A round-trip direct flight to New York on Korean Air is only 360,000 won. Wow is this a true story? Has the error pair finally appeared?
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Don’t get excited. This is not an error pair. It’s a simple pricing error. First of all, it’s 360,000 won on Skyscanner, but I’m suspicious that the price is around 1.8 million won on Google and Kayak. The airport-based re-search prices on the domestic sites below refer to the lowest air ticket prices when searching under the same conditions. It’s not necessarily the price of a direct flight on Korean Air.
Error pairs refer to airline tickets that can actually be purchased. To conclude, you cannot purchase this flight ticket. This is because it is not an error pair, but a simple price error on a price comparison site (not a place where you can actually purchase airline tickets).
Skyscanner 10/31 (Sun) ~ 2/2 (Wed) Seoul – New York – Seoul flight search results
Click Skyscanner’s city-based re-search button and try searching again. A round trip to New York on Air Canada costs 280,000 won. How is it not suspicious?
Skyscanner 10/31 (Sun) ~ 2/2 (Wed) Seoul – New York – Seoul Korean Air direct flight ticket purchase price by site
I selected a Korean Air direct round-trip ticket and went to the details page. When showing the price at which this ticket can be purchased by purchase site, only Korean Air’s price is 360,000 won, and on other travel agency sites, the cheapest price is 1.78 million won.
Korean Air website 10/31 (Sun) ~ 2/2 (Wed) Seoul – New York – Seoul 1.87 million won
I chose Korean Air just in case, and it was as expected. The price jumped to 1.87 million won. It’s not good.
In this case, it is Skyscanner’s error. Air Canada’s prices are probably the same for the same reason. The price comparison service compiles and displays flight search results from multiple airlines and travel agencies, but it often incorrectly aggregates results from specific travel agencies or airlines. You can see the price on Skyscanner’s screen, but since it is an incorrectly calculated price, the price will be different when you go to the purchase site. This is a case where you can never buy it. And this is just a simple error that is found very, very commonly. Oh, one more thing! WeMakePrice’s airport-based re-search price was also 250,000 won. This is because Skyscanner’s results are included in WeMakePrice’s results. Skyscanner’s error was also transferred to WeMakePrice.
On the other hand, an error pair is a ticket that you can actually purchase. This is an airline ticket where the price remains the same from the website where you purchase the ticket (airline or travel agency) until the payment stage.
Error pair case: 12/22 (Wed) Seoul – Skopje – Seoul Turkish Airlines Business 990,000 won (regular price over 4 million won)
A recent example is the business airline tickets worth around 1 million won to the Balkans on Turkish Airlines, introduced last July, which are typical examples of error fairs. At the time, it could be purchased for around 1 million won from all six price comparison sites and most travel agencies, including Turkish Airlines. However, it soon changed to a normal price of over 4 million won.
Of course, error pairs also have errors in price. However, the location of the error lies with the entity selling the airline ticket and the error remains until purchase. Compared to price errors on price comparison sites, error pairs occur much less frequently. Price errors on price comparison sites are something that only a few people are aware of, but with error fairs, you can actually purchase the airline ticket and go on a trip.
Sometimes, purchased airline tickets may be cancelled. In the case of a travel agency’s error, if the damage is too large from the perspective of a small travel agency, they may cancel the airline ticket by individually assessing the purchaser. However, in cases where it is the airline’s error, airline tickets purchased with an error pair are often acknowledged as is.
For your information, there are no simple price errors on price comparison sites among the airline tickets I introduce. That’s all verified and filtered out. Even if we introduce airline tickets at ridiculously low prices, whether they are temporary error fairs, ridiculous special offers from airlines, or tickets that magically become cheap only under certain conditions, these are all airline tickets that can actually be purchased.
Search, Not Search has developed and operates MetaOnMeta, an exploratory aviation search service based on collective intelligence.
[Source] A round-trip direct flight to New York on Korean Air costs 360,000 won? Error pair vs. price error|Author Search, not search