Airline accidentally offers 95% discount

It was the deal of the century for eagle-eyed, fast-swooping airline passengers.

Flying business or first class from Vietnam to North American cities on Cathay Pacific would normally set you back tens of thousands of dollars. Normally.

But the Hong Kong-based airline made a blunder this week as the new year rolled in — briefly offering those pricey seats from Vietnam to North American cities for as low as $675 round-trip.

Even though it was a mistake, the company said Wednesday on its Twitter account that it would honor the deal:

“Happy 2019 all, and to those who bought our good – VERY good surprise ‘special’ on New Year’s Day, yes – we made a mistake but we look forward to welcoming you on board with your ticket issued. Hope this will make your 2019 ‘special’ too!”

It ended the tweet with the hashtags #promisemadepromisekept and #lessonlearnt.

Word of the deep, deep discount spread like wildfire across the Internet with travel bloggers such as Gary Leff, who was exuberantly posting of the deal on New Year’s Eve.

The travel blog One Mile at a Time was all over the “insanely low” offer, discovering a $675 business-class deal from Da Nang to New York’s JFK Airport. For comparison, that same business-class flight could cost you about $16,000 if booked on Thursday, January 3. That $675 was a more than 95% discount in price.

Other flights during the accidental deal weren’t a whole lot more — with One Mile reporting a trip from Hanoi to New York for just $1,100 in business class and a first-class seat from Hanoi to Vancouver for $988.

Are you bummed you missed out on the deal, which is now closed? Well, there are still some great bargains out there (we can’t tell if they’re mistakes or not).

One Mile at a Time is also reporting on flights from the United States to Australia and New Zealand, business class, for less than $1,500.

Airlines don’t typically honor the so-called mistake fares, and The Points Guy website reports they aren’t required to do so.