomberg correspondent who co-authored the original story) reported that ANA subsequently clarified its position. The airline now said that a final decision would only be made by the end of April, and that passengers holding such tickets could fly before a decision was made.

Plot twist: ANA has clarified its position

*Airline said it would honour tickets
*Then, ANA said final decision not made
*Decision before end of month
*Bug tickets valid for those who fly before decision is made

Update here @business https://t.co/mnweQnfKwR https://t.co/F7VUxCDvO4

— Danny Lee (@AirEVthingTRNSP) April 19, 2023

(By the way, there are some very petulant online comments criticising Danny Lee for the initial report, which is beyond ridiculous. I believe he’s one of the most reliable reporters in the business, and it’s hardly his fault that ANA’s spokesperson provided incorrect information. If you want to have a temper tantrum, blame the ANA spokesperson)

In other words: limbo. If you’re flying out before end-April, I think you should be quite safe (though there’s unverified reports online of people being denied boarding). For journeys from May onwards, que sera sera.

What am I doing?

Some people believe that booking error fares is unethical, akin to swapping price tags in a supermarket, or picking up someone’s wallet and keeping it. 

Even by the standards of online discourse, that is a remarkably poor analogy. In the case of the supermarket, you’re not the one who did the swapping, and in the case of the wallet, the owner ultimately has the final say as to whether they take it back.

I personally think there’s nothing wrong with buying a fare you know to be a mistake, provided you’re prepared from the get go to accept whatever decision the airline finally makes.

What I do think is unethical is whining about “bait and switch”, or threatening legal action if things don’t go your way. I mean, come on, it’s just plain disingenuous to pretend you’re a genuine customer hoodwinked by a dastardly airline who’s now pulling the rug.

So I do have some skin in the game, having booked a single return Business Class ticket from Jakarta-Tokyo-San Francisco ticket for S$630, then changing it to Singapore-Tokyo-Los Angeles for a further S$66. My travel dates are in January 2024.

While no one knows for sure what kind of discussions are taking place at ANA headquarters, at this point I feel it’s likely that the fares won’t be honoured beyond April. 

I know there’s precedents for airlines honouring error fares, but this particular one has hit ANA where it hurts: premium cabins between Asia and the USA. Every ticket sold at the wrong price means substantial lost revenue for the carrier, especially on routes like Singapore to Tokyo or Tokyo to New York where premium cabin loads are usually very high.

Of course, there are many different permutations of how this can turn out:

• ANA may decide to cancel all tickets where the origin/destination was changed, and honour the rest
• ANA may decide to cancel all tickets where the refund arising from a change exceeds the original fare, and honour the rest
• ANA may decide to downgrade all tickets to Economy in a “take-it-or-leave-it” offer, refunding anyone who chooses to leave it
• ANA may operate a special A380 flight just for individuals who booked these tickets, before landing the plane on an uncharted island and shooting a new season of Battle Royale

If ANA decides to cancel your ticket, rest assured that you’ll of course get a refund, though you may be slightly out of pocket due to foreign currency transaction fees and fluctuations on your credit card. 

And by the way, whatever decision ANA makes I’m sure it’ll be legally airtight, so all this talk of legal remedies and what not just smacks of entitlement.

Frankly, there’s little point getting excited right now. All we can do is sit and wait, and avoid making any kind of non-refundable plans until there’s more clarity.

Conclusion

If you bought one of ANA’s mistake fares, there’s nothing to do now but wait for ANA to come to a final decision on whether they honour it.

I’ve done my share of mistake fares over the years: Qatar Airways to Philadelphia in 2017, Cathay Pacific to San Francisco in 2019, Gulf Air to Bahrain in 2022, so trust me when I say the feelings you’re encountering now are perfectly normal. There will be excitement, there will be anxiety, there will be denial, there will be elation/disappointment/anger. And for those who don’t have skin in the game, there will be popcorn.

Just another day at the office in the miles and points game!