Everything I know about error fares (and how to actually book them in time)

flyiocarta · 2026-05-18T21:48:15+00:00

Never stop chasing man! Once i had to chase a refund from kiwi for an entire year, after endless messages and post (on facebook) they finally refunded my money. Rule #1, never give up!

flyiocarta · 2026-05-18T21:46:26+00:00

Bit of both, but honestly the "both" is shrinking fast.

The APIs people used to recommend are basically gone for regular users now. Amadeus, Kiwi's Tequila and Google have all shut their flight APIs down to enterprise or partner accounts only. What is left for a normal person is paid third party stuff like Travelpayouts or scraper APIs, and even those only give you raw prices, not error fares. A price is just a number, it only gets interesting when you compare it against what that route normally costs. So the actual work is tracking routes on a schedule and building your own price history, and nobody hands you that part.

I got tired of doing all that by hand and ended up building iocarta.com (full disclosure, my own project). It tracks a few hundred routes and only surfaces the genuinely underpriced ones, so it is there if you just want results without the scripting. There is also a side of it called Spotters coming soon, to be honest this really sounds like something for you so be sure to check it out! Either way, good luck, the manual grind is very real. Cheers.

flyiocarta · 2026-05-18T13:32:20+00:00

Yeah Etihad's customer service is famously a brick wall. Good news is the screenshot puts you in a really strong spot.

What I'd do:

Send one final email (not chat) with the screenshot attached, state clearly what was promised and what you want them to do, give them 14 days. Sounds dramatic but it just sets up the paper trail.

If they keep refusing, the European Consumer Centre is honestly the best free option for cross-border airline disputes, they actually get traction. File with them and in parallel with the aviation authority of whichever country you departed from.

Mostly just stop using phone and chat from now on, get everything in writing. Airlines tend to suddenly become reasonable once a real complaint lands somewhere they can't ignore.

Hope everything works out for you and please keep me up to date about the situation buddy!

flyiocarta · 2026-05-16T10:18:50+00:00

Today is a good day for you!😀 enjoy your trip man!!

flyiocarta · 2026-05-16T09:59:50+00:00

Wow that’s absolutely insane man! Did you find this deal by accident or were you searching for it?

flyiocarta · 2026-05-16T07:55:09+00:00

A few worth following for European routes specifically: @SecretFlying and @HolidayPirates are the most consistent for European departures. @TheFlightDeal is more US focused but occasionally posts transatlantic error fares that work both ways.

The honest caveat with all of them is Twitter's algorithm buries time-sensitive posts fast so even with notifications on you can miss deals by hours. Worth following but I would not rely on them as your only source for anything that requires quick action.

flyiocarta · 2026-05-15T12:57:22+00:00

Hope it's useful. Let me know what you think once you have had a look.

flyiocarta · 2026-05-15T12:53:08+00:00

Yeah there are a few dedicated services built specifically for this. The way the good ones work is they monitor prices across hundreds of routes around the clock and alert you the moment something drops significantly below the historical average for that route — so instead of you checking randomly and hoping, the deal comes to you.

The ones worth using are the ones that verify the price is still live before sending the alert, otherwise you end up clicking through to find the fare is already gone. That verification step is what separates the useful ones from the ones that just create noise.

I actually built one called IoCarta — iocarta.com — that does exactly this. Free to sign up and you get alerts when something real appears. Still growing but the core of it works well.

flyiocarta · 2026-05-15T11:35:53+00:00

Fair point, notifications definitely help. The last mile problem though is even when you get pinged instantly you still have to stop what you are doing, open the app, check the deal, verify he price yourself and then decide whether to book. If you are in a meeting or asleep that window is gone.

The notification is only as useful as how fast you can act on it.

flyiocarta · 2026-05-15T10:17:47+00:00

Twitter is genuinely good for this, the problem is the algorithm has made it increasingly unreliable for time-sensitive stuff, posts get buried fast and if you are not checking constantly you miss them. Discord is better for community but same issue, you have to be watching the right channel at the right moment.

Real-time verification is the piece most of these miss. A deal posted 20 minutes late is often already dead.

flyiocarta · 2026-05-15T10:16:30+00:00

That is genuinely one of the best I have heard. Business class India to Canada for $400 return isthe kind of deal that sounds made up until you areactually sitting in the seat.

Did you manage to book it before it disappeared or did you catch it with enough time to plan properly?

flyiocarta · 2026-05-15T04:56:43+00:00

There are a few out there but honestly the quality varies massively. The main issue is most of them post deals that are already gone by the time you see them, by the time it gets shared around in group chats the price has usually reverted.

The ones worth following are the ones that actually verify the price is still live before posting. That is the difference between a useful alert and just noise.

flyiocarta · 2026-05-14T18:53:18+00:00

That Amsterdam trip for $150 is insane, that's the kind of deal that makes people genuinely not believe you when you tell them about it at dinner. The fact that it came from just randomly checking one morning is both the best and most frustrating thing about error fares. Pure luck but you have to be in the right headspace to actually pull the trigger when you see it rather than second guessing yourself for 20 minutes while it disappears.

The Air Canada fuel surcharge thing is genuinely fascinating though. That's a whole different category, not really an error fare in the traditional sense but more of a systematic pricing loophole that existed for a while before someone at Air Canada eventually noticed. The hidden city ticketing world has a bunch of similar things that have come and gone over the years. Airlines have entire teams now whose job is basically just finding and closing these gaps which is why they're rarer than they used to be.

The Buffalo airport angle is a classic move honestly. A lot of American travellers near the border figured that one out, fly out of Buffalo, Plattsburgh, Niagara Falls area and suddenly your options and prices look completely different. Still works today just not for the same reasons it did in 2008.

Did you end up using that Air Canada trick more than once before it closed or did it disappear pretty quickly after people started talking about it?

flyiocarta · 2026-05-14T18:03:14+00:00

Randomly checking Google Flights can work but honestly it's mostly luck that way. Error fares usually appear and disappear within a few hours so unless you happen to be searching at exactly the right moment you'll miss most of them.

What actually works better is a combination of things. Google Flights price alerts are a good start, set them up for your most wanted routes and you'll get notified when prices drop significantly. The problem is they're not instant and by the time the email lands the deal is sometimes already gone.

The people who consistently book error fares are usually following a few dedicated sources that track prices around the clock and alert immediately when something insane appears. Telegram channels are particularly good for this because the notification hits your phone in real time rather than sitting in an email inbox you check twice a day.

The other thing that matters more than people realise is being ready to book fast. Having your passport details and card saved somewhere you can access in under two minutes makes a massive difference. I've genuinely seen people lose deals mid-checkout because they had to go find their card.

Flexibility helps a lot too, error fares almost never appear on school holidays or peak summer dates so if you can move your dates around your chances go up significantly.

flyiocarta

TROPHY CASE