Yahoo Finance Qantas customers furious after being charged twice for airfares
Qantas has been hit with several complaints from customers concerned the airline charged them twice for airfares.
Gary Butterfield was one of several customers who spotted the double charge, with the airline appearing to charge him $565.17 twice when he booked a flight last month.
He then proceeded to wait on the phone for two hours before speaking to a customer service operator about the issue.
A Qantas spokesperson told Yahoo Finance a handful of customers had been caught in a system glitch causing a delay on pre-authorised funds.
The airline stressed customers had not actually been charged twice for the flights and that the pre-authorised funds would be released within three to seven days.
The spokesperson also said the airline was “urgently” working with its banking and payment partners to resolve the malfunction.
“If customers need the funds sooner, they should contact their banks to request a payment release,” the airline spokesperson said.
Another customer complained about being double charged back in December and waiting months to get the funds back.
It should be $455 worse than reported. Still waiting for refund for being double charged back in dec.
— Sam Nowicki (@SamNowicki2022) March 2, 2022
Qantas customer beef escalates
Charging mishaps were not the only gripes directed at the airline.
Several customers have complained on social media about long wait times - more than seven hours in some instances - to speak to an operator, as well as long delays to receive refunds they were entitled to.
@Qantas I spent another 4.25 hours on hold today waiting to speak to a customer service agent. Put that together with my 7.25 hour call on 15th March so that’s 11.5 hrs of my time at say $50/hr of my time (which is cheap) So $575. Where do I send the invoice for my time? #qantas pic.twitter.com/RmUWVAmW9O
— Trindy Adler (@Trindy) April 6, 2022
6 months later and I’m still waiting for my @Qantas refund. Never fly with them, it’s not worth the inevitable hours lost on terrible customer service or the money you apparently never get back
— Ellen Marshall (@lenmarsh) April 6, 2022
One customer complained about waiting six months to get a refund.
More than 1,300 people have signed an online petition demanding better customer service from the airline.
The petition pointed to other customer-service blunders, including one woman who claimed she spent a total of 29 hours, over five days, on hold to change holiday flights due to lockdowns.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said Qantas staff had been struggling to deal with a threefold increase in the number of calls coming through to its call centres.
“I do apologise for anybody trying to get through to our call centre at the moment,” Joyce said.
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