Qantas booking drama: Passenger told she missed flight during Melbourne theatre trip in error

Sydney, Australia - February 12, 2019: Jetstar Airbus A320 flying behind Qantas aircraft.

Halfway through watching a show at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre, Jess Harrison turned on her phone during the intermission to check her messages. The text she and her friend received was a show-stopper: “Your plane QF157 to Auckland is now boarding.”

Confused and flustered, the pair had not been expecting to travel back to New Zealand until October 9, three days later. They left the performance to check their tickets and work out what was going on.

“We had to leave the show 45 minutes in to contact Qantas again to find out why we received the message.”

The 30-year-old from Auckland had been taking a trip with a friend to Victoria to watch Moulin Rouge and relax among Melbourne’s cultural attractions. But their break in the Australian city took a dramatic turn for all the wrong reasons.

Contacting the airline about the tickets, which had been booked under her friend’s name, they were met with further confusion. Qantas’ customer service told them that their flight had been moved and, secondly, that they hadn’t paid for their return flights.

Harrison told the Herald they had problems with the booking from the start.

Having bought the flights the month before, Harrison was contacted by her bank on September 18 to tell her they had been charged again for the flights. In screenshots shared with the Herald, the duplicate charge appears to have been refunded in two instalments later that day.

“We received a notification from my bank advising that an additional $937.18 was taken from the nominated debit card,” she said.

Like many other travellers, Harrison had Qantas flight credits stored from the pandemic period, which she wanted to use for the trip to Australia. Having removed the expiry date on $570 million of Covid-19 credits held by the national carrier, the airline has recently been encouraging travellers to use their balances. However, Harrison found it was not possible to pay for the tickets partially in credit via the Qantas website, so she had placed her booking for the trip over the phone on September 10.

Having been refunded for the extra charge and flights booked for October 5 and 9, the travellers hoped that was the last unpleasant surprise from the booking.

With their holiday and evening performance of Moulin Rouge interrupted by this travel drama, they spent the rest of their trip trying to fix the error.

Eventually, the day before they were due to return, Harrison and her friend received a confirmation email for the return flight QF157 on October 9.

Only, upon arrival at Melbourne International Airport, the agent at the check in desk said there was a problem with their new booking.

“The customer service rep … advised us that he was having trouble with our tickets.”

Harrison and her friend were asked why they had not boarded their flight on October 6, which led them to explain the whole rigmarole all over.

By this time it was too late for them to catch their flight at its 6.55pm departure time and they were offered a later departure at 11.25pm, meaning they did not get back to Auckland until the following morning.

“Both myself and [my friend] were expected back at our place of employment the morning of October 10 at 8.30am, after only landing in Auckland around 5am.”

Harrison said she and her friend were offered only a $15 airport voucher each as compensation. As far as they were concerned, this did not go anywhere near far enough, given the disruption to their holiday, the additional cost of an extra night’s worth of parking at Auckland Airport and two $350 tickets for a show they had to walk out of halfway through.

“The experience myself and my friend have had with Qantas is absolutely appalling,” she said.

“In total, we spent over five hours on the phone with Qantas over the space of four days trying to sort out errors with our return flights at no fault of our own.”

The pair were told by Qantas the return flight was re-booked for the October 6 after the travellers got in contact regarding the charge on the bank card. Harrison says neither she nor her friend were made aware of the change in booking, and their tickets and the Qantas app still showed their return flight was on October 9.

A spokeswoman for the airline told the Herald the customer had been quoted a price in Australian dollars, which led to a higher-than-expected price, but the accounts team identified that only one charge was made. Qantas suspected insufficient funds were available when trying to charge the customer.

Harrison denies this, saying there was sufficient funds for both charges to be taken on the 10th and 18th, which is why she was eager to get the additional $937 refunded as soon as possible.

Any difficulty taking funds or apparent duplicate charges were likely due to the payment processor.

“$180 represents the difference in the currency exchange rate,” said Qantas.

“We acknowledge, however, that a mistake was made with the customer’s return travel date and apologise for this error.”

The return date had been falsely recorded when the customers phoned to question the unexpected charge. The airline says they have now offered to refund this $180 fare difference and Frequent Flyer points as a goodwill gesture.

Harrison, whose last trip to Australia was 16 years ago, says that she is unlikely to fly with the airline.

“We both reject the offer of the air points as we won’t be flying with Qantas again - therefore, they would go to waste.”

The passenger’s bank was not able to provide comment.