Yesterday was a heckuva day.
I had just finished some errands and work when I scrolled through my Facebook feed. It’s a mindless thing I do more times a day than I care to admit.
That’s when I saw it. From The Flight Deal’s Facebook page, a post about $300 round-trip airfares to Auckland, New Zealand. Dates through June. I was intrigued.
In case you’re not familiar with The Flight Deal, it’s a travel site that publishes great deals on flights. I’m not sure how they find the fares. Sometimes the fares are unadvertised sales, and sometimes they are mistake fares that are corrected quickly. You can follow The Flight Deal on Facebook or Twitter to see when a deal comes out.
Some of you may recall that New Zealand is a place my family would love to visit. I thought, maybe I’ll just take a peek to see if any of those low fares are from DFW and would fit into our school summer break.
I figured that the sale price would probably not apply to our city or timeframe. But just in case, I went ahead and looked at ITA Matrix. And this is what I found:
SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!
Five round-trip tickets from DFW to Auckland, June 1-10, for a total of $1500. What?!?!
No time to ask the hubby if he’s on board. I had to move fast. I was going to get these tickets!
You can’t actually purchase tickets through the ITA Matrix site. So, I saved that window and opened up Air New Zealand’s website. I input the exact dates, but I got an error message. Apparently, Air New Zealand only lets you buy four tickets at a time, not five. Ack! Foiled again by being a “large” family.
Ok, ok. Plan B. I decided to go to Priceline to buy the tickets, since that’s what The Flight Deal recommends anyway. I input the dates, crossing my fingers the $300 price would still be available. This is what I found:
Woohoo! $332 tickets, I’ll take them! I even had three different schedules to choose from. I picked the first one and started inputting our names and birthdates.
Let me backtrack for a second. My husband and I never make large purchases without discussing it first. However, I knew that once I purchased these tickets, I would have a 24-hour window to cancel. I figured we would discuss it that evening, and worst case I would cancel for a full refund. If we got these tickets, we would cancel our month-long vacation rental this summer in favor of this trip to New Zealand.
So I made it through the first screen of entering all of our information. Next, I went to the seat selection screen. I was able to find seats together for my family. YES! My husband was going to be so excited! (I think?)
Just one final payment screen and then we’d have our tickets. I typed all my credit card info and submitted. Then, I got an error message. Something about the inventory changing and the flights were no longer available, but I could try again. ACK!
So I tried again, and thankfully the flights were still there. I tried the second choice of times. I got to pick our seat assignments again. Now just to get through the credit card screen….NO! The same error message.
At this point, I was overcome with a combination of excitement, frustration and panic! I decided to do an online chat with Priceline for help.
The Priceline customer service rep took my info and confirmed that I did not have the reservation. I asked why I kept getting the same results, showing the tickets available but then getting shut down on the last screen. The rep just said that inventory is constantly changing.
I spent 30 minutes trying to make it work. Then, it was time to pick up my kids from school. I had to give up.
When I returned with my kids, the deal was dead. It lasted less than an hour.
Lessons Learned
In retrospect, I wonder if I kept getting an error on Priceline because the airline wouldn’t book five seats at a time on that platform, either. I was afraid to book four tickets and then get stuck with a $1600 ticket for our fifth ticket, negating the value of the whole deal. Next time, I will just book four tickets and then cancel if we can’t get the fifth ticket either on miles or at the same sale price.
I need to set up an account and profile in Priceline with all of our information. In case I ever want to jump on another deal, having that information pre-populate will save some time. And time is so precious for these deals.
I also question if spending 80,000 miles for round-trip tickets to New Zealand is a good idea based on the price of these sale flights. However, I realize that I may never see $300 tickets again!
Admittedly, I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get in on this deal. But as my husband reminded me, I woke up this morning without $300 tickets to New Zealand. So I’m really no worse off than I was at the beginning of the day.
I’m not sure I can take the pressure and excitement of these time-sensitive airfare deals on an ongoing basis. I know the rewards can be huge, though!
Have you ever snagged a great deal on The Flight Deal or another similar site? Or did you miss out by a thread? Tell us about it in the comments.
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I did get a mistake deal and traveled to New Zealand in August 2016 for $216 from LA to Auckland. I happen to have my good friend that lives in NZ. It Bennett occurred to me toy could have a priceline account with your info. I was at work when I read about it and made the reservation right in front of my boss, no time to waste 😉
@Leticia Wow! What a great deal you got! I’m super jealous! 🙂
I thought of you when I saw the deal yesterday. I’m sorry that you couldn’t get the tickets, but I thought for sure everyone was going to hear from Air NZ saying that they cancelled all the tickets — ticket prices were just too good to be true.
@Stephanie It did seem too good to be true! It looks like some people’s reservations stuck today, although I guess the airline could still cancel them later.
@Nancy….the cancellations are all showing up on twitter this afternoon. That’s too bad.
Boo 🙁
I especially feel your pain when the time came to have to pick up your kids. I think I would have left them at school!! I have gotten in on a few good special fares and price mistakes in the past and went thru the same frenzy. Def a good idea to have your info in Priceline already.
@Karen Ha ha! I was tempted to leave them at school but it would have taken me longer to figure out who to text to pick them up before I got the call from school. I’m glad you’ve been able to take advantage of some special fares!
I was rooting for you to have those tickets booked as I read the story! This article prompted me to have a discussion with my husband this morning about finding a great travel deal like this. He assured me by saying to book the tickets and we would figure out the rest. New Zealand is on my bucket list and this would have been a great find. Sorry it didn’t work out for you. Love your site and posts!
@Laura Thank you! I hope you find a great travel deal soon! These type of fares are great for people with a lot of flexibility.
That’d interesting about not being able to book 5 tickets on Air NZ. How did you figure that out? I struggled trying to book 5 tickets to Australia on Air NZ. I saw 5 tickets available regularly when I wasn’t ready to book, but then once I was ready to book could only find 4 tickets. Hmmm.
@Talchinski When I input 5 people on the website, I got an error message saying only 4 people could be on one reservation and I would have to call to book 5 or more people. I figured I’d have to wait awhile on the phone line so I didn’t even try.
I know you’re bummed but those flights are not ideal for family travel.. from what I read, it’s a looonnnggg flight. You’d probably need to schedule an extended layover with kids (when you do go) which I’m not sure you could do with this mistake fare. Anyway, chin up.. everything happens for a reason????. You’ll probably have a blast this summer with your month long vacation rental.
@Natasha I know we’ll have a blast this summer anyways without NZ. It was fun to have the fantasy for those few minutes while I thought I had the tickets, though!
Some of the recent data points indicate that the tickets are not being honored by Air NZ. I’m not sure if it’s the case for everyone, though. So don’t feel bad! In all likelihood, it would not materialize anyway.
That’s a bummer! I saw quite a few happy people on Facebook yesterday with ticketed confirmations. It’s impossible to tell when fares are mistakes or sales sometimes, so I will still go for it next time (if there is a next time!)