Feb. 15, 2001, 1:11PM

United online glitch sold $25 fares to Paris Associated Press

CHICAGO -- Want to fly round-trip to Paris for less than $25?

United Airlines mistakenly listed such eye-popping fares on its Web site for nearly an hour last month. A total of 143 tickets were sold at the near-giveaway prices before the airline informed the buyers that the fares that looked too good to be true were just that, United said.

United blamed a technical error for the fares that appeared on www.ual.com on the evening of Jan. 31. The Web site offered San Francisco to Paris for $24.98, with similar deals for flights to Hong Kong and other cities.

"We certainly apologize for any misunderstanding and inconvenience it may have caused to customers," United spokesman Chris Brathwaite said today. But "it was a glitch. We fixed it and we advised the customers, and we gave them some options."

United has offered to find the lowest possible fares for the customers.

That's not sitting well with customers like Eric Bescher, who snapped up a $27.98 ticket from San Jose, Calif., to Paris and expects United to honor it.

"If they don't come through with a good will gesture, I'm going to dispute it," he told WSJ.com, The Wall Street Journal's Web site.

United's spokesman said customers should have realized "you don't get something for nothing."

"We expect reasonable people to realize it was a mistake," Brathwaite said.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/business/824125

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001