A COUPLE were made to pay more than £10,000 to get home from their holiday after their airline made a big booking mistake.
Andrew Lewis described his situation as an "all-round horrible experience" as he and his wife Meagan tried to get home to Sydney from Europe in February this year.
The problems started for the pair when they were told by Qantas that a delay would prevent them from arriving on time in Tokyo for their connecting flight, operated by Japan Airlines, back to Australia.
Despite being assured by the airline that they would be put on a different flight, the couple were then told that was not possible and that, instead, they should make their way to Frankfurt for a different route home.
Andrew and Meagan were in Amsterdam at the time, so had to get a train to the German city in order to catch the new flight back to Sydney, via Dubai.
However, that wasn't the end of their problems. The new flights were with Emirates and had to be paid for, costing $19,000 in total (£10,182).
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Andrew said he felt like they didn't have any other options.
He told News AU: “There was no solution whatsoever other than to pay them an exorbitant amount of money to get out of there.
“We felt we had no other option because we had work obligations to get home to.
“We were away quite a time so we were forced to pay the money to them over the phone.”
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To make matters worse, the pair were told that Qantas would only be able to refund them for the flights they missed, and not for the flights they had to pay extra for.
But they had initially paid for their tickets with frequent flyer points, leaving them £10k out of pocket, with no cash coming back to them from the airline.
It also took weeks of phone calls from Andrew for the points to be put back on his account, after they weren't initially returned to him, despite Qantas saying they would be.
The couple also earned no additional points for the £10k flights they forked out for.
Andrew continued: "After spending $19,000 I expected a bit better customer service than someone to just ignore refunding the points and not even attributing the points we gained on those next flights."
Qantas has since offered Andrew both an apology and a refund on out-of-pocket costs he spent on flights to get home – almost three months after he first paid for them.
A spokesperson for the airline told news.com.au: “The reaccommodation of customers after a cancellation or schedule change is always the responsibility of the airline operating the flight.
“Once we became aware that Mr Lewis’ Japan Airlines flight had been delayed and that he required a new flight, we should have contacted Japan Airlines to resolve the booking.
“We apologise to Mr Lewis for this experience.”
Sun Online Travel has reached out to Qantas for additional comment.
Meanwhile, this is how to get a refund or compensation on a flight that has been cancelled.
And these are your rights if airlines refuse to pay compensation for cancelled flights.
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