Yesterday Hong Kong Airlines published some outrageously cheap business class fares originating in the US, as you could fly roundtrip to Asia for under $600.
When it comes to these super cheap fares, there’s always a waiting period after booking where we’re left in limbo about whether or not the airline will honor the tickets. Nowadays the DOT doesn’t require airlines to honor “mistake fares,” unlike before, but we still sometimes see airlines honor them.
Well, much to my surprise, Hong Kong Airlines intends to honor their sub-$600 business class fares. We reached out to an airline spokesperson, who released the following statement:
Yes, Hong Kong Airlines is honouring the ticketed reservations.
Normal ticketing practice does not require reconfirmation for tickets already issued so our customers can look forward to traveling on Hong Kong Airlines as planned.
For anyone with questions about their booking, they may contact us through our USA/Canada Customer Service Hotline (toll-free) at +1 855 393 3880 or email [email protected].
We look forward to welcoming One Mile at a Time readers on our flights soon.
Hong Kong Airlines’ A350 business class
To be clear, we were very specific in stating what fares we were referring to. Yet somehow I’m almost suspicious as to whether or not they realize what happened.
But yeah, there you have it. It sounds like Hong Kong Airlines will be honoring these incredibly cheap business class fares, or at least that’s what they’re saying.
Hong Kong Airlines has an excellent business class product, so if you want to know what to expect, check out my review:
- Review: Hong Kong Airlines Lounge Hong Kong Airport
- Review: Hong Kong Airlines Business Class A350 Hong Kong To Los Angeles
Hong Kong Airlines’ beautiful lounge in Hong Kong
I hope everyone who booked one of these fares has an incredible trip!
Are you going somewhere fun thanks to yesterday’s Hong Kong Airlines fares?
@J Hunt Thank You. I used Hong Kong Airlines chat function to select seats. Highly recommend for anyone looking to select seats. Very efficient.
@tiffany @lucky guys do you mind writing a post of where to credit the flights, is the fortune wing club the only option, are there any promotions to stuck up with that plan, best use of the accumulated miles with the approximate amount of miles for those few flights we all booked ?
Gteat Blog
Thank you
@ Kiril -- Yep, we can/will, just give us a bit, as this week is a little crazy!
@Jim I booked on expedia and got seat assignments using Hong Kong Airlines live chat no problem
Has anyone who booked on Expedia been able to get seat assignments? Is it worth calling Expedia or calling Hong Kong Airlines?
Credit to Virgin Australia Velocity (who are partners with Delta Singapore,Etihad,Air New Zealamd and more)
Hong Kong Airlines just announced on their twitter feed they are honoring the fare and wants everyone to enjoy their product!
@luis i am in the same boat. have you figured anything else out since?`
@JC - Orbitz just called me with a seat confirmation and meal request from Hong Kong Airlines. So it seems all confirmed!
@JC Same thing with me - Orbitz is showing confirmed though.
@ JC: Same experience with the error message on the HK site. My original booking on Expedia still looks fine.
Since yesterday I have been trying to confirm the status of my ticket which previously said confirmed and now I am just receiving an error message that the system is busy. When I put the PNR in the mobile app it says not found but Priceline is still showing the reservation as confirmed. Is anyone else having issues pulling up their reservation on the mobile app or website using their ticket number or PNR?
Thanks,
JC
Thanks for the tip. I was able to book a LAX-HKG-DPS (Bali) for $693 rt in biz. Now just another $300 to get across the country. What a deal! Do you know if I have to change the return, will I just have to pay the change fee or will I have to pay thousands more for the fare reclassification?
So at LAX they use the Etihad lounge or the LA International lounge as stated on their website? I’ve never even heard of the latter.
I am surprised to read several people say they booked with Expedia and have had trouble. The HK Airlines website was not responding so I booked through Expedia. I was immediately issued ticket numbers and so far have not had any changes.
I wonder what the difference is, perhaps timing? Or should I expect some kind of issue from Expedia about the tickets?
Is it ok to contact the airline now?
LOLOLOL
@Gorton De Mond: The fare is long since gone -- it was alive for a few hours on Thursday.
Lucky, since you first published this article about the 600 business class fare, I have checked ITA Matrix, Google flights as well as HK Airlines website and have been able to find this fare. Lowest HK Airlines business fare I have been able to find is 7400. Trying to purchase two tickets for a wedding present for December, any suggestions on how to find this fare for this gift?
@ Gorton De Mond -- Unfortunately this fare is no longer available. As is often the case with fares this low, they only last for a few hours.
@tda deal is dead doesn't mean those who jumped in won't get null and voided. There are ways to check if your ticket is valid or not.
@colleen - Yes, a carrier pigeon brought me the news. However, I never call bloggers selfish. But what you describe are bloggers not me. Ever seen @Lucky post about a deal BEFORE he jumped on it? His quote from that post "Availability for this fare is wide open...
@tda deal is dead doesn't mean those who jumped in won't get null and voided. There are ways to check if your ticket is valid or not.
@colleen - Yes, a carrier pigeon brought me the news. However, I never call bloggers selfish. But what you describe are bloggers not me. Ever seen @Lucky post about a deal BEFORE he jumped on it? His quote from that post "Availability for this fare is wide open for travel between September and March, so there’s lots of flexibility with this fare." Seen any reply saying it is wide open???
And I quote you "How selfish can one be?"
You must be a religious person being so generous, like priests. Wait, PA priests just hit the news. Seems person of god is also selfish. And I quote you AGAIN "How selfish can one be?"
@Sam - I'm just responding to your comment "Great marketing! Imagine the passengers who will fly with them for the first time and if these enjoy a good service, they may consider flying them in the future." that it is unlikely. Never brought up points/cash.
And like I said you are new. You are throwing the word 'error' out there. Go look at what @Gary Leff has to say. And if you don't know @Gary Leff, you ARE new. It's okay to be new, but be more careful next time. There are people out there who are not very nice to people killing deals by contacting the airline.
@NR
They are smart enough to preserve the exclusivity and comfort of the cabin and not allow children in BC. An example for othere airlines here.
You can always sit in the back of course
@gene, you need to contact the airline to change seats via web chat or phone.
Lucky, if you are successful changing a ticket at a low fee, please let us know! I got the sfo-hkg-PVR in dec because the itins looked crappy for the other places, but I would love to go somewhere warmer, or get a stopover in HK.
@Angelo - Who ticketed your infant seat and who told you it wasn't allowed? did you book it through an OTA like Expedia and then confirmed w/ live chat with HK Airlines? I assume you ended up cancelling your flight?
I'm in the same situation. I paid for a seat for my 1.5 year old child through Expedia which went through without issue. Don't want to show up to the airport only to be...
@Angelo - Who ticketed your infant seat and who told you it wasn't allowed? did you book it through an OTA like Expedia and then confirmed w/ live chat with HK Airlines? I assume you ended up cancelling your flight?
I'm in the same situation. I paid for a seat for my 1.5 year old child through Expedia which went through without issue. Don't want to show up to the airport only to be denied boarding even though I have a valid ticket for my child. HK's website is a bit unclear in regards to infant seating.
"Hong Kong Airlines welcome passenger to use own Child Restraint Seat in cabin if have purchased a seat for the infant/child (who age between 6 months and up to 3 years old)."
"* Aircraft type A350 is currently accepting the Child Restraint Seat under approval of United States Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard FMVSS 213 only."
https://www.hongkongairlines.com/en_OC/services/specialneeds
@ Tiffany -- How do you select seats??
@NR I actually paid for a seat for my infant and they stated that is not allowed. On there website it explicitly says no infants in Business class. You risk a much bigger problem if you decide to move forward with this. You will have to pay a 250 cancellation fee per ticket because you did not cancel within the 24 hr allotted time. If they didn't allow my child a payed ticket they will not allow a lap child much further ticket a lap child.
@eskimo
You're not really making much sense! Bless you.
By the time Lucky posted about the fare here, the deal had been online many many hours beforehand.
Ofcourse loyalists will fly their usual airline. For that price, i'm pretty sure many paying customers chose this deal instead of say LAX-DXB-HKG (using Miles) if your reasoning is anything to go by. The advantages of buying tickets using points/cash has been discussed here severally.
@eskimo "Hence there is a saying, once bloggers picked it up the deal is dead."
How do you get your notice? Courier? Carrier pigeon? Advance call from the airlines?
You sound like the sort of "tell me so I get mine but don't tell anyone else to share" person. You really want the information when it's to your benefit. And you don't want anyone else to have it if you may lose.
How selfish can one be?
Not sure how everyone got all of the HK information. I can't get the website to even show a city pair. Maybe it is just me, but I am unimpressed.
I booked through Expedia and apparently HK Airlines refused to confirm the ticket so Expedia reached out last night saying they were unable to have my LAX-SGN trip ticketed unless I wanted to pay the new rate of $8000. :(
Congrats to all those that were able to get confirmed trips!
@tda: wrong, we have three tickets to DPS via HKG on the 27th of August.
@eskimo - Wasn’t the deal already dead? If so, how could reaching out to the airline be anything but helpful in this case? The deal flights don’t start until September, so it’s not like anyone is going to be able to fly before they discover this (assuming it is an error).
Thanks for the heads up about this ‘special’ fare! I booked LAX-SGN over spring break for our family of 4 for around $600 each. I must have missed the seat selection on Orbitz - and the HK website is dismal at best to try and add seat and meal selections. However, I can’t complain with that fare...
@Rafa - don’t get me started about the well behaved baby vs. obnoxious adult in the front cabins argument.
I was fortunate enough to see this deal on FT 5 minutes after it was posted. I unfortunate enough that the blackout dates were Dec 10-31 - the only time I need to be in HKG this year. Bummer, but I enjoyed everyone else's jubilation.
When I was looking yesterday, this was posted as a fare sale on the HX website. But, all the prices people were finding were for economy fares. The business fares...
I was fortunate enough to see this deal on FT 5 minutes after it was posted. I unfortunate enough that the blackout dates were Dec 10-31 - the only time I need to be in HKG this year. Bummer, but I enjoyed everyone else's jubilation.
When I was looking yesterday, this was posted as a fare sale on the HX website. But, all the prices people were finding were for economy fares. The business fares were $3-5K USD Someone on FT mentioned this might have been a fare class mix-up (W/V to J). The fine print had a certain number of tickets per destination, so that's why these dried up relatively quickly. Good for HX for honouring these - they certainly didn't have to. But the HNA group might be in more financial trouble than ever...
And thank God they don’t.
@NR Hong Kong Air site says the infant passenger is between "7 days and 2 years old". Also says, "Infant is currently not accepted to travel in business class cabin of aircraft type A350". Must be something to do with safety restraints or lack thereof. (After 2 years old, passenger must have purchased seat). :-(
@kenny
Yes, cat is out of the bag. Yes, by now the airline is aware. The issue is the sale can last 30 mins to 2 weeks depending on HOW SOON they are aware. They notice that they booked up 7 months worth of premium cabin overnight is still better (for us) than they realize they booked up 2 months of premium cabin in 1 hours and killed it.
By contacting them just makes...
@kenny
Yes, cat is out of the bag. Yes, by now the airline is aware. The issue is the sale can last 30 mins to 2 weeks depending on HOW SOON they are aware. They notice that they booked up 7 months worth of premium cabin overnight is still better (for us) than they realize they booked up 2 months of premium cabin in 1 hours and killed it.
By contacting them just makes this sale end sooner. Hence there is a saying, once bloggers picked it up the deal is dead.
I'm not blaming anyone for killing the deal. I just don't like when you break the number one rule of these deals.
@Sam
I guess you are NEW to any VERY good travel deals on the internet.
NEVER CONTACT THE AIRLINE
NEVER CONTACT THE HOTEL
Still for @Sam - you would think ppl who normally fly J would go for this over EK, JL, NH, CX, etc. at normal pricing?? So far the airline is better in only 1 thing, the price. I doubt it would attract repeat customer at normal pricing. And don't even...
@Sam
I guess you are NEW to any VERY good travel deals on the internet.
NEVER CONTACT THE AIRLINE
NEVER CONTACT THE HOTEL
Still for @Sam - you would think ppl who normally fly J would go for this over EK, JL, NH, CX, etc. at normal pricing?? So far the airline is better in only 1 thing, the price. I doubt it would attract repeat customer at normal pricing. And don't even go for publicity, there is hardly any useful PR outside the world of av geeks and deal hunters (which is a small small group they should be after)To prove the point, next time you fly J, ask your seatmate about flights to Rangoon. If they wanted a PR stint, they would advertise a sale date/time to bloggers (for free) and have the site CRASH within 5 mins into the sale.
I commend the airline for honoring this (for now). While this turn out favorable, this isn't the case all the time. Heck, now after realizing how much damage has been done (thanks @Lucky for alerting), they might void everything.
@rich
He'll be 1 year old by the time we leave so he's not actually an infant anymore. I wonder if this will still be an issue.
Hahaha... for all the "don't contact the airlines" people... the cat's out of the bag. You don't think they noticed that they booked up 7 months worth of premium cabin overnight?
The publicity the airline got through this is massive and much cheaper than any ads they would have placed. Great marketing! Imagine the passengers who will fly with them for the first time and if these enjoy a good service, they may consider flying them in the future.
To those questioning Ben/OMMAT contacting the airline..... this looked like an error fare and i don't see what's wrong with trying to confirm it's real. These 'error'...
The publicity the airline got through this is massive and much cheaper than any ads they would have placed. Great marketing! Imagine the passengers who will fly with them for the first time and if these enjoy a good service, they may consider flying them in the future.
To those questioning Ben/OMMAT contacting the airline..... this looked like an error fare and i don't see what's wrong with trying to confirm it's real. These 'error' fares usually last just a few hours and i see no prob getting a confirmation that this is the real slim shady!
@yy Air France Lounge in SFO. I've been there once. Food not that good, and not that clean imo.
If you have Centurion access, go there instead.
@NR They don't allow infants in the A350 business class cabin. Look under the 'special needs' section on their website.
Very interesting conversation, I think they realized the fare and are still discussing the solution.
I made a phone call this morning to ask about rescheduling fee, and the representative was very nervous after checked my itinerary. He said he couldn't quote the change fee and he will call me back. I asked "Am I calling the reservation line? Why you can't check and quote me the change fee?", he just said, "if you want to fly as the original plan, it is ok, but if you want to change, I'll have to call you back."
Expedia changed my booking to Economy class...
@eskimo @raksiam ha exactly... the rules change when it's not your ticket and it'll get the clicks.
to add some data points. Expedia cancelled my LAX-SGN booking
My husband was able to get 3 tickets (myself, him, and our 2yo) but we didn’t add our son which is a lap child. If we call Hong Kong Airlines to add him, does anyone know if they will charge us the fees off the price we paid or the current price of the seat? Thanks!
@ NR -- The fees are usually 10% of the full-fare adult ticket at the time you're issuing the infant ticket. But @ Brian is right -- HX doesn't allow lap children in the A350 business class cabin.
I agree with @eskimo. I thought no one was ever supposed to contact the airline
@Adrian When I booked it stated that I would earn 33000+ Fortune Wings Club miles.
Given how empty their C cabin are it wouldn't surprise me if they did that on purpose to generate buzz for their flights.
@Lucky
I thought the 1st rule of all this is:
1. NEVER CONTACT THE AIRLINE
You broke the rule, you broke my heart.
@Adrien I think you will absolutely earn miles for it. It's just a normal J fare ticket, which is a standard business class fare that is booked daily elsewhere in their system. It would be much more work for them to individually separate out the J class fares sold at yesterday's crazy prices and the fares sold on the same day to all of their other destinations.
anyone know which lounge do they use at SFO?
thanks!
Public relation on it's best. Good news. Question at Lucky... how do you rank Hongkong Airlines business class ? ( china / hkg based airlines)
In the rush yesterday of booking LAX-BKK-LAX for October with this awesome deal, I neglected to enter the middle names for my wife and myself. Any idea if this will be a problem with HX?
@Abe airlines have used the claim on blogs that a fare was a mistake as justification for cancelling such deals without penalty. I certainly don't want throw around the phrase 'mistake fare' lightly!
Here's what I wrote,
"Rather than treating this as a mistake fare I choose to believe they’re looking to generate interest in and cash from their Los Angeles service. US airlines, when they struggled a decade ago, would find themselves running big...
@Abe airlines have used the claim on blogs that a fare was a mistake as justification for cancelling such deals without penalty. I certainly don't want throw around the phrase 'mistake fare' lightly!
Here's what I wrote,
"Rather than treating this as a mistake fare I choose to believe they’re looking to generate interest in and cash from their Los Angeles service. US airlines, when they struggled a decade ago, would find themselves running big sales to raise immediate cash too."
Their website says LA International Lounge.
Maybe they will do another sale when they start flying out of the east coast.
They use the Etihad lounge at LAX! My uncle and aunt just flew their LAX to HKG flight a week ago. I am pleasantly surprised that HX will honor the fare, but I presume that it will earn no Fortune Wings Club miles (which you don't really miss out much). However, it is possibly a great way to publicize their product and gain more name recognition from the US. I hope those fliers will share...
They use the Etihad lounge at LAX! My uncle and aunt just flew their LAX to HKG flight a week ago. I am pleasantly surprised that HX will honor the fare, but I presume that it will earn no Fortune Wings Club miles (which you don't really miss out much). However, it is possibly a great way to publicize their product and gain more name recognition from the US. I hope those fliers will share their flying experience through social media. Other than upsetting perhaps a small amount of passengers, they gain hopefully great publicity! Too bad, I was in the air yesterday. I would have bought a pair of tickets too.
Great, thanks. Wished I book for a longer period. Oct 11th to 21st for PVG.
I was able to get LAX-HKG-BKK / BKK-HKG / HKG-LAX for $648
Yup. This is great marketing for them.
I'm still not 100% convinced but good to hear so far. Do you know which lounge they use at LAX?
That's amazing that they honoured it AND let us know within 24 hours. Kudos to HK Airlines.
Gary @vftw put forth the theory that they intentionally did this as a push into us markets.
JUST wish they flew from the east coast