One of the basic rules to live by with personal finances in order to keep your hard earned money is that "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." There is a reason that the "probably" is inserted in there - while few and far between, on rare occasions there are some deals that seem too good to be true that are actually legitimate.
If I were to tell you that it's possible to get a high quality hotel room at a resort destination for under $20, or fly for hundreds less than the lowest discount rate you could find, you would probably think I was trying to pull some type of scam (at least I hope you would). The fact is, however, that these travel deals can be secured at incredibly low prices for those who have a flexible schedule and are fast on the computer.
So where can you find these deals? There are a few websites which sole purpose is to post any error, glitch, goof or mistake that hotels and airlines may make on their (and their third party partner's) websites.
The travel sites know that mistakes happen and the better ones will do everything they can to honor the rates even if they are a mistake. From the Travelocity Guarantee:
Human error happens; nobody's perfect--but in those rare cases that we make a mistake you can count on us to take responsibility for it, and to be thoughtful and fair as we work to resolve it. If, say, we inadvertently advertise a fare that's just "too good to be true," like a free trip to Fiji, we'll work with you and our travel partners to make it up to you and find a solution that puts a smile on your face.
The fact is that there are a huge number of hotel room rates and airfares that are constantly changing and out of these millions, a few mistakes will occur. It may be a simple human input error, a computer glitch or something else, but due to the huge numbers, a few of the errors slip through and onto the websites. Since there are far more hotels than airline flights, it's much more common to find mistakes with lodging than it is with airfares.
There are risks, however, in trying to get the mistake deals. There is no guarantee that the hotel or airline will honor the deal when an error has occurred and there are few consumer rights to protect you in such a case. It is therefore recommended by experts that you only book rate mistakes on a site that is large, well known and trustworthy which are much more likely to honor a rate than a small unknown site. When you do come across an error on a well known site, however, book it right away. Those errors that do get listed usually aren't around too long.
Another issue you'll need to address is whether it is morally correct to take advantage of these mistakes. There are a lot of differing views on this and you have to make that decision on your own. If you decide that it is okay, check the deal error sites often and you're likely to come away with one of those "it's too good to be true" deals that you'll be bragging about to your friends for years.
03-06-2006, 11:51 AM
Hotel & Airline Listing Mistakes - One Way To Travel Cheap
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Likely the site went under.
