Refunds for flyers after airline’s overpricing error
Alex Mitchell and Farid Farid |
An error in Virgin Australia’s booking system has overcharged thousands of flyers, with consumer advocates blaming the lack of competition for travellers being taken for a ride.
About 61,000 travellers will get partial refunds averaging $55 for the error that occurred between April 2020 and March 2025.
The airline said it had policies that determine what additional costs a customer will be charged when they make a change to their itinerary.
“We recently found that in some instances … bookings were repriced in a way that does not align with our policy and we are refunding all impacted guests for that amount,” a Virgin spokesman said.
“We sincerely apologise to those affected guests and have launched (a program) under which all eligible guests are being proactively contacted to process their refunds.”
All those affected will be contacted by Virgin but will need to lodge a claim to receive their refund.
They will have a year to make a claim, with the airline committing to donate any unclaimed money to charity.
But consumer advocate Adam Glezer described the process as laborious and putting the onus back on travellers.
“They (Virgin) should be going out of their way to ensure that the refund process is a seamless exercise for their customers that they have overcharged,” he told AAP.
“This issue should have been noticed, disclosed and rectified a lot earlier.”
Mr Glezer also noted “consumer protection was brittle at best”, with eye-watering prices charged for domestic flights between both major carriers and the crowding out of competitors such as Rex Airlines.
“Having a duopoly in this country is most definitely detrimental to the Australian flying public.”
Virgin has engaged the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and will work with the watchdog on anything else necessary to make up for the error.
The airline recently sold a 25 per cent stake in its business to Qatar Airways.
The consumer watchdog ticked off a five-year partnership that was set to double flights between Australia and Doha.
Virgin claimed the deal could be worth $3 billion to the national tourism economy across the period.
That approval came more than two years after the federal government rejected Qatar’s application to run an extra 21 weekly flights into Australia, saying the change could cause problems for local carrier Qantas.
AAP
