The Best Mistake Fares & ‘Unicorn’ Deals We’ve Sent in 2025 (So Far!)

If you want the absolute best of the best, the cream of the crop, the bees knees of flight deals, you've come to the right place. 

Our Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal alert service digs up the best cheap cash fares and award alerts to use credit card points and airline miles, day in and day out. And in 2025, we're on pace to send more of those alerts than ever before. But there are two special tiers of flight deals that sets off alarm bells at Thrifty Traveler HQ – the kind of deals we can't get into our subscribers' inboxes fast enough when we find them.

We call them Unicorn Alerts and Mistake Fares.

The unicorn designation is reserved for the rarest of all deals: lie-flat seats flying all the way to Australia, Delta One flights to Europe for under 196,000 SkyMiles roundtrip, peak summer business class flights to Europe under 40,000 points each way, or Emirates first class flights to Italy … for two. Only the best of the best flight deals earn our coveted unicorn emoji.

Mistake fares – designated by the lightning bolt emoji – are even rarer: deals that airlines shouldn't have even sold in the first place, mistakenly offering insanely cheap fares … and for which time is of the absolute essence!

We are constantly searching for mistake fares and Unicorn Alerts for our members – and lately, we've been finding them at a record-breaking pace. In May alone, we found and sent three Unicorns, and all were more-than worthy of the patented unicorn emoji. 

Here are some of our favorites from a crazy year of deals.

Want the next mistake fare or red-hot award deal? Join Thrifty Traveler Premium now!

 

 

A First Class Unicorn: Emirates to Milan for 102K Points Each Way

Nothing says luxury, prestige, or fancy, or the number one flight deal of the year quite like Emirates First Class on the A380. 

The crazy first class suites with Dom Perignon, caviar, and evenan onboard bar and shower scream elegance – elegance that could cost you $11,000 or more. Because we're “Thrifty” Traveler and not “Wealthy” Traveler, the only ways we search to book seats like these are using points and miles, so when we finally saw some availability pop up, we issued this Unicorn Alert. 

 

 

Just 102,000 Emirates Skywards miles – transferable from Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, or Citi – were enough to secure one of these seats flying to and from New York (JFK) and Milan (MXP) early next year. And it was great timing, as Emirates began blocking most travelers from booking these outrageous seats just a week later.

 

 

A Delta Premium Select Mistake Fare: Spain from $603 RT

Most airlines will charge $600, $900, or even more for a roundtrip to Europe in basic economy. Delta messed up earlier this year and sold its second-best seats for that price. 

Delta Premium Select is a slick way to fly over the ocean, with wider seats, far more legroom, and better service and meals than you'll get in a standard economy seat. But Delta can be real stingy about how it prices these comfortable seats, selling them at fares that more closely resemble business class than premium economy. 

Unless, that is, they make a mistake and forget an important, expensive surcharge … and offer these seats up for the price of economy instead! 

 

 

This mistake fare turned many a Delta-flyer's heads – offering a stunningly low option to book these fares in the $600s roundtrip from Charlotte (CLT), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), and Chicago, while also offering near-record-breaking fares in the $800s and $900s from many other Delta cities, too. 

 

 

To fly to Spain, this is one of the best values you'll find. Get this: It was about $2,000 off normal pricing!

 

Delta One Unicorn: Europe for 196,000 SkyMiles RT

Booking Delta One flights to Europe can be laughably expensive – in both SkyMiles and in cash. Often, you'll see Delta One rates as high as 300,000 for a one-way flight to Europe. 

Yeah, gross…

But everyone once in a while, Delta puts together one of its patented SkyMiles Flash Sales, offering steep discounts. That's where we come in, because Delta often doesn't advertise these sales to its SkyMiles members – or sometimes the sales go live days or hours before you get an email from Delta telling you where to look. 

That's what happened with this SkyMiles sale. 

 

 

All at once, Delta put many of its best nonstop flights to Europe on sale for just 196,000 Delta SkyMiles roundtrip! That comes down to just 167,000 SkyMiles roundtrip if you take advantage of the 15% off discount you get with SkyMiles credit cards. 

 

 

This is one of the best uses of SkyMiles we could think of at Thrifty Traveler, but most of the best rates were gone in just hours. Luckily, the Premium members who got their Unicorn Alert text were able to snag seats at these rates before they disappeared. 

 

A Biz Class Mistake Fare to Europe: Lufthansa Biz Class from $1063

Want to fly business class to Europe? You'd better have saved up $4,000 or more, as a that's the going rate for a roundtrip business class ticket. 

But not when the airlines make a mistake!

 

 

Flying in August and next winter, this Lufthansa business class mistake fare was one for the ages. All of these routes listed below featured fares under $1,500 roundtrip – less than half the usual cost to fly lie-flat to Europe. 

 

 

We heard from several travelers who were able to snag these unbelievable rates and make their next Euro-trip the comfiest yet. 

 

Apartment-in-the-Sky Unicorn: Etihad First Class from 115k Points Each Way

Etihad – the fancy Abu Dhabi(AUH) -based airline – doesn't offer up a lot of points and miles availability to book its best seats. That's because, for a seat like it's First Class “Apartments” shown below, the airline can easily charge $10,000 or more instead. 

But every once in a great while, Etihad will release a few some seats to be booked with miles … like this. 

 

 

We caught this spontaneous release late last month and sent it to our members within minutes. Better yet: You could book for just 115,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles from Toronto (YYZ) – where they fly those Apartment suites – as well as New York City (JFK). It was the first time we had seen Etihad First Class bookable with AAdvantage miles in years.

 

 

Down Under Unicorn: Ultra-Rare Qantas First Class Awards

No matter how many miles you've got, getting to Australia in a lie-flat seat is tough. The airlines are incredibly stingy with releasing award space – none moreso than Australia's own Qantas.

We were wandering the points and miles to Australia desert for so long that we thought this was a mirage. It wasn't: It was a barrage of Qantas premium cabin flight deals flying down under, highlighted by this sweet Qantas First Class alert just a few weeks ago. 

 

 

And for the first time in years, you could book these Qantas First Class flights to Sydney (SYD) next January – peak season down under – for just 110,000 American Airlines miles. And you could book many dates if you pull up the price calendar. 

 

 

You could also book with Alaska miles or Qantas's own frequent flyer miles, too. These swanky first class suites were enough to make us giddy.

 

First-and-Business-Combo Unicorn: Cathay Pacific First Class (with a Biz Class Discount?)

Sometimes a deal is so good that it doesn't make any sense. Instead of trying to make sense of it, book it, then ask questions later. 

That's what several of our members did with this rarest of the rare deals: Flying Cathay Pacific First Class from New York (JFK) to Hong Kong (HKG) for 160,000 Cathay Pacific Asia Miles each way. 

 

 

All on its own, that availability is a crazy good deal for how fancy Cathay Pacific First Class flying is. But then the deal got even better. If you tacked on a connection in business class through to the destinations on this list below, you could get an even better rate than the nonstop to HKG…

 

 

What Cathay does is, when you book a connection in business class, it takes an average of the two fares instead of just a First Class fare, giving you a chance to add a flight all while saving points and miles. Insane! 

 

A Peak Summer Unicorn: SAS Business Class to Copenhagen

SAS isn't an airline that screams luxury, but it often screams great deals. Their economy seats and premium economy seats are often on sale for fantastic rates, but it's comfy lie-flat business class seats aren't usually easy to book. 

Now, however, SAS is a part of SkyTeam, meaning you can book SAS Business Class using Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles…and for not very many of them!

 

 

This deal would have been amazing to fly to Copenhagen (CPH) any time of year, but the best availability for all of these cities and fares was during July – peak season in Northern Europe! 

 

 

This is cheaper than the price of economy in some cases, and the travelers who snagged this Unicorn alert will get to silently gloat at the passengers walking past them to their economy seats on a flight this summer! 

 

Bottom Line

It's been a memorable year of flight deals for our Thrifty Traveler Premium members – but the most memorable deals were the ones that came with little unicorn emojis or mistake fare lightning bolts in the subject line. 

Whether it's Delta One Suites to Europe, Emirates First Class to Italy, Lufthansa Business Class, or Qantas First Class to Australia, it's been an epic year of Unicorn Alerts … and we've still got three months to go!