Every traveller’s nightmare in a nutshell: you’re planning a holiday and things seem to be going smoothly... until suddenly, they aren’t.

One small mistake or error in an airline flight’s booking process can cost you both time and money that you just don’t have to spare, as this story highlights.

Carol Johnson’s ordeal started when she scheduled a holiday for herself, her husband, and her US-based son in March via Qantas.

She booked five flights online totalling $16,357.33.

Nothing was amiss, but what she didn’t realise was that she was charged twice for each of those transactions, adding up to an extra $16,357.33 being wrongly taken from her account!

Carol only discovered something was wrong when she went to buy a coffee a few days later and her card was declined at the register. (Add ‘flags unwanted transactions’ to the list of coffee’s benefits… kidding!)

What came next might be a scenario some of you are all too familiar with: she spent the next five days repeatedly calling Qantas’ customer service, at many times being held in queue for hours.

Carol spent many days disputing double charges made after she booked flights with Qantas. Credit: Daily Mail

To add to this nightmare scenario of Carol’s, her bank accounts were also frozen — so imagine her stress at this point!

Eventually, everything ended up being resolved with her money returned, but due to the issue with the charges, her family decided to entirely cancel their plans.

By this point, the story should be wrapping up already… but nope!

Four months later in July, Carol again booked two business-class tickets for Hawaii worth $13,431.48.

Surely, this time would go over well for her, right?

But after some time, Carol received an email from Qantas notifying her of them ‘having difficulty processing’ her two tickets.

At once, she contacted the airline, which was when she was told that her payment was declined.

To get around the issue, Carol opted to use her husband’s debit card. She was told by Qantas customer service that this time, her payment went through.

You really won’t believe this — but she had this problem repeated three more times!

At one point, she even had $13,431.48 in payment pending across three cards, which later on led to $40,294.44 in frozen cash on her end.

Carol was unfortunately subjected to double-charging of bookings frequently by Qantas. Credit: BBC

After another round of back and forth with the airline, Carol had her issues resolved by mid-August when one transaction proceeded (about time!) and the excess money she paid was returned.

Much to her horror, weeks later in September, she found out she was charged again for her two Hawaii tickets even though she settled everything in August!

(At this point, if you’re fuming, we’d like to issue a friendly reminder to breathe. Okay, ready?)

Once again, she reached Qantas’ customer service, and she also got her money back — but not without a gruelling twelve-day marathon of getting in touch with the airline.

So what’s the deal with the airline?!

Key Takeaways

• A Qantas customer was wrongly charged nearly $40,000 when she tried to book a holiday, and it took her months to resolve the issue with the airline.
• The issues began when she was double-charged for her flights, and she had to cancel the holiday as a result.
• Qantas eventually refunded her, but the ordeal led to her being charged twice for the same flights, and she only received the refund after 12 days of dealing with customer service.
• Qantas offered her a $2,000 voucher as a goodwill gesture, but she is requesting upgraded frequent flyer status instead.

If you ask Carol, she wouldn’t know — she said she is yet to receive a clear explanation as to why she was a victim of repeat double payments.

Qantas has apologised to her though and even offered her a ‘goodwill’ voucher worth $2,000.

In a statement, the airline said: 'She should not have been charged twice in August and September and we returned the funds to her as soon as we became aware.'

'Authorisations for purchases sits with the credit card provider, and Qantas has worked with them to resolve the issue and reimburse the customer.'

But after everything she went through, Carol wants no less from the airline than a Gold Status upgrade in its frequent flyer program!

'I'm not asking for money. I just wanted them to acknowledge that they buggered things up,' Carol said.

Not just once, at that!

Well, with stories like these, perhaps it’s no surprise that Qantas recently won the top spot at CHOICE’s Shonky Awards.

Speaking of the airline, you might also want to check out this story of a pre-flight brawl that happened on a Bali-Sydney flight, or this frequent flyer’s complaint after he was refused a meal of his choice.

Source: YouTube/9News Australia​

 

[Ricci]

And they wonder why they topped the Shonky awards this year!!

 

[hdhensel]

A couple of years ago at the beginning of the Covid sham, I had booked a flight to Xiamen, China, for my annual lectures. Cutting a long story short, I was advised not to go, flight was cancelled and Qantas notified me in writing that I had the choice of a refund or a year for the flight to be held over. I could see that this virus sham could well last for more than a year so I chose the refund that had been promised in writing. But then Qantas was in a bit of a financial crisis and the staff were obviously instructed to play it hard. Eventually, after all attempts to fob me off, I had to resort to Small Claims action. I eventually got my fare back (but not my other charges) with the girl ringing to tell me that Qantas had "inadvertently" deposited my refund into my account but would not be pursuing recovery. A carefully selected choice of words ! How to make enemies

 

[DEL boy]

And they wonder why they topped the Shonky awards this year!!

$2,000 out of how many Billions profit. Bums up Cyril.

 

[relljube]

And still Alan Joyce gets his millionaire salary plus millions in bonus.

 

[mark godwin]

A couple of years ago at the beginning of the Covid sham, I had booked a flight to Xiamen, China, for my annual lectures. Cutting a long story short, I was advised not to go, flight was cancelled and Qantas notified me in writing that I had the choice of a refund or a year for the flight to be held over. I could see that this virus sham could well last for more than a year so I chose the refund that had been promised in writing. But then Qantas was in a bit of a financial crisis and the staff were obviously instructed to play it hard. Eventually, after all attempts to fob me off, I had to resort to Small Claims action. I eventually got my fare back (but not my other charges) with the girl ringing to tell me that Qantas had "inadvertently" deposited my refund into my account but would not be pursuing recovery. A carefully selected choice of words ! How to make enemies

covid sham ?????????????????????????????? tell that to the families of the millions of dead .

 

[ElleJay]

A couple of years ago at the beginning of the Covid sham, I had booked a flight to Xiamen, China, for my annual lectures. Cutting a long story short, I was advised not to go, flight was cancelled and Qantas notified me in writing that I had the choice of a refund or a year for the flight to be held over. I could see that this virus sham could well last for more than a year so I chose the refund that had been promised in writing. But then Qantas was in a bit of a financial crisis and the staff were obviously instructed to play it hard. Eventually, after all attempts to fob me off, I had to resort to Small Claims action. I eventually got my fare back (but not my other charges) with the girl ringing to tell me that Qantas had "inadvertently" deposited my refund into my account but would not be pursuing recovery. A carefully selected choice of words ! How to make enemies

Covid sham??? You clearly haven't had Covid then! My husband and I were really sick with it for over 3 weeks, then he got long Covid and 6 months later had to have surgery! Thankfully he is finally on the road to recovery.

 

[hdhensel]

I have !

 

[Jay Jay]

Every traveller’s nightmare in a nutshell: you’re planning a holiday and things seem to be going smoothly... until suddenly, they aren’t.

One small mistake or error in an airline flight’s booking process can cost you both time and money that you just don’t have to spare, as this story highlights.

Carol Johnson’s ordeal started when she scheduled a holiday for herself, her husband, and her US-based son in March via Qantas.

She booked five flights online totalling $16,357.33.

Nothing was amiss, but what she didn’t realise was that she was charged twice for each of those transactions, adding up to an extra $16,357.33 being wrongly taken from her account!

Carol only discovered something was wrong when she went to buy a coffee a few days later and her card was declined at the register. (Add ‘flags unwanted transactions’ to the list of coffee’s benefits… kidding!)

What came next might be a scenario some of you are all too familiar with: she spent the next five days repeatedly calling Qantas’ customer service, at many times being held in queue for hours.

View attachment 8487

Carol spent many days disputing double charges made after she booked flights with Qantas. Credit: Daily Mail

To add to this nightmare scenario of Carol’s, her bank accounts were also frozen — so imagine her stress at this point!

Eventually, everything ended up being resolved with her money returned, but due to the issue with the charges, her family decided to entirely cancel their plans.

By this point, the story should be wrapping up already… but nope!

Four months later in July, Carol again booked two business-class tickets for Hawaii worth $13,431.48.

Surely, this time would go over well for her, right?

But after some time, Carol received an email from Qantas notifying her of them ‘having difficulty processing’ her two tickets.

At once, she contacted the airline, which was when she was told that her payment was declined.

To get around the issue, Carol opted to use her husband’s debit card. She was told by Qantas customer service that this time, her payment went through.

You really won’t believe this — but she had this problem repeated three more times!

At one point, she even had $13,431.48 in payment pending across three cards, which later on led to $40,294.44 in frozen cash on her end.

View attachment 8486

Carol was unfortunately subjected to double-charging of bookings frequently by Qantas. Credit: BBC

After another round of back and forth with the airline, Carol had her issues resolved by mid-August when one transaction proceeded (about time!) and the excess money she paid was returned.

Much to her horror, weeks later in September, she found out she was charged again for her two Hawaii tickets even though she settled everything in August!

(At this point, if you’re fuming, we’d like to issue a friendly reminder to breathe. Okay, ready?)

Once again, she reached Qantas’ customer service, and she also got her money back — but not without a gruelling twelve-day marathon of getting in touch with the airline.

So what’s the deal with the airline?!

Key Takeaways

• A Qantas customer was wrongly charged nearly $40,000 when she tried to book a holiday, and it took her months to resolve the issue with the airline.
• The issues began when she was double-charged for her flights, and she had to cancel the holiday as a result.
• Qantas eventually refunded her, but the ordeal led to her being charged twice for the same flights, and she only received the refund after 12 days of dealing with customer service.
• Qantas offered her a $2,000 voucher as a goodwill gesture, but she is requesting upgraded frequent flyer status instead.

If you ask Carol, she wouldn’t know — she said she is yet to receive a clear explanation as to why she was a victim of repeat double payments.

Qantas has apologised to her though and even offered her a ‘goodwill’ voucher worth $2,000.

In a statement, the airline said: 'She should not have been charged twice in August and September and we returned the funds to her as soon as we became aware.'

'Authorisations for purchases sits with the credit card provider, and Qantas has worked with them to resolve the issue and reimburse the customer.'

But after everything she went through, Carol wants no less from the airline than a Gold Status upgrade in its frequent flyer program!

'I'm not asking for money. I just wanted them to acknowledge that they buggered things up,' Carol said.

Not just once, at that!

Well, with stories like these, perhaps it’s no surprise that Qantas recently won the top spot at CHOICE’s Shonky Awards.

Speaking of the airline, you might also want to check out this story of a pre-flight brawl that happened on a Bali-Sydney flight, or this frequent flyer’s complaint after he was refused a meal of his choice.

Source: YouTube/9News Australia​

Why would anyone continue using a company that was so inept?? I do not understand the motivation here. All well and good to support Australian businesses but not to your enormous detriment. That's what competition is all about. Use your feet.