Jetstar customers angry complaints not getting through

More anger over Jetstar's $99 Auckland-Singapore offer has emerged, this time over failure to honour flights booked by customers who encountered a fault on the website.

Jetstar said this week that a "technical error" prevented a "very small number" of customers from completing their bookings during a promotion on Monday night for the service, which starts next March.

Customers were upset that, after entering their credit card details and choosing their seat numbers, they were met with a message saying "this is a duplicate of an existing booking" which would not allow them to complete their transaction.

Jetstar said staff were contacting those affected by the glitch and honouring their bookings.

However, seven people contacted the Weekend Herald to say they were frustrated the airline had not been in touch.

A Jetstar spokeswoman said yesterday that the airline had been contacting passengers - emphasising they were dealing with customers who had "already contacted us".

"As with any sale, the number of sale fares available is limited, and they have now been fully allocated. Anyone who contacts us now is advised that the sale fares have been fully allocated.

"As a one-off gesture of good will, we allocated the small number of remaining sale fares to customers who experienced this error. This is unheard of in our industry. It is a sign of our commitment to our customers."

However, the customers say this is not good enough.

Most said that despite repeated attempts, they had not been able to get through to Jetstar's contact centre to report the error.

All said they were upset after getting excited about their cheap tickets and holidays, then finding themselves stressed out and unsure if their credit cards had been charged or not.

Wellington man Peter Woods was upset to miss out on flights he hoped to use for his wedding anniversary.

He waited until Wednesday before contacting Jetstar because he was not sure if his credit card had been charged, but became even more annoyed when the call centre told him they would not honour the purchase.

Rosiah Rohani said she was trying to book four flights for her family and, when no one answered her call, she sent an email and received an automatic response: "Please allow at least 15 business days for a response from one of our Customer Care analysts."

However, Brian Andersen said he was contacted by Jetstar, which honoured the $99 price and offered him his choice of dates to fly on.