Cathay Pacific accidentally sells $21,815 flights for $920 on NYE

It appeared to be the best New Year’s Eve sale ever: premium business and first-class flights on Cathay Pacific from Vietnam to New York for $675 USD ($920 CAD), rather than the usual $16,000 USD ($21,815 CAD).

As it turned out, the too-good-to-be-true travel deal was just a ticketing glitch, but Cathay Pacific is still promising to honour the eye-popping discount. 

“Happy 2019 all, and to those who bought our good – VERY good surprise ‘special’ on New Year’s Day,” the Hong Kong-based carrier tweeted today. “Yes – we made a mistake, but we look forward to welcoming you onboard with your ticket issued. Hope this will make your 2019 ‘special’ too!”

The airline completed its tweet with the hashtags #promisemadepromisekept and #lessonlearnt.

The highly discounted fare was first discovered on New Year’s Eve by a travel blogger named Gary Leff, who wrote: “Oh my goodness this is an amazing fare.”

The airline has not publicly stated how many lucky travellers purchased the premium tickets at the discounted rate.

Since the incident, Cathay has removed all business and first-class flights for this August – the month of the discounted fares – from its website, but the same flights in September are available for $16,000 USD.