United Airlines briefly gave away free tickets or negligible fees Thursday, USA Today reported.
The airline said it mistakenly put fares into its system for zero dollars. Passengers reported only having to pay $5 to $10 for tickets aside from any airport charges they might have had to pay.
Nancy Ilk, a consultant who often goes from Blooming Prairie , Minn., told USA Today she received one of the tickets for $10 to fly from Minneapolis to Houston and Washington's Reagan National airport next month. The amount was listed as a Sept. 11 security fee.
Will the airline consider her ticket?
"It should be interesting," she said.
United temporarily stopped accepting bookings, from customers who were trying to buy tickets through its website and phone centers, to prevent more sales.
"United.com is currently undergoing maintenance Flight search and booking are unavailable for all flights, including MileagePlus award travel. We are working to restore these as quickly as possible," said the company in an official statement on its site.
The website however, began taking submissions again at about 2:45 p.m. CT
United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy told USA Today one of the entries into the airlines system made the prices go lower than they normally are.
"One of our filings today contained an error which resulted in certain fares displaying as zero," she said. We have corrected this error."
According to Forbes, the error offered fares at no cost plus $5 in tax for many domestic flights.
One user on Internet flyer forum Flyertalk spotted fares between Washington D.C. and Minneapolis were listed at $10. The news quickly expanded on the forum with 100 replies in an hour, and to Twitter.
Readers of the forum reported being able to locate flights between Washington D.C. and Hawaii, while others were able to collect more than a dozen tickets to places throughout the country Forbes reported.
