El Al Israel Airlines will honor the round-trip tickets to Israel that were sold for under $400 during a three hour glitch.
On Monday, travelers looking to go to Israel were thrilled as the airlines was selling trips for less than $400 for a trip that usually costs up to $1,600. About 5,000 tickets were sold on a variety of travel sites during the three-hour period before the prices were fixed.
The glitch was created by a third party contractor.
The airline has announced that they will honor all of these tickets that were sold at the discounted price.
"Although a review of this occurrence has not been finalized, a decision to accommodate EL AL passengers who purchased these because we value of reputation of offering excellent customer service," Danny Saadon, the airline's vice president, said in a message posted on El Al's Facebook page. "Hopefully we have provided an opportunity to many first timers to visit Israel as well as reconnect family and friends."
For many families in the New York Orthodox Jewish community, the low cost tickets are allowing them to make trips that they couldn't afford.
Not only is the airline honoring the tickets, but they're offering to make the trips more convenient for travelers. The tickets that were purchased include a stopover in Europe in both directions. The airline is giving people the chance to change these tickets to a nonstop roundtrip from New York (JFK or Newark) to Israel for an additional $75 each way, which is still much cheaper than how much the trip would cost at average prices.
Although it isn't likely that many will, the airline is also giving a full refund to anyone who decides to cancel their trip.
The airline inititally said they would honor the tickets, but they took back the statement. After a few days of consideration, they officially announced that they will accept the tickets bought during the mistake.
Fly.com,an online airfare search engine, was one of many sites that made people aware of the low prices. They are thrilled for their users that El Al will honor the tickets.
"We are delighted to see that El Al is honoring the $337 fares to Tel Aviv that Fly.com users in New York purchased on August 6," said Warren Chang, vice president and general manager of Fly.com. "We received more than 54,000 Fly.com users searches, through our Fare Calendars tool, in response to the El Al airfare opportunity that our deal experts had found. And I am sure that those who purchased a flight will be very excited to see the other great travel options that El Al has outlined on its Facebook page."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
