A Brisbane man who booked four cheap first class flights to the US due to an error on the Qantas website was shocked to be hit with a bill of more than $100,000 after the national carrier promised to rebook customers in business class at no additional cost.
Qantas sold hundreds of first class fares between Australia and the US up to 85 per cent cheaper than usual in the early hours of August 23 by mistake.
The airline, which under its terms and conditions can cancel and refund customers if there is “an error or mistake that is reasonably apparent in the price of the fare”, instead promised to reassign passengers to the class of business at no additional cost “as a kind gesture. will”.
This meant that affected customers were still scoring seats up to 65 percent cheaper than the usual business class fare on offer.
However, Aji Paul and his family, who had started planning their holiday and informing friends from the States who would be coming to visit, were devastated when the airline failed.
Paul had booked four first-class return flights to Dallas, Texas for his family next year for about $17,500 and used Qantas’ “Book Now, Pay Later” option, paying $100 to hold the flights.
Like those who have already paid in full, Mr. Paul received a promising email.
“As a goodwill gesture, Qantas will rebook you in the business class cabin on the same flight for the same price you have already paid,” Qantas Customer Care said.
The email stated that no action was required from Mr. Paul and he would send the updated tickets.
But after no further updates, Paul says he discovered four days later that the total payment due had increased from $17,465 to $100,121.
He told news.com.au it was “really shocking” but thought it could have been “another pricing error”.
Paul said he immediately called Qantas, which was the start of a “frustrating” week of numerous calls to various customer service representatives.
“It’s really scary because unfortunately every person I talk to gives a completely different story,” he said.
“They have no consistency in what [information] are giving.”
He said some representatives promised a solution that didn’t happen, while others were confused and unable to help.
He said he was eventually told to submit a complaint form and did so, before receiving a call last Friday asking if he wanted to pay $56,000 for the business class flights.
Mr Paul said he would have understood if he had simply been informed there was a pricing error and they were unable to honor it under the terms and conditions of sale. He said he would have accepted a refund on his deposit.
“That would have been the end of the story,” he said.
But it was the various stories from staff who were unable to answer questions about whether they knew about the website error that left him “really frustrated”, he said.
The matter remained unresolved for two weeks until news.com.au contacted the airline for this story on Tuesday.
Qantas has promised to provide business class seats at a starting price of $4,366.14 per person.
“We apologize to Mr Paul for the inconvenience and are contacting him to resolve the outstanding issues with his booking,” a Qantas spokesman said.
“According to other customers who tried to book First Class fares published in error, we will rebook his flight in Business at no extra cost or offer a full refund.”
News.com.au understands that Qantas is not aware of any other processing errors and all other affected bookings have been updated with new tickets, including those that used Book Now, Pay Later.
Last month, Qantas Group posted an underlying profit before tax of $2.08 billion for the 2023-2024 financial year, down 16 percent from a year earlier.
It was the company’s first full-year results with Vanessa Hudson at the helm, after she took over the top job in September when Joyce brought her retirement two months early so the airline could “move forward with its renewal ” under new management.
The new chief executive described the results as “strong” but admitted they were lower, attributing the decline to lower flight prices and lower freight revenue, as well as greater investment in customers ($230 million).
Ms Hudson said it was essential to “strike the right balance” between customer and employee satisfaction, and shareholder delivery.
She said both Qantas and budget airline Jetstar had seen “significant increases in satisfaction”.
When Ms Hudson became CEO, she promised to put customers first in efforts to repair the airline’s reputation.
At the beginning of this month it was revealed that Mr. Joyce would have his bonuses cut by more than $9 million and that the airline had committed to implementing all 23 recommendations made in the review of key governance issues.
Bonuses of Mr. Joyce was suspended amid mounting pressure from investors after a series of controversies, including the illegal dismissal of 1,700 workers, the sale of tickets on already canceled flights and allegations of anti-competitive behaviour.
The airline will pay about $20 million in compensation to customers affected by its flight cancellation policy after admitting it misled passengers. That’s in addition to a $100 million civil penalty.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had launched legal action against the airline in August 2023, alleging it sold tickets for 8,000 “ghost flights” (already cancelled) between May and July 2022.
#Family #hit #shock #flight #bill #airline #takes #goodwill #offer
Image Source : nypost.com