Air travelers visiting United Airlines' website yesterday afternoon discovered, much to their pleasant surprise, that plane tickets were incredibly cheap. In fact, they were practically free.

What happened was, someone at United accidentally flagged certain trips as costing zero dollars, and customers who purchased their tickets in the two hours it allegedly took the airline to fix the problem only had to pay a few extra dollars in security and airport fees.

"People were buying tickets all over the place," Facecompare.com chief executive Rick Seaney told CNN. "Guys were buying 12 and 15 of these things from Washington, D.C. and Honolulu."

When the dust settled on the pricey glitch, United was left with the question of whether or not to honor the tickets that were sold during the inadvertent fire sale.

And about an hour ago United announced it would go ahead and allow the sales to go through as is.

"We’ve reviewed the error that occurred yesterday and based on these specific circumstances, we will honor the tickets," the airline tweeted.

It remains unclear how many tickets United gave away yesterday or how much the "mistake fares" will end up costing the company.

[tweet via @United]