Cathay Pacific gains brand love as it honours super cheap first class ticket faux pas

Cathay Pacific has undoubtedly won over the hearts of its consumers after announcing that it would honour the tickets it sold at an enormously discounted price. Some netizens found out the "special surprise" on Cathay Pacific's website, showing the very low fares between Vietnamese destinations and American cities as first class tickets costed only US$988 (about HK$7,750) and business class tickets were priced at US$675 (about HK$5,300). [caption id="attachment_245003" align="alignnone" width="500"] Source: Flyday.hk's Facebook page[/caption] On 2 January, the Hong Kong-based airline said on its official Facebook page and Twitter account that "we look forward to having you on board and delivering a premium travel experience to you soon!", meaning the tickets are valid. It also said the tickets were "one of our good - VERY GOOD surprise ‘specials’" with hashtag #promisemadepromisekept #lessonlearnt, or #新一年繼續多多指教 #從小就學會錯就要認 in Chinese. Netizens welcomed the news as some of them said "This will be my first time to taking First class , Thank you for gift !! thank you for your honour!" and "Thank you cx for honouring a promise". Cathay Pacific did not share how much honouring its promise would cost to the company. However, the round trip first class fare with taxes and surcharges per adult between Hanoi and Vancouver now costs about US$38,000. South China Morning Post said several thousand tickets were believed to be sold in the incident. The report also said it was an individual entering the wrong fares into the company's system. SCMP have contacted talked to 11 people who had bought 18 first class and eight business-class tickets, Cathay should have collected almost US$685,800 (HK$5.4 million) from them.