‘Slow torture’: Woman mistakenly charged £22,500 for Qantas flights in months-long refund ordeal

A woman in Australia who was accidentally charged A$40,000 (£22,564) for flights has described the “slow torture” of attempting to get a refund from the airline.

Carol Johnson from Sydney, Australia, booked five Qantas flights for A$16,357 (£9,227) on 15 March for her husband and son. But a few days later, her card was declined when she tried to buy a coffee.

She soon realised she had been charged with 12 double-debit transactions, totalling another A$16,357.

According to News.com.au, the double debit transactions were caused by an external problem which impacted Qantas and other companies.

It took five days for the funds to be refunded, during which time her account was frozen and she was unable to access money for daily necessities.

“I was on the phone for days. I was getting up at three or four o’clock in the morning to be put on hold for four to five hours,” she said.

“It was like Groundhog Day over and over again. Every single day. People say: ‘How can we get stressed and upset about doing that?’ but until it happens to you, you don’t understand that it’s just slow torture and you don’t know if you’re ever going to get an answer.”

Months later, when she tried to book new flights to Honolulu, Hawaii for A$13,431 (£7,574) on 26 July, she experienced more issues.

Qantas contacted Ms Johnson to tell her her payment had been declined and she would have to pay again, which she did using her husband’s account.

That was declined too, and Ms Johnson was forced to try using various other debit cards or risk losing the flights.

With so many different payments, Johnson said she at one point had $40,394 (£22,778) worth of transactions pending.

Again, she was unable to access funds during this time; it was around a week before one of the transactions cleared and her accounts were unfrozen.

Ms Johnson noted: “If the same thing had happened to my son, they would not have survived. They would have been in such big strife. Luckily we had money and we would have got our money back eventually, but it was stressful.”

Even after she received her money back, another double debit came out of her account this September for the value of A$13,412 (£7,563) related to her second flight booking.

Again, she was unable to access her current account, this time for 12 days, at which point the funds were finally returned.

She said: “It happened out of nowhere. I woke up and our account was overdrawn by A$13,000.”

Qantas has not been able to explain the string of double debits, but has now refunded Ms Johnson all of her money, as well as offering her a voucher of £2,000. Ms Johnson has asked for an upgrade to Qantas’ Gold Status Frequent Flyer Programme.

“I’m not asking for money. I just wanted them to acknowledge that they buggered things up big time,” she said.

“They put us through hell and we would like something substantial in return.”

Qantas said in a statement: “She should not have been charged twice in August and September and we returned the funds to her as soon as we became aware.

“Authorisations for purchases sits with the credit card provider, and Qantas has worked with them to resolve the issue and reimburse the customer.”