In the early hours of Friday morning, Qantas offered First Class sale fares from Sydney and Melbourne to Los Angeles for as little as $4,299 return.
As the normal First Class sale price on this route is closer to $19,000 return, this was clearly a mistake. Unsurprisingly, Qantas pulled the cheap First Class airfares from sale within a few hours. Nonetheless, it appeared to be such a good deal that quite a few people jumped on it.
The bad news, for those who made bookings, is that Qantas will not be providing First Class flights at the lower price. Nor does it have to. According to section 3.12 of the Qantas Conditions of Carriage:
Sometimes mistakes are made and incorrect fares can be displayed. If there is an error or mistake that is reasonably obvious in the fare price and you have a Ticket and/or a confirmed booking, we may:
(a) cancel the Ticket and/or booking;
(b) provide you with a refund in accordance with 14 (Refunds);
(c) offer you a new Ticket at the correct fare price as at the time of the booking; and
(d) in the event that you accept the offer and pay the correct fare issue you with a new Ticket.
But there is a silver lining!
Qantas offering Business Class instead
By Friday evening, Qantas had started writing to customers who’d booked these very cheap First Class tickets to Los Angeles to offer them Business Class flights instead. The message to customers said:
We are contacting you regarding a pricing error on Qantas.com for some flights between Australia and the USA. Due to a coding error, incorrect First Class fares were published for some flights by mistake. We have identified that your booking was affected by this error and are contacting you with an important update about your booking. We sincerely apologise for this error.
Instead of cancelling and refunding your booking, on this occasion, as a gesture of goodwill, Qantas will be rebooking you in the Business Class cabin on the same flight for the same price you have already paid. This represents a significant discount on our standard Business Class fares. We anticipate this will take us a few days to work through.
Those who don’t wish to accept the Business Class downgrade offer are eligible for a full refund.
This seems like a good compromise
$4,299 for return Qantas Business Class flights to Los Angeles is still not a bad deal. Though the pricing is certainly not as sharp as it would be for First Class, this is still a reasonable discount over Qantas’ usual Business Class fares to the United States.
In recent years, airlines have become less inclined to honour obvious error fares. Although Qantas hasn’t exactly honoured these ones, either, many AFF members who booked are happy enough to accept Business Class for the price paid. Many other airlines would have simply cancelled and refunded the tickets, without offering any other options.
Why were these cheap fares available in the first place?
It’s not exactly clear why Qantas offered such cheap First Class flights to Los Angeles on its website in the first place. Qantas simply told customers that it was “due to a coding error”. Perhaps Qantas intended to load fares at these prices for one of its Economy or Premium Economy fare classes?
The Classic Plus reward pricing did not reflect the cheap First Class airfares listed on the Qantas website, further indicating the airline did not intend to sell tickets at those prices.
The last time Qantas offered widespread error fares on its website was on 1 July 2015. On this day, many AFF members booked return tickets to the USA and Europe for just a few hundred dollars. This mistake was caused by Qantas removing fuel surcharges from its commercial airfares, then failing to update the base fares accordingly for half a day after this happened.
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