Is Qantas deliberately giving incorrect refunds?

[wandering_albatross]

Me: QFF Gold after almost a decade of continuous Platinum.

Issue: Booked UK to Aus return flights for me and family in mixed C/D during double status credit promotion but had to cancel 9 months after booking.

Qantas initially refunded the wrong amount (short by several thousand dollars). I had been worried about this based on other forum posts, so recorded my screen as I cancelled my flights, including the terms and conditions on the Qantas website at the time of cancellation (should have been a £150 cancellation fee per person).

Queue 6 weeks of phone calls, emails, and repeatedly being told that I was wrong and wouldn’t be getting a refund, only to be finally issued a correction refund and 10,000 QFF points as an apology. Every time I was told an internal Qantas policy dictated the refund amount, but I wasn’t allowed to access it. The website I referred the agents to was ‘wrong’ but no one could explain why.

Question: Is Qantas doing this deliberately? How many customers would simply give up and they pocket the profits? Is there something sinister at work? It makes me very reluctant to book with Qantas a long way in the future again.

Any similar experiences?

 

[ChrisMars]

This internall policy being referred to is a concern. If those agents follow that wrong policy, well they feel they do the correct thing, and it s a hard battle.
Plus the auto-refund from cancelling on the website should work too. Concerning.

I had to battle to get a partial tax refund on an award flight, changing LHR-SYD to NCE-LHR-SYD, which cancels the heavy UK departure taxes. The initial agent on the phone got it right, but never got the right money despite trying multiple time to discuss that refund. That is until they decided to listen to the recording. Weird world. Keeping track of payments, refunds and call logs is a necessity those days with Qantas.

 

[MH_fan]

One has to chase up the tax refunds as well. Cancelled an award ticket online. Points refunds didn't happen after a month so rang them and it was processed after a almost a week (when I was told it would happen straight away). Was also told that the taxes would be refunded in a few days. I'm still waiting 6 weeks later (10 weeks from original cancellation time)! Will have to call them again...

 

[Himeno]

I had a trip to NZ booked in 2021 while the AU/NZ covid travel bubble was open.
The Sydney got covid and NZ popped the bubble, so the trip was cancelled.
Took a year to get a reply about it from QF.
They refunded the points used for the booking and around 60% of the cash (points + pay booking). Still missing the rest of the cash.

 

[AIRwin]

Still missing the rest of the cash.

Paid on credit card?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Me: QFF Gold after almost a decade of continuous Platinum.

Issue: Booked UK to Aus return flights for me and family in mixed C/D during double status credit promotion but had to cancel 9 months after booking.

Qantas initially refunded the wrong amount (short by several thousand dollars). I had been worried about this based on other forum posts, so recorded my screen as I cancelled my flights, including the terms and conditions on the Qantas website at the time of cancellation (should have been a £150 cancellation fee per person).

Queue 6 weeks of phone calls, emails, and repeatedly being told that I was wrong and wouldn’t be getting a refund, only to be finally issued a correction refund and 10,000 QFF points as an apology. Every time I was told an internal Qantas policy dictated the refund amount, but I wasn’t allowed to access it. The website I referred the agents to was ‘wrong’ but no one could explain why.

Question: Is Qantas doing this deliberately? How many customers would simply give up and they pocket the profits? Is there something sinister at work? It makes me very reluctant to book with Qantas a long way in the future again.

Any similar experiences?

I don’t think many people would forego thousands of pounds/dollars… even tens or hundreds of $ or £!

But whatever the terms and conditions said at the time of booking - which you screenshotted - would be the ones that apply. Internal policies aren’t relevant and cannot override the information provided at the time of booking, directly to you.

Your case sounds frustrating, but there haven’t been widespread reports of similar occurrences here on AFF, which you would expect if it was happening repeatedly.

FWIW i had a cancelled flight due to weather and the refund was in my account the next day, including the credit card surcharge! This was only domestic however.

Compare to Virgin who refuse to refund the credit card surcharge, even through their website says they will when your refund is owed under Australian consumer law.

 

[Dr Ralph]

They've been doing this for years. Govt consumer departments only way to deal with it.

 

[gtrod]

It's pretty bad. You need to check your bank account weeks later to verify that the money is actually returned to your account.

I cancelled a booking earlier in the year. It was booked with Bpay, and needed to provide the reference number of the transaction and bank bsb/account. Premium agent said it might take a few weeks for money to appear back in bank account.

Soon after the call I received an email from qantas saying "Your Refund has been processed".

However months later realised money was never credited. Rang up to find out what had happened and agent said the refund department wanted to confirm the bank account details again.

There were no emails or communication from Qantas indicating that they wanted to check my account details. I had no clue that my refund wasn't really processed. My account details were exactly the same as had been given on the original call.

If I hadn't followed up I don't think anything would have ever appeared in my account.

 

[AIRwin]

Compare to Virgin who refuse to refund the credit card surcharge, even through their website says they will when your refund is owed under Australian consumer law.

Even after you pointed it out to them or made a complaint?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Even after you pointed it out to them or made a complaint?

Absolutely! 13 contacts with VA in total.

Call centre and supervisor acknowledged their website says the ‘CC fee is not refundable unless the refund is mandated by ACL’, but then referred to another section of the website which said ‘CC fees are not generally refundable’, and claimed the latter overrules the former. They also admitted and their system has no functionality to refund the CC fee, even under ACL.

 

[AIRwin]

Absolutely! 13 contacts with VA in total.

Call centre and supervisor acknowledged their website says the ‘CC fee is not refundable unless the refund is mandated by ACL’, but then referred to another section of the website which said ‘CC fees are not generally refundable’, and claimed the latter overrules the former. They also admitted and their system has no functionality to refund the CC fee, even under ACL.

Credit card chargeback?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Credit card chargeback?

Not possible for the CC fee alone!

I eventually got through to Brisbane head office who refunded the fee ‘as a goodwill gesture’. (Which doesn’t solve the problem!)

There could potentially be hundreds of thousands of customers out there who have not got the full refund they’re entitled to, although I suppose most people accept a new flight rather than seek a refund and take another airline?