Qantas Airways sold hundreds of first-class seats on flights between the US and Australia for 85% less than what it normally charges, the company revealed Monday.
The Australian airline blamed a coding error for allowing 300 passengers to secure the discounted tickets within eight hours last Thursday.
Instead of paying the usual fare — which ranges between $13,000 and $20,000 — the lucky travelers paid as little as $3,390 for a round-trip fare.
However, those passengers won’t get to keep their first-class seats, the company said.
The customers will be reassigned to business class — which still represents savings of around 65% of the normal fare — or qualify for a refund.
“This is a case where the fare was actually too good to be true,” Qantas said in a statement.
The airline, which is not obligated legally to honor fares if they are incorrectly priced, said that the re-bookings were a “gesture of goodwill.”
Australia’s national carrier has been plagued by a series of controversies in recent years that led to CEO Alan Joyce resigning last September.
Earlier this year, Qantas agreed to pay a $79 million penalty and to compensate passengers after it sold tickets for thousands of flights that it had already decided to cancel.
Qantas also investigated a data breach in May that allowed users of its app to access travel information and personal details about other passengers.
The airline has also come under fire for frequent flight delays, poor customer service and lost baggage as well as allegations that it was underpaying some of its workers.
