Related posts:
–10 Years Of Deals! What Were Your Favorites?
–10 Years Of Travel And Deal Blogging And A Return To Where It All Began
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On December 25th, 2013 I flew on the red-eye to Cleveland after giving a DansDeals Seminar in LA.
Fighting the urge to sleep on the morning of the 26th I posted a roundup of ending deals at 10am and a killer deal on Twizzlers at 10:39am.
And just before dozing off “Proisrael” made a post on DDF at 10:59am about cheap flights from Newark to Los Angeles.
Only it was much more than that. It was $25 flights to Florida, $42 flights to LA, and $82 fights to Hawaii. And they were all bookable in first class.
A blogger made a post wondering why 14,000 people had searched for JFK-LAX tickets that morning…well 47,000 clicks went through DansDeals that morning to Priceline alone and most of DansDeals traffic originates from those 2 cities…
Thousands of DansDeals readers booked vacations on the cheap. However many sat in limbo and sites like Orbitz and Priceline didn’t issue ticket numbers to most people.
Delta then went above and beyond what they had to do by honoring thousands of reservations that were unconfirmed. Only confirmed tickets have to be honored, but out of an abundance of goodwill Delta decided to honor everyone’s reservations. They even allowed people who missed their flight to reschedule for up to a year later!
Hilarity ensued on social media.
Pictures, videos, and stories of delayed flights due to strollers followed.
DDF member “lawboy” may have had the best luck of all.
Then again DDF legend “Something Fishy” can definitely give him a run for his money with his mind-blowing story of his first class trip to Hawaii. If you don’t follow Something Fishy’s trip reports on DDF you should. His awe-inspiring photography will leave you itching to replicate his trips. You can find them linked to in this DDF Wiki that keeps track of trip reports posted on DDF. And that awesome wiki is maintained by none other than Something Fishy 😀
The glitch destroyed our servers which finally prompted moving DansDeals to AWS, which has been stable during the price glitches that have gone viral in 2014.
Before the 08/06/12 El Al glitch there were less than 5,000 people who followed @DansDeals on Twitter. On 12/26/13 before the Delta glitch there were 21,700 followers. Today you can join the 44,300+ people who follow @DansDeals on twitter and you’ll get a tweet when a deal is posted on DansDeals.com!
You can even have Twitter send you a text message whenever a new deal is posted.
Where did you go and what exciting things happened on your trip? Hit the comments!
Nailed it! went with wife and daughter for $126 round trip Business class Total to LA for the Week.
My wife and I flew JFK-HNL. BusinessElite JFK-LAX, First LAX-HNL First HNL-LAX BusinessElite LAX-JFK for $119 each. What an amazing deal and an even more amazing trip. Was able to see O’ahu for the first time, and see Maui for my fourth time. We love it there. Thank you so much for posting the link that day!!!
Snagged 3 tickets to Kauai for about $68 each. Fun times! Just used the miles earned from the flights to book another flight
The gift that keeps on giving. 🙂
Thanks to Dan, last year I booked 2 tickets to Israel for 350 in Dec each (via Philly and Brussels). Do to a snow storm, it ended by being direct (drove there from NY) from Philly. 🙂
I also got 6 round trip tix to LA for $25.
I booked 2 more to Israel for 714 in May.
DAN IS DE MAN!!!!!!!
Went with a family of 6 from JFK to Kauai in Business class. Total was $600! Good times 🙂 I have many deals to thank Dan for but this one was discovered by me at random about 30 min before emails from various sites started coming in.
I was lucky enough to book 8 round-trip tickets for less than $400 to Palm Springs, The coincidence was that I was exactly on my computer when Dan’s deal tweet came in trying to book with Milage the same tickets
I flew first class BOS-HNL! Was such a great trip. They also credited my miles to both Alaska and Delta by mistake. So I got ~15k alaska and DL miles out of the deal as well… all for $80!
went to israel for 350 took the wife , i would love a crazy deal to like la or florida or something again
7 tickets JFK-SAN roundtrip all in business class! came out to like $278
then we had poor customer relations on flight back so they gave us 50 amazon gift cards for each passenger!
My husband and I flew first class with our 4.5 month old to hawaii. We talk about that trip all the time. We were there at the same time as several other friends that booked when I posted on Facebook about it.
Nailed 2 tickets newark to Detroit for me and my father, awesome deal 30 bucks each
Got a getaway with the wife JFK – LAX first class for $58 each. Thanks Dan!
Dan,
How come I did not and do not see the Twizzlers deal on the thread?
Do I have to delete my cookies every day?
I see now 2013
I booked first-class ticket for a weekend in Anchorage Alaska,
On the day of departure there were delays with my connecting flight,
I did not go to the airport and the wait on the phone for customer service was 5 hours call back,
They gave me 2 options, get your $79 back, or get the same itinerary with no extra charge until end of December 2014,A few weeks ago I tried to book the ticket with them on the phone,and date the only thing that they were willing to give me is a $79 credit for any flight.
So the bottom line I lost that deal,but as a good American Express customer they gave me 6300 points to cover that.
We met a Frum couple with a child in the Diamond Head (Waikiki) parking lot, and introduced ourselves by saying “Dan?” 🙂
Took family of 5 to LA for $256 rt total. First time on a plane for two of the kids. My wife got asked in LAX if there was a “convention of, you know, you people”. Used a weather advisory for a storm that never happened to stay another few days. Our best family vacation so far, hands down. Keep up the great work, Dan!
Took hawaii and LA first class delta glitch trips this past summer and also booked on the elal glitch on 8/6/12 – in the labor room while my wife was about to give birth to our first son! Many other trips booked through Dansdeals over the years. Thanks Dan!
Got 7 ticket for me and other friends. $47 each Went to a SHABBES shava bruches and had a amazing time there.
Went with spouse and baby to LA for a couple of days. Best trip ever.
Thanks dansdeals
thanks to Dan my family of 6! went to LA last year for midwinter break for $127 for the whole family!!!!!!!!we had an amazing trip, sea world,Disney and lots of fun thanks to dan! problem is…. kids wana know where we going this year??!!!! were waiting for the next glitch!!!thank you!
We booked a mid winter vacation trip from NY to LA, myself and my SIL with a total of 4 children @ $25 per ticket! The LA community was taxed with having to host scores of people who got “bus” tickets to LA.
On the flight home, it was a zoo, with many families, baby carriages, and noise. The Chinese woman next to me asked me what was going on. Was there a holiday or something? I told her it was mid-winter vacation so the kids were off and were treated to a trip. Did not want to make her feel bad by telling her the tiks were $25!
Thanks, Delta, for honoring the glitch! And thanks, Dan for notifying us!
I have so far, booked El Al glitch tickets to TLV in Nov. 2012, Delta glitch tickets to LA in Jan 2013, and now have reservations for Hong Kong with 4 friends @$400 for Oct. 2015!!
Flew to LA Presidents week 52 rt first class with husband and two kids…my kids loved the fully reclining seats..trip was amazing! Even better had a problem that they took our carriage to baggage claim instead of leaving by the gate on arrival so we sent them an email and they gave us 5-$50 gift cards to a choice of stores! We practically got paid to take a vacation!
Went from Chicago to Orlando for New Years weekend for $87!
Thanks dan spent 6 days in Kauai
Did JFK-HNL via LA for 10 days.. visited the big island as well, on way back we went thru LA as well, I was siting with wife in seat 1A and B, however after 1 hour in flight the 767 turned back to LA after some mechanical system malfunction, we were stuck in LA for 7 hours and put on a 757 later in the day… no comparison in the 1st class.. but we slept it thru anyway. and we received a 50.00 voucher because of the emergency landing and delay…
We’ve taken advantage of many deals that you posted! My husband and two daughters flew first class to LA mid winter. We went to Israel last year getting off in philly . And the year before with the el al glitch. Keep em coming!! We booked a ticked for my daughter to come home from sem in Israel for pesach ( tel aviv- London – JFK – London )….. I’m a bit nervous abt this one though, bec only 90 min btwn flights in London, and has to switch from BA to Virgin….anyone ever done this?
Thanks again for all the great deals!
I booked 17 tickets for $25/each to LA . 4 for my family for pesach and 13 for my talmidim to go on a bain hazmanim vacation.
Myother booked a business class to LA for about $50 for a few weeks after the glitch.
Bothe my brothers booked vacations in LA in August for their families. One of my brothers got bumped and got vouchers for more $$$ then he paid for the ticked and now he and his wife are going to Israel about $200/each because of the vouchers.
delta Thank you I am looking fwd to next time
I cannot forget that Thurs Dec 26th @ 11:16 am when my daughter called me @ wrk and said “MA GET ON TO PRICELINE NOW DANS DEALS POSTED $26 TO LA!” With 1 daughter on 1 ear , my sister on and other daughter on my other ear we all booked RT to LA but were unconfirmed! That Thurs. night Friday morning until Candle lighting , Mosei Shabbat,and all day Sunday on the phone even 3 way called Delta and Priceline to each other, faxed all our emails to Delta Monday morning. Got called from Delta Tuesday morning to charge our C/C !! Was an amazing story , an amazing trip supposed to be for 1 week and due to a snowstorm hitting NYC, Delta allowed all passengers to change flights for free, got an extra 3 days in LA!! and it was the hottest January Cali had in years !! Yes Dan KUDOS TO YOU!!
Thanks for everything. My family and I flew to Hawaii for 2 weeks last June. We had an amazing time!! It is just so beautiful there. I don’t know what my kids liked better…flying first class or the islands!!
Now thanks to you, my husband and I will be going to HONG KONG!!!
Thank you Delta for honoring those tickets and making our trip so wonderful.
We love all your deals. Keep them coming. We appreciate it.
My family and I were able to buy 10 tickets in total. JFK-LAX and LAX-JFK. Plus I was able to fly to STL for free using the miles it accumulated. Thanks Dan!
I just flew delta business class on the $25 deal this past Chanukah
Thanks Dan
I scored 3 tickets from Jacksonville Fl to HNL for $100.00 each. That allowed my husband, daughter and I to attend my brother in laws wedding at Turtle bay. I followed others advice and booked my one year old her own ticket so she would have her own seat for the long flight. We too had a problem on our flight with customer service and were each awarded $100.00 voucher. Off to NY for another wedding for us! THANKS DAN!
Flew JFK-LAX in first class with a family of 7. On the return we sat in front of an A-list movie star couple that were amazed at how we managed with 5 kids and shared that they would love to have a big family. A month later news came out that they were expecting their first. I’m just saying… Dan should get some credit for this.
booked 3 tix for $150
ended up spending almost 6k for the trip 🙂
Went to the ohel for 3 tammuz for $25
heres my hashgacha pratis story… on wed night, i sat down with my father to look at tickets for my friends wedding which was going to be in New York in march (i live in LA). i told my father when/what time i wanted to go and he looked up the tickets which were around $350. i wanted to book it already (what if they go up?) but my father said we should wait. thurs morning in school i heard people saying “cheap tickets… dansdeals… $25..” all sorts of things. when i asked they all told me there were retarded tickets to ny but that its def over! i quickly ran to call my dad and im like “please tell me u got them, plz plz” and then i heard a pause and then my fathers voice “yes, i did”
IF NOT FOR THE FACT THAT I HAD JUST TOLD MY FATHER THE DETAILS OF WHEN I WANTED TO GO THE NIGHT BEFORE… HE WOULD HAVE NEVER KNOWN WHEN TO GET THE TICKET FOR!
thanks dan!!
ps my also got 8 tickets business class LAX-JFK for the summer 🙂 (so that makes 9 tickets altogether… for less than $300!)