United mistakenly offers free fares

Passengers on United's site were able to book tickets for a time for only the cost of the airport and security fees. So travelers were able to get flights for $5 or $10.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

United Airlines briefly, and mistakenly, offered passengers the ultimate fare sale on Thursday -- $0 fares.

The passengers on United's web site were able to book tickets for a time for only the cost of the airport and security fees tacked onto tickets. So travelers were able to get flights for between $5 and $10.

One customer posting on the passenger Web site flyertalk.com bragged about bagging a $10 round trip between San Jose and Boston -- a ticket that might normally cost $600.
(Related: Bankrupt airline posts record profit)
United confirmed the mistake but declined to comment on the details of the outage or whether it intends to honor the tickets.
"One of our filings Thursday contained an error which resulted in certain fares being displayed as zero. We have corrected this error," the airline said in a statement. It added that the mistake was made by a person and was not the result of a technology glitch.
Rick Seaney, chief executive of Farecompare.com, said the problem lasted about two hours.
"People were buying tickets all over the place," said Seany. "Guys were buying 12 and 15 of these things from Washington DC and Honolulu. The question is will they honor them?"
-- CNNMoney's Aaron Smith contributed reporting.