![US-AVIATION-AMERICAN AIRLINES American Airlines passenger planes.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/american-airlines.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
When a computer glitch in March offered up free and cheap flights to China on American Airlines, more than 1,200 people took advantage of it. This week, federal regulators announced that those tickets would be honored.
It all started on St. Patrick’s Day, when a technical error made tickets from select U.S. cities to Shanghai or Beijing, which would normally sell for anywhere from $400 to $5,000, available for free or $20.
The glitch only lasted from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET, but that was enough time for news of the fares to spread on social media. A total of 1,194 reservations were made: 589 of them…
Read the rest of this story from our partners at NBC News.
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