It was their lucky day. These customers found themselves grabbing free tickets due to an error with United Airlines computers. For a brief period, the fares were filed with errors into the computers and these few customers made the most of it.

Travellers booking online tickets found with a start that they are being given away for $5 or $10, which is the 11 September security fee. A few others paid $0 for their tickets. Exited with the opportunity, they printed the boarding passes, leaving nothing to chance.

Happily, the airlines said they will honor the tickets. This is not the first time such an error happened with airlines and companies have honored the tickets on a case by case basis before. For United Continental Holdings, the customers can travel for free "based on these specific circumstances."

The free tickets only applied for bookings within the week, as someone booking for the week after would have been charged a hefty amount. Needless to say, after those surprising few hours, the airlines shut down bookings to fix the problem.

(AW: Sruthi)