Elana Greeff was left in disbelief when the Qantas tickets she had bought her family had suddenly disappeared the night before their flight, due to an “error”.
It had been years since Ms Greeff had seen her father, brother, his wife and two children so when borders opened, the 61-year-old wasted no time booking their flights.
About six months ago, the mother-of-two, from Kiama in Sydney, booked her 87-year-old father’s ticket via the Qantas website, but when she tried to do the same for her brother’s family, she claims the site kept showing an “error” message.
She managed to make the booking with a Qantas customer service agent over the phone.
But the only problem was, it was never ticketed, with Ms Greeff having to pay about $17,000 – roughly $6000 more than what she thought she had paid. Qantas has since contacted her to offer to refund the difference.
Ms Greeff said the booking from Johannesburg to Sydney was cancelled the night before the flight on December 19.
“I got a booking number with the passengers names and everything, so I assumed it was all fine,” Ms Greeff told news.com.au.
She said her credit card details were taken over the phone and she was even sent an itinerary stating the booking was “confirmed”.
“I was also able to go online and manage the booking, picking their seats and entering their passport details.
“The reason I booked early was to get a good deal.”
Ms Greeff paid roughly $11,000 for four economy and premium economy tickets, but later found out funds were never debited from her account.
“On the 18th of December I got two text messages to say online check-in is now open,” she said. “I forwarded those messages to my brother in South Africa but when he went online to get the boarding passes, there was an error message.”
After calling a customer service agent, they were informed her the tickets were cancelled.
“They said they sent messages, which nobody got. They send me emails every day of my life but I got nothing about that,” Ms Greeff said.
“They told my brother it was some error or glitch in the system.”
Ms Greeff then phoned customer service again and was reportedly told by an agent “the system does that sometimes” and “I am very sorry”.
She said she hadn’t realised the money wasn’t taken out of her account as she had large sums going in and out while booking not just her family’s trip, but her own for later this year to her home country of South Africa.
“It was shame on me for not realising, but after I received the confirmation and booking details, I thought everything was fine,” Ms Greeff explained.
The 67-year-old was forced to pay a total of around $17,000 for four new tickets on the same flight which didn’t include the premium tickets she originally thought she paid for.
“I had to pay because dad can’t fly alone and my brother and his family were all ready to come, it was the night before the flight,” Ms Greeff explained.
News.com.au understands Ms Greeff was sent a booking confirmation (meaning her booking was ‘reserved’), but Qantas customer service agents didn’t correctly ticket her booking.
“We sincerely apologise to Ms Greeff for this experience and have contacted her to refund the fare difference,” a Qantas spokesperson said.
After months of back-and-forth emails and time spent over the phone, Ms Greeff said Qantas had initially offered her 3000 points.
“That’s worth about $20,” she said.
“I am quite disappointed. We have always flown Qantas,” Ms Greeff added.
Adam Glezer, from Consumer Champion, who has also been in touch with Qantas on behalf of Ms Greeff said she came to him “distressed” over the situation.
“[Because] she had to pay an increased amount for her tickets. In addition, some tickets were downgraded from premium economy to economy.”
Mr Glezer said it’s “unnecessarily stressful and time-consuming” for customers when their flights are cancelled at the last minute.
“This can result in them having to organise alternative travel arrangements at a much higher price,” he said.
A similar situation recently unfolded when a Melbourne man’s around-the-world ticket jumped from $15,000 to $21,000 following a ticketing issue.
A Qantas spokesperson told news.com.au the airline is rolling out new technology and processes which will allow them to direct complex customer requests to more experienced agents to ensure issues can be resolved quickly.
“Occasionally things will still fall short, as they did before Covid, but we’re working hard to keep improving our performance for customers,” the spokesperson said.
In the past year, Qantas has hired more than 1000 new contact centre employees.