Meet the guy who scored $250,000 of tickets for $17,000 after airline error

Yip said the low prices remained on the ANA website for at least 12 hours.

"I guess ANA hasn’t made clear if they’re going to honor the tickets or not, because the impact from the incident seems so huge as the bug lasted for so long,” said Yip, who runs a travel website from Hong Kong. “I know 20 people who knew about the incident, and that of course just multiplies the impact."

Even though he didn’t have time to consult family and friends, Yip went ahead and bought tickets for them anyway.

"I didn’t even bother to ask them whether they were able to make it or not, as I needed to book really quickly," he said.

Upon discovering that he could also change his flight for free after the order was confirmed, Yip rebooked his Jakarta-Aruba odyssey to instead begin in Bangkok, which is closer than the Indonesian capital to his home in Hong Kong.

Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. had a similar mishap to ANA in 2019, selling seats in premium cabins for hundreds of dollars instead of thousands. The Hong Kong carrier honored the tickets.

To take advantage of these rare moments, Yip recommends reacting quickly and being flexible because there may not be a wide choice of dates or destinations. Lots of other people are also likely to be pouncing on the opportunity, limiting options. Essentially, book first and assess later.

"If you see something that’s probably a 10th of the original price, just book," he said. "It’s very likely you’ll able to change or cancel, because the airline will always want you to cancel."