In the early hours of Friday morning, Qantas mistakenly published an exceptionally low fare for first-class flights from Australia to the US. The deal offered great flexibility in terms of origins and destinations, but what truly stood out was the sharp price!
Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity. It’s always exciting to see if an airline will honour their “oopsie” or quietly refund the flights.
Personally, I booked a flight from Perth to Dallas via Sydney and LAX, returning in first class for a modest price of AU$4,300.
Similar deals were available from other cities in Australia to various destinations in the US, utilising American Airlines codeshare flights.
I assume these fares were live from around midnight until 7 AM Sydney time, when someone at Qantas HQ realised the mistake and pulled the sale.
Would Qantas honour the mistake?
A few hours went by before the emails started rolling out…
The bad news: Qantas would not be honouring the first-class seats. The good news: Qantas is rebooking customers who purchased these flights into business class for the same price.
Considering a return business class flight to the US usually costs around $10,000 or more, this is a pretty fair compensation.
Here’s what the email said:
“Your recent Qantas booking
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.
Next Steps
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.
There is no action required from you and an updated ticket will be sent to you at this email address.
If you do not wish to proceed with travel in our Business Class cabin, you are eligible for a full refund. You will receive a further email from us within 72 hours with information on how to obtain a refund. Please do not cancel your booking until you have heard from us.
We apologise for this error and thank you for your understanding.”
Summing Up
It’s encouraging to see Qantas honouring the tickets to some degree. I’m very curious how many first-class seats they sold, given that the fares were only online when most of the country was asleep, and the pricing of over $4,000 isn’t exactly “cheap.” Most people probably hesitated before deciding whether to buy, only for the fare to be pulled.
I’m also interested to see in which fare bucket these first-class tickets will be rebooked, as my flights were set to earn me a whopping 855 Qantas Status Credits.
Now that your paid fare was significantly adjsuted (downgraded) what is your next step?
Hi Greg, I’m still undecided at this stage. Qantas business class isn’t exactly exciting but there doesn’t seem to be a cut off date for getting a refund.
Thanks for the fascinating update on Qantas’ handling of the first-class mistake fare! It’s intriguing to see how airlines navigate these situations, and it’s a great reminder of the potential for unexpected travel opportunities.