Ever get a big windfall from a pricing error?

[kdonnel]

I have an upcoming Royal Caribbean Cruise and was checking in at Cruise Critic to see if there was anything new and interesting. There was a thread that had just been posted describing a too good to be true package being offered.

The package included about $900-$1200 in value for only $88. It was listed as a package for two.

The initial theory was that it should have been $88 a day and then others theorized that it was a straight up mistake as it was a package Celebrity had offered in the past but not something Royal had ever offered.

I figured what could it hurt if I booked it?

So I booked it for one person in each of the two cabins we have booked. Then later I thought, what if it is real and you have to buy it for each person in the cabin, so I booked it again for the other person in each cabin.

I figured if they honored it, great! If not I would get my money back and be disappointed but not mad.

By the next day the package was listed as sold out and then later in the day the option disappeared from the website. As expected it was a mistake, a package that just does not exist for Royal Caribbean.

Others called or messaged with Royal Caribbean and got confirmation it was offered for sale by mistake and refunds would be issued.

Late yesterday I got the official email that it was a mistake and that for our troubles we would be getting $50 on board credit.

Turns out that it is $50 per person per package purchased. I bought 4 packages for 2 people so 8 * $50 = $400.

I am extremely happy with the generous onboard credit offer!

 

[Darcy03231]

Not from a pricing error, but we had a cruise one year and the insurance that I bought included $500/pp for any missed ports. We were supposed to cruise the western Caribbean (Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize & Roatan) but due to a hurricane we were rerouted to the eastern Caribbean (St. Maarten, St. Thomas & Nassau). It was a family trip so I booked and paid for 10 people. Turned it into the insurance and was reimbursed without any issues. Total reimbursed was more than I paid for the cruise, flights, hotel before the cruise, transfers, and all of our shore excursions with money left over!

 

[ronandannette]

No, I’ve never had anything like that happen, but I think I would have done exactly what you did. OTOH, if I was buying a high value item in a store and the price came up so low that it was obviously a mistake, I think my conscience would force me to say something. I’m sitting here pondering why I would feel differently about it...

On a bit of a different note, here in Canada it’s Tim Horton’s Roll Up The Rim to Win season - a contest that’s run for decades and is so iconic practically everyone in the country plays like it’s their job. Prizes range from free coffee to cars to huge cash windfalls. A few years ago it went digital and like all things, it’s prone to glitches. Last week a whole whack of people got a code for a $10,000 prize when in fact there should have been only 1 per day. Tim Horton's did not honour the mistake and instead offered an apology and a $50 gift card. Outrage over it has been on the news every day since.

 

[motherof5]

I have an upcoming Royal Caribbean Cruise and was checking in at Cruise Critic to see if there was anything new and interesting. There was a thread that had just been posted describing a too good to be true package being offered.

The package included about $900-$1200 in value for only $88. It was listed as a package for two.

The initial theory was that it should have been $88 a day and then others theorized that it was a straight up mistake as it was a package Celebrity had offered in the past but not something Royal had ever offered.

I figured what could it hurt if I booked it?

So I booked it for one person in each of the two cabins we have booked. Then later I thought, what if it is real and you have to buy it for each person in the cabin, so I booked it again for the other person in each cabin.

I figured if they honored it, great! If not I would get my money back and be disappointed but not mad.

By the next day the package was listed as sold out and then later in the day the option disappeared from the website. As expected it was a mistake, a package that just does not exist for Royal Caribbean.

Others called or messaged with Royal Caribbean and got confirmation it was offered for sale by mistake and refunds would be issued.

Late yesterday I got the official email that it was a mistake and that for our troubles we would be getting $50 on board credit.

Turns out that it is $50 per person per package purchased. I bought 4 packages for 2 people so 8 * $50 = $400.

I am extremely happy with the generous onboard credit offer!

Wow. That is great!

 

[RedAngie]

Nothing major. Once a bottle $12.99 extra virgin olive oil scanned for a higher price so the supermarket refunded my money and I got it free.

 

[csmith1004]

When shopping for my wedding dress in 1996 - the dress I was trying on had a price tag of $799. The sales person offered me $50 off. I agreed and went to check out. At the register the dress rang up as $199. She still gave me the $50 off! I got my dress for $150! I paid more for the veil than the dress!!

 

[luv2cheer92]

My mom got 2 $999 TVs that were incorrectly priced at 99$ from Walmart once.
I've had some minor things priced incorrectly that I was able to take advantage of, but nothing more than like $10-15.

 

[LuvOrlando]

YAY you!

Not a pricing error exactly but Instacart put someone else's entire shopping order in my car at a store about 30 min away and I didn't notice until I got home and kept pulling odd things out of bags. I called right away and told them they could come get the order to swap but I would not drive all the way back, they said to keep it and I got another $40 in credit because I never got my actual order. Overall it was a nice win because my family tried things I never would have tried otherwise.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Not from a pricing error, but years ago we got bumped off our return flight from London. They booked us onto another flight leaving 5 hours later and gave us some amount of money as compensation. I don’t remember how much exactly, but I know that after the conversion from Sterling to USD, which was hugely in our favor at the time, it basically covered the total cost of our round trip tickets so it’s like we got free airfare each way.

 

[mikehn]

I ordered a watch on Amazon, instead of sending me the base $300 model I ordered, they sent me the $1300 model. Of course I kept it.

 

[RangerPooh]

Years ago Lowes had a pallet of special order flooring that had been ordered by a customer but not claimed. We purchased the whole pallet for $100! It was like 40 cases. They rang up at an incorrect price. Worked for us!

 

[GoingSince1990]

One time an airline was supposed to give us 100,000 miles as a credit card introductory offer and accidentally gave us 1 million miles. I didn’t complain.

 

[Yoshi]

In 2017 Best Buy was having a Black Friday in July sale and there was early access 1 day for Elite and Elite Plus members before the sale started for everyone else on their website. The Samsung Galaxy S8+ unlocked was supposed to be on sale for $100 off, making it $750. Instead someone had set the price for $100 total. I thought for sure it would be cancelled since that is a huge error for a store to honor (and I wouldn't have expected them to honor it) but they did ship the phone I ordered.

 

[bcla]

Once I saw something (kind of hard to describe) but they were on scale but there was some handwritten shelf tag that said maybe 0.69 cents each. Don't remember the exact amount, but it was less than a cent on the shelf tag. Or something to that effect. The manager kind of looked at it and then authorized the checker to sell me something like 20 of them for 15 cents. They were probably on closeout, but not that cheap.

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

Our biggest “windfall” - maybe 15 years ago, Sears was having a Black Friday sale on a set of 4 tires. I recall they were a little over $400 and came with a $200 mail-in rebate which was in the form of a Sears gift card. My husband needed tires and purchased them early that morning. We submitted the rebate and were notified that the receipt we submitted was incorrect and we would need to resubmit with the correct one. My husband picked up a reprinted receipt at the store and mailed it in with the notice letter. They ended up mailing us two, $200 Sears gift cards, essentially making the tires free.

 

[bluezy]

About 25 years ago I was shopping at a department store and they had Little Me baby clothing outfits on sale for $9.99 (regularly priced at about $25-30). At the time, Little Me had really cute boy clothing and I liked to buy them for my infant son. I was really excited that they had about a dozen different outfits that I really liked -- but budget-wise, I knew I could only buy 3. When I went to the cashier to pay, the outfits rang up at $1.99 each!! The cashier looked at me and said, "This is clearly an error....and it's been reported to IT twice already. But because they're ringing up at $1.99, that's what you'll pay. And I have no problem letting you go back and get more if you want to." So I did. I went back and got one of everything! I came home with 12 outfits for the price of 1. I was pretty happy.

Around that same time frame, I went to Target to buy infant formula for my son. I grabbed a few "ready-to-feed" quart bottles of formula just to have on hand along with several cans of the condensed formula. When I checked out, the RTF bottles rang up at $1.50 instead of $6.50. That made them significantly cheaper (per ounce) than even the powdered version (which is usually the cheapest version). I loaded the stuff in my car and went back in the store to buy every bottle they had on the shelf. And then I asked a worker if they had more in the back. He said they had about 50 cases (6 bottles per case). I got 10 cases. A few weeks later, I went back -- sure the price would have been corrected by then -- but nope, still ringing up a $1.50. I bought 10 more cases. And I managed to do that 2 more times before they finally corrected the pricing error. Our laundry room looked like a warehouse with cases and cases of formula stacked along the wall.

And one last one that I can think of. We used to have a Toys R Us rewards Visa card. I don't remember the exact details of how much we earned in TRU rewards dollars, but I'm sure it wasn't more than 1%. At the time, they would automatically send actual gift certificates/cards when you hit a certain amount in rewards (I'm thinking it was $25). One month they were having a "bonus" category for something and I enrolled in that bonus. We should have earned a few extra reward dollars during that bonus period. But for some reason, their system must have glitched because 2 months later, we got $450 in TRU gift cards.

 

[kdonnel]

Around that same time frame, I went to Target to buy infant formula for my son. I grabbed a few "ready-to-feed" quart bottles of formula just to have on hand along with several cans of the condensed formula. When I checked out, the RTF bottles rang up at $1.50 instead of $6.50. That made them significantly cheaper (per ounce) than even the powdered version (which is usually the cheapest version). I loaded the stuff in my car and went back in the store to buy every bottle they had on the shelf. And then I asked a worker if they had more in the back. He said they had about 50 cases (6 bottles per case). I got 10 cases. A few weeks later, I went back -- sure the price would have been corrected by then -- but nope, still ringing up a $1.50. I bought 10 more cases. And I managed to do that 2 more times before they finally corrected the pricing error. Our laundry room looked like a warehouse with cases and cases of formula stacked along the wall.

I have experienced similar situations with other products and am always conflicted. Do I grab all I can like you did, or leave some for others to experience the joy? I'm not sure which is the correct moral decision and have done it both ways.

 

[bluezy]

I have experienced similar situations with other products and am always conflicted. Do I grab all I can like you did, or leave some for others to experience the joy? I'm not sure which is the correct moral decision and have done it both ways.

Yes, I understand that moral dilemma. I didn't take everything I could in my situations. There were still plenty of Little Me outfits in various sizes on the racks at the store. I didn't even take all of the same size. I got some that would fit him immediately and others that were larger sizes. I'm sure some people would have bought everything and then sold it all on ebay. I had no desire to do that. And there was another 40 cases of formula at Target for others to enjoy. In fact, when I went back to Target the other times, I didn't even take any off the shelf -- I just scanned one at a price checker to make sure the price hadn't changed and then asked to get cases out of stock.

 

[kdonnel]

Yes, I understand that moral dilemma. I didn't take everything I could in my situations. There were still plenty of Little Me outfits in various sizes on the racks at the store. I didn't even take all of the same size. I got some that would fit him immediately and other that were larger sizes. I'm sure some people would have bought everything and then sold it all on ebay. I had no desire to do that. And there was another 40 cases of formula at Target for others to enjoy. In fact, when I went back to Target the other times, I didn't even take any off the shelf -- I just scanned one at a price checker to make sure the price hadn't changed and then asked to get cases out of stock.

I think you hit on one of the situations that makes it immoral in my opinion. If you buy to resell I think that is taking too much advantage of the situation.

 

[Kennywood]

Do you remember that climatic, final scene in "Miracle on 34th Street" when the postmen dump all of Santa Claus' mail on the judge's bench? This picture is sort of reminiscent of that.

When we were first married, there was an offer on a box of cereal for a free sample of astronaut ice cream. We sent off for it.

Some time later, we received a notice in the mail to go to the post office to pick up something too large to fit in the mailbox. So, we go down to the post office, hand over the notice, and wait.

While we're waiting, one of the mailmen actually had the nerve to put a garbage bag on the counter right in front of us! Can you believe that? A bag of garbage...on the counter...in front of us! And not only that, they brought out a second bag of garbage and did the same thing!

I suppose the mailman saw the look on my face and said something like, "This is your mail." He must have enjoyed the confused look on my face!

We opened the bags to find.....100 samples of astronaut ice cream!

I guess the cereal company must have figured, "HA! Someone actually asked for it! Let's get rid of it and send it to them!"

So, instead of 1 sample, here's my wife surrounded by 100 samples of astronaut ice cream!