Fatal mistake of airlines. Tourists bought tickets almost for free

Travelers who decided to buy tickets for travel with the Australian airline Qantas a few days ago were very lucky. They took advantage of cheap first-class flights from Australia to the US, and all because of the carrier’s fault. What now for their boarding passes?

Qantas glitch. Tickets for pennies

Foreign media, including CNN, reported on the case. It was discovered that tickets costing from 11 to even 28 thousand Australian dollars, or about 73 thousand złoty, could be purchased 85 percent cheaper. The exceptional discount appealed to customers, so they decided to act.

Due to a mistake in Qantas, 300 people bought tickets online for pennies. They paid around 3400 PLN for one. It is worth adding that the price was for business class. Later, the mistake was fixed and the amount was the same as usual.

Qantas commented on the matter

The airline quickly explained that it was due to a glitch and a coding error in the system. “Unfortunately, in this case, the ticket price was too good to be true,” it said in a statement.

Those who bought good tickets for next to nothing will not lose their seats, but they will have to expect minor changes. Qantas said it would rebook business class passengers “as a gesture of goodwill” at no extra cost. Those who are not happy with the change will receive a full refund.

The carrier acted very carefully and tried not to upset passengers. Lessons were learned from the situation that occurred a year ago. When travelers bought cheap tickets due to a very similar mistake, the airline did something different. The “cheap flights” were canceled, and more than 86,000 people lost the opportunity to travel. Australian regulators then accused Qantas of selling tickets for more than 8,000 flights that the airline canceled. Not without a penalty of about $80 million. Some of this money was awarded to affected customers as compensation.