Qantas double charges customer for $40,000 - then adds insult to injury

[ferntree]

This:

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/qantas-customer-sees-more-than-40000-doubledebited-by-qantas-after-flight-debacle/news-story/e439912e1360c98071a69079cf8c6a78

 

[kyle]

Really don't know why they have to add the LTG bit in. Entitled much?

 

[sqrt()]

After delaying and cancelling her initial overseas holiday, Ms Johnson made a second attempt to purchase two business class tickets to Honolulu

Fool me once... etc

 

[Scr77]

[email protected]

Email address from bottom of article. Good starting point for the next person done over by Qantas.

 

[ChrisMars]

I find this article poorly written, not on focus, way too long, confusing, and I am not sure what too think. Can't be bother reading it a second time, left me with the feeling that

- LTG entitlement doesn't seem to help
- Charged transaction vs pending transaction? It's confusing at best, maybe misleading
- Claim that "son wouldn't have survive similar situation"... seem far fetched. I would imagine not many son have a 40k limit credit card limit, and if so, they probably will manage to survive a few weeks without credit card spending capacity.

That's weird cause I like a good bashing on Qantas.

 

[stm1sydney]

Reinforces my theory that AJ doesn't care and QF won't change because QF customers keep coming back for more despite the treatment meted out to them (for some reason unknown to me). Kudos to AJ.

 

[Blackadder]

Really don't know why they have to add the LTG bit in. Entitled much?

So she wants a automatic LTG for the double charges, which were all reimbursed? Not going to happen.

 

[UP4014]

OK the dollar amounts are larger than most, but a booking mess up that's corrected.

 

[Princess Fiona]

The compo face says it all really.
She’s been offered a free flight change, reimbursement of interest fees incurred and $2K travel voucher which under the circumstances is actually pretty decent.
No way in the world is she getting LTG, compo face or not.

 

[kpro]

I think this is article is a bit much. I've had plenty of payment issues with other parties. Most recently being double charged to the wrong card by a hotel. Sometimes there are IT issues, which may even be related to the payment processor.

My reccomendation would be to use a credit card for such high value transactions, so that payments which are pending or on hold do not subtract from your available bank balance.

Not sure how this entitles the person to LTG status either, a $2000 voucher seems more then fair as good will compensation to me.

 

[astrosly]

"Although Ms Johnson is no longer out of pocket for the double-debit payments, she believes she is entitled to lifetime Gold Status in Qantas’ Frequent Flyer Program."

hahaaaahahaaaa <wipes tear>
Good lord, entitled to lifetime Gold? If she had asked for one year it may have been reasonable but lifetime? Sheesh. People have to fly many, many times over many, many years to get that level and dealing with Qantas for all those years. How stressful is that?

 

[Danger]

"Although Ms Johnson is no longer out of pocket for the double-debit payments, she believes she is entitled to lifetime Gold Status in Qantas’ Frequent Flyer Program."

hahaaaahahaaaa <wipes tear>
Good lord, entitled to lifetime Gold? If she had asked for one year it may have been reasonable but lifetime? Sheesh. People have to fly many, many times over many, many years to get that level and dealing with Qantas for all those years. How stressful is that?

Ha. Good point. It's not so much the comping, but the fact she'd avoid years of customer service hell with Qantas. Come on, lady. Do your time like the rest of us.

 

[lovestotravel]

Using debit cards and bank accounts to pay for transactions
No never
Use a credit card and chargeback when needed

 

[oz_mark]

Using debit cards and bank accounts to pay for transactions
No never
Use a credit card and chargeback when needed

You can do chargebacks on debit cards. But as wth credit cards, you do have to engage with the vendor first.

 

[kpro]

Yup, the use of a credit card here is to prevent your savings being tied up with large pending transactions. I'm even surprised that a second charge went through, meaning the person had that much money available in the account directly linked to their debit card. I keep minimal funds available in my transaction account with most in a seperate account.

The issue as per the article - "the family’s “everyday” account was frozen, and they were unable to access their funds or cover living expenses" and "At one point she had three lots of $13,431.48 pending across three different cards, totalling $40,294.44"

 

[Pushka]

[email protected]

Email address from bottom of article. Good starting point for the next person done over by Qantas.

This needs to be a ‘stickie!’ My credit card was done over last week. I am a bit tetchy about this kind of thing now.

 

[RichardMEL]

for me the whole story (as written) is dodgy and has some entitlement. I mean you have someone forking out for expensive J fares to HNL (which is fine) but then claiming oh most people wouldn't survive this.. well most people (who wouldn't "survive") wouldn't be buying those J fares now would they? So......??

To me it was acknowledged that the initial issue was due to a third party and not QF's fault and was resolved so.. OK?

and the rest seems to me like she booked again and again with large pending amounts on the accounts.. I kind of lost interest in trying to figure out why she would keep trying the same thing again with different accounts - specially for what seem like non sale J fares to HNL and then wondering why the accounts were tied up - and the holds were released within the standard kind of time that they seem to take. It's a PITA< but really to me she created the problem by doing the same thing agaiin.. and again (I'm unclear) to rack up the >$40.

Not that QF ticketing and all is not an issue. We all know there are problems.. but seems Ms "Gimme LTG" totally contributed to the problems. and well chutzpah for trying on the LTG claim.. seems QF gave her some reasonable effort to compensate and she's definitely not out of pocket so.....

I can imagine joe average strggling with cost of living pressures, bills and everything seeing someone forking out $13k a few times then getting locked out as like being in another world.

This is not quite the "saved up for 5 years to take the kids on that dream holiday to disney" type thing.. for me it comes across as entitled - specially by demanding unreasonable (imo) things.

Perhaps she booked HA instead to HNL. Probably cheaper

 

[dajop]

This is not quite the "saved up for 5 years to take the kids on that dream holiday to disney" type thing.. for me it comes across as entitled - specially by demanding unreasonable (imo) things.

Yeh, agree. Nowhere as bad as many of the stories we've come across here.

My only charitable thought about the LTG thing - is maybe she's well along the journey to LTG already, and whilst we may think it's unreasonable, maybe (who knows) she's sitting on 13,500 SC's already, so she didn't see at as quite so entitled, and the journalist wouldn't have a clue.

 

[Rich]

I find this article poorly written, not on focus, way too long, confusing, and I am not sure what too think.

news.com.au is the worst of sites. I would have thought journalism was tough to get into, but maybe not.
I find it interesting the mother refers to her son as "they". I wonder if it is an exact quote or the journalist decided to write that.

 

[jpp42]

I find it interesting the mother refers to her son as "they"

Not uncommon these days, many gen-Z or younger people prefer this pronoun, whether they are nonbinary or just prefer not to use gendered pronouns as a sign of being an ally. Good that the mother and journalist are respecting it, if that's the situation.