Hat tip to this Flyertalk thread, it’s possible to purchase tickets between several cities in the UK and several cities in the US — in business class — for under $100 roundtrip.
You have to originate in Europe. This works from London, but not exclusively so.
This was first discovered on United, but it appears to work for most carriers. Here’s some of the airlines that the ITA Matrix will price an itinerary like this in business class — in Danish Kroner (so you’ll want to use a credit card with no foreign currency fees when purchasing).
And here’s ITA Matrix pricing first class, it even prices for Swiss and Lufthansa first class.
The question is, where to book. It was initially suggested to use United.com, and indeed you can get the price to come up there, but with a US billing address for your credit card the site may not be willing to let you purchase what it prices in Danish Kroner. And Expedia.dk doesn’t seem to price itineraries this way.
You may need to experiment with booking sites to find one that will allow you to price this way in Danish Kroner and let you purchase with a US credit card.
Let’s walk through pricing at United.com: the way you buy in Danish Kroner is just to walk through a purchase and then when you reach the ‘Complete Purchase’ stage after you’ve selected an itinerary, you have the option to change your billing country.
Change your billing country to Denmark and the website will price in Danish Kroners (DKK).
You may need to pick your flights again, but pricing will be very favorable — sale pricing will be revealed, instead of $11,000 or more you may see prices of just over 500 DKK or US$80.
Indeed, I was able to select an itinerary in business class between Newcastle, UK and San Francisco for 559 DKK all-in (US$85).
But as I say, a US credit card forces you back to US dollars and a higher price. Your credit card may or may not allow the purchase to go through leaving billing country as Denmark.
Suggestions?
Update: One Flyertalk member using United.com says,
on the last page after entering my us address and zip I left the country as Denmark.No problem at all
Another says,
use paypal as payment method and then you can pay with paypal with a danish billing adress with no issue whatsoever
Update 7:23am Eastern: This works from the UK to other parts of the world, too — here’s first class London – Sydney roundtrip.
And here’s first class London – Johannesburg roundtrip.
Update 7:32am Eastern: Remember that American AAdvantage will give you 3000 – 12,000 bonus miles per segment for long haul international first class and many business class fares on American or US Airways flights or on codeshares operated by British Airways, Iberia, Finnair, Japan Airlines and Qantas.
Update 7:37am Eastern: A Flyertalk member points out,
you can do stopovers in US on the way to south america 2 trips 1 ticket.
[Honolulu] is a valid stopover point to South america by the way
Update 9:13am Eastern: Confirmed this is still alive.
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Is there a play to be made here with Paypal or another 3rd party site that has international versions?
Aren’t there reports that they check your ID at the time of check-in and if your address on ID isn’t in the ticketing country; then they may not allow you to get on flight?
How about using a vgc?
I went incognito mode, changed to DKK currency and did the search. When I paid, I put my credit card information in but left the country as Denmark. My credit card processed and got the reservation email.
I used Chase Sapphire btw
Reports of address matching at check-in? Since passports don’t have addresses, I fail to see how that would work.
Expat living in London and just got two first class tickets LHR-SFO for $163! Was able to use my Sapphire card with Denmark billing country.
Amazing deal if it goes through
Gary,
Is it possible to depart from any other European city outside of the UK? I have tried multiple locations without any luck and wondered if there were specific parameters that require a UK origin.
Great post!
Irishmpk
I haven’t seen any options outside the UK that work with this.
How about oneworld (AA) routings? I can’t for the life of me get this to price out on AA.
I can’t wait to see how this plays out. Since US rules currently require honoring mistake fares… but does that apply when you make your point of sale another country? IANAL but I can see some airline legal eagle try to use that as an out.
Where can I book LHR-SYD?
I too would like to know how to book OW itins..
How can one book One World Carriers? Like BA
If it could be booked, LHR-DXB-JNB in First on EK for kr30!
LHR-DXB-SYD in First on EK for 624 DKK !
Just found LHR-SYD (RT) for DKK1240 on Qantas/Emirates First Class, at Matrix. But have no idea how to book it. Any thoughts? 🙁
Deo, how did you book EK ??????
It’s giving me the value in GBP…
Thanks!
@Lucas: No, ITA matrix shows the same, we haven’t found a method to ticket it yet.
If anyone is interested in LHR-JNB, Swiss first can easily be obtained for 686 DKK from United’s website.
Mayby this is a reason:
“We are writing to inform you that Emirates is planning a migration to their new fare system on the 11th of February.
This might cause an API outage, which is expected to occur for 12 hours starting at 11:00am DXB time. However this should only impact meta search publishers using the API.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all of your hard work on the program
Kind regards,
The Emirates Affiliate Team”
Deo, how did you book EK?????
It gives us the price in GBP…
Thanks
If we book through United, are there any good choices for carriers that partner with both United and AA or US and will let us assign the earned miles to AA or US Airways?
The only partners I can think of still in common are Hawaiian Airlines and Jet Airways. I do not believe that Jet Airways flights earn qualifying miles unless booked as an AA codeshare. And the Brussels flight doesn’t earn miles. I haven’t seen any Jet flights come up in searches.
I have a confimed booking 1st class on Lufthansa LHR-MUN-JFK in July. Followed through on United and received the confirmation email. 480DKK, about ~85USD
Just want to say thank you, event if it doesnt go throught 😉
LHR-SFO July 5 United First, and LHR-JNB Roundtrip in Swiss First for the Christmas Holiday….maybe one of them will hold up!
I have been following the thread on FT. So far, I haven’t seen anyone who has booked this anywhere that did not require them to commit fraud to receive the lower prices, correct? I am not exactly a paragon of virtue, but manipulating the website and lying about your billing address seems to me to be a bit beyond the scope of just taking advantage of a mistake fare.
Please note that these comments do not apply to all those Danes who have taken advantage of this “sale”.
Has anyone booked on anything other than United?
Trying to book BA from LHR>BKK
from paragon of virtue on CNN “whoa is us, the airlines aren’t treating us fairly” … to this, in 24 hours.
@dale m – I do not feel badly about sharing this.
I don’t ever threaten to sue or complain to DOT when tickets aren’t honored. But if airlines are going to provide these experiences I think it’s fair to want to be one of the folks they provide it to.
Personally I haven’t booked any of these tickets, but it’s news in the frequent flyer world and I’m reporting on it.
And I never put myself out as any kind of ‘paragon of virtue’ I just want to make sure members are aware of the value of their miles, when programs change the rules or value proposition on them without saying so. Bringing things to attention, whether it’s Delta or pricing issues.
(And if facts matter, it wasn’t CNN it was Fox and it was 44 hours ago that I was on.)
Gary, thank you for sharing this to us! I do look at FT for premium cabin discount fares but this is a really really good deal! I myself just booked one trip. It went through and I received the confirmation email but now just waiting for it to be ticketed.
Gary, thank you! LHR-SFO-HNL-EWR-LHR all for $93 leaving Friday in J/F. Just nice to escape the winter cold!
Just first booked lhr-phx-ord(stopover)-lhr for $85 and lhr-ord RT for $140 on United. Used trick of saying CC country is Denmark. Worked fine.
The only way to take advantage of this sale/mistake is to either to genuinely live in Denmark (with a real Denmark billing address) or to commit fraud.
@Doug — If you think it’s fraud to use a Danish website as an American, don’t do it. Let others try to get the deal.
FWIW, I think the odds are high that these tickets get cancelled, which will likely bring you (odd) joy.
I was able to get it to book tickets for my family of five (worth about $30K). Got a confirmation email and all from United. But…then I decided I agreed with the fraud argument. This just isn’t right. So I cancelled mine. Was hard to key that button…but it’s not a mistake if we have to lie to get it.
I booked 6 trips, but while I would love to fly on these flights, I now feel it isn’t right and have started to cancel and refund the bookings. To me, it was fun while it lasted to think about flying Swiss First and Lufthansa First on an A380…
Just booked LHR – DFW (stop in FRA) first class on Lufthansa for $85! Here’s how I did it:
1. Went to Google flights.
2. Searched for LHR-DFW one-way and selected Lufthansa as my airline.
3. Select date (for me was May 28).
4. Selected the option to book via United.com and then follow the rest of the instructions as TPG laid out (set country to Denmark).
5. Use my Barclays Arrival+ card, billing country = Denmark, but the rest was my US address.
Worked 🙂
Let’s hope it holds up. That would be an insane deal!
@Drew — the idea that it’s “fraud” for Americans to book this and not Danes seems silly to me. Everyone (Danes and Americans) knows that UA isn’t intending to sell its transatlantic First Class seats for $75. So is it “fraud” to buy a mistake airfare? That’s WAY too rich an argument for me. If UA honors the fare, great. If not, the world goes on. I just wouldn’t want to be the guy who cancels his cheapo ticket for moral reasons, while “less moral” folks get the benefit.
@iaphphx – If you were in Denmark the Danish site would be the one that populates. Whether you were an American or any other nationality. If anything in some cases companies take advantage of American’s and charge a higher price then if local. For instance look at booking flights in a lot of South American countries.
doesn’t work for me: We’re sorry, but united.com was unable to complete your request
I entered the actual US address but left the country Denmark.
any ideas?
It’s dead.
United caught on…only pricing in usd now 🙁
Got error message on United.com upon attempting to purchase. Now United is not pricing in DKK but rather in USD at the normal fare
Looks like they removed Denmark from the list of available Billing Address Countries…
A good airline would honour the mispriced tickets. Quite recently Singapore Airlines had a similar issue, and loads of Australians managed to book first class tickets with economy prices via travel agents (first class usually costs $15k and economy about $3k). At first SQ implied that they were going to make the travel agents pay the difference (as it was the agents’ fault and not SQ’s website error), but in the end they made an official statement and said they would just “let the matter go” and honour the mispriced tickets, so as to not damage their company’s image. Good PR strategy, I’d say!
@iahphx – The legal definition of fraud is “An intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act.” To take advantage of this sale, you must intentionally misrepresent your billing address (an “existing fact”) for the purpose of inducing the other person (United Airlines) to act (issue a ticket at a deeply discounted foreign currency price). While it is highly unlikely that someone taking advantage of this would ever be prosecuted, there is no doubt that they have committed a crime.
Somebody’s getting fired….
Gary, you are on a roll. Second deal you’ve killed in 2 days.
@Doug — if you think that theory flies, you must not be very fun at parties. 🙂
BTW,I believe the UN’s Human Rights Commission is actively investigating the thousands of incarcerated Americans who got a kid’s meal for their 12-year-olds even though the menu said it was valid only for “under 12.”
Darn; missed it. I need to get up earlier — this was even better than last year’s deal to ICN!
I’m wondering why they are running such an amazing travel deal? Whats the story behind that?
Denmark is no longer an option for country 🙁
Is there any other fun countries to try?
the CEO of united has just put out a memo calling together an urgent board meeting…
@iahphx, are you saying that this is not fraud by the legal definition, that it is only a minor fraud similar to feeding a 12 year old a kids meal (saving a couple of dollars), or that you think that it is fraud on a pretty major scale (with some people seemingly booking tickets into the 6 digits), but that either nobody will be punished for it or that nobody should be punished for it?
Anyone have any tips on how to cancel these? Mine was booked into D and A class on LH/LX as UA Codeshare but when I go to cancel it says “This reservation has no refundable value if cancelled. A refund will not be credited.”
Anyone book with anyone besides United?
Went all the way to the end , changed the billing location and it repriced the whole thing 🙁 , what a shame
amazing deal though !
Tickets booked at united.com are refundable for 24 hours even if the fare doesn’t allow refunds, call united to cancel if the website won’t let you
I just looked at my UA account via the first email after purchase this morning, and I have two e-tickets with ticket numbers. One way from LHR-ATL for $110. That’s for two people. Awesome if it sticks.
Trying to get this to work but united will not show me the fare in DKK even if I change my country to DKK. Also the Matrix shows a cheap one way fare on Delta but Delta’s site will not allow me to change country to DKK either.
They will cancel all tickets withou a doubt and we will have wasted our valuable times. I cannot believe I am admitting that after wasting the last couple of hours !!!
@gary thanks – so the premise that the 24 hour rule doesn’t apply since it was a non-USA website are inaccurate?
@Nick – this was never going to last long. If anything, Business Insider picking this up from Dans Deals, calling United probably killed it (but only then perhaps minutes or an hour earlier than otherwise)
Is the 24-hr cancellation policy applicable with this fare?
This was a fantastic opportunity. unfortunately it is now a dead deal. doesn’t work anymore
Has anyone received the second confirmation email with the confirmation code? I have not.
How can I book LHR-SYD? HELP PLEASE
No but it has a ticket number assigned to it…good luck to those with LX flights getting Swiss to honor them
Booked at 9:32 EST. Confirmed but not ticketed. Anyone else book that late and get ticketed?
@Jeff – I got my confirmation email at 9:38 EST but still haven’t gotten email with ticket numbers. When I plug confirmation # into united.com, I can see the receipt and the ticket numbers. I saved them, just in case. Booked LHR-EWR in May for 2 in BusinessFirst.
@ Gary Leff — Yeah, I’m amused by the various blog posts complaining that somebody killed this deal. Whatever happens, I think we can say with 100% certainty that a deal on the web offering $75 transatlantic biz class tickets was going to end sooner rather than later!
BTW, why didn’t you buy a ticket? Heck, it was worth getting one just so nobody could claim you were a sore-loser for expressing skepticism that the deal will be honored!
Confirmation email at 9:00am CST. I haven’t received my ticket numbers yet via email but I can see them when I go to United.com, view my reservation and click “view receipt”
Booked LHR-EWR at 9:38 EST. Processing email but no confirmation email yet.
I booked on United but put down Western Union to pay. It’s an extra $80 but who cares. Anybody try Western Union yet?
Is there another website to buy the tickets? Or is/was United’s the only one?
@iahphx Didn’t buy a ticket largely because the travel I need to do over the coming months (work) is all domestic, the leisure trips I’ve thought through are booked and I’m happy not wasting time positioning via Heathrow, basically I’m sitting happy and while this is a truly amazing deal if honored I was good just sitting, watching, and enjoying. 🙂
ITA MATRIX show LHR-SYD for 628kr, how could we book this?
Looks like United pulled the Denmark option
Maybe this is a stupid question, but are all of you taking advantage of this sale expats living in Europe? Trying to figure out how someone in the US can take advantage of this if the flight has to originate in the UK.
I will pay my reservation Western Union today after work. They quote the Western Union fee in USD so I assume USD is ok to pay for the reservation as well and should not through up a flag. I hope it works!
@Logan folks would have to position to the UK to start the trip, either buying a ticket or redeeming miles for one.
I will pay my reservation Western Union today after work. They quote the Western Union fee in USD so I assume USD is ok to pay for the reservation as well and should not through up a flag.
@Logan, I’m in US, just purchasing a return flight cheap (if it holds) and worrying later about how I get there.
Denmark seems to have been removed from the United site as a country of purchase option on the top right. I don’t see it in the listing.
Wow, they did just delete Denmark at United! I barely made it under the wire. Hope they honor my reservation.
Guys, calm down, these tickets are ALL going to be canceled. The laws against “bait and switch” pricing don’t apply since you all incorrectly entered “Denmark” as you billing address country. This is the technicality that United will use without any doubt to cancel these sales. You have all wasted your time.
I did the “Pay with Western Union” option. I have until the 14th to pay. I’ll wait 24 hours to see if this is cancelled before paying.
Just let you guys know. I will follow your name, your birthday and your credit card number to find you. And close your account and ban you forever.
Let’s wait and see.
The IT error appears to be an error in the overnight currency table load, the cross-reference between GBP and DKK is a bit off from my ticketed fare breakdown below
Airfare: 6,164 GBP
Equivalent Airfare: 62 DKK
Looks to be dead… I was just about to buy, and the country choice of “Denmark” that was there when I started the search is now gone! Only goes to Dominican Republic 🙁
Hope everyone else gets to enjoy their trip!!
theBOAT
Yes, it sounds like they messed up currency conversion due to using a period instead of a comma or the other way around. And then I guess other airlines automatically priced match although it wasn’t bookable.
Anyone found any other sites they can book on?
Specifically, the trailing 3 non-decimal significant digits were truncated, which translated 62000DKK as 62DKK
6164 British Pound Sterling equals
61812.59 Danish Krone
This was absolutely awesome! I hope UA will honor my bookings.
Thanks again!
Is it dead by now 12:35 EST ? Thanks
Haha just bought the tickets, and i live in denmark, what are the odds.
Has anyone called United to follow up about not receiving a confirmation email?
@David
It is generally recommended that you do not call in these circumstances. My understanding is that calling will typically result in losing any chance at the booking. There are no guarantees about how this will play out, but I think your best chance would be to avoid calling at least for now. Did you provide an email address? Have you checked your spam folder? Good luck!
Guys,
How can I pay with western union?
When I booked with Western Union option to pay it said to include $80 service fee with the ticket money. Now I look on the United website and it says $14.95 fee. Does anyone know which one is right? Maybe they jack up the rate for Danish buyers? I want to pay the lower fee of course but don’t want to risk getting flagged over a few bucks.
Assuming the tickets are honored: would putting frequent flyer account information for a Star Alliance partner airline earn miles based on United’s fare-based system (i.e. practically nothing since these were cheap) or would they earn based on distance flown (if that is the partner airline’s own earning system)? Thanks!
United ain’t honoring the tickets.
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/61422
Yes, post on this already written.
All UA tickets are voided.
https://hub.united.com/en-us/News/Company-Operations/Pages/third-party-currency-conversion-error.aspx
There were just too many legitimate reasons why UA could void – I wasn’t holding my breath on this one….Wideroe however….
I tried to pay for my tickets Western Union last night and they would not accept the payment at all. But now I see that my reservation says:
Thank you for choosing United Airlines. Your purchase is confirmed. You will be promptly notified once the internal processing of your reservation has been finalized…etc.
Is this what everyone else is seeing? Maybe my tickets are free. lol.