Have you ever wished you could earn crores in a lottery? Well, probably Jessica Tam from Australia did too. But she didn’t earn crores from a lottery. Interestingly, Qatar Airways accidentally refunded Jesica Tam, $20 million (₹150 crores as reimbursement for a cancelled flight. The Australian Frequent Flyer forum moderator expected around $2,000 (₹1,49,680 approx) but she instead got a whopping amount of ₹150 crores from Qatar Airways. Now that’s a windfall everyone expects to have! Qatar Airways recently instructed its flight attendants to don head to toe PPE suits.
Australian Passenger Gets ₹150 Crores As Refund For Cancelled Flight From Qatar Airways
Jessica Tam an Australian flyer woke up one morning to see her credit card balance suddenly increase to $20 million ( ₹150 crores). The reason for this is because she just received a refund from a Qatar Airways flight. Tam earlier booked return Qatar Airways Business class flights from Jakarta to London. But just like most flights during this uncertain situation, her flight also got unfortunately cancelled due to coronavirus. And a refund was processed. Qatar Airways asked Indian Airlines to increase seats.
On receiving a surprising rerun amount, Jessica Tam posted on Australian Frequent Flyer. She states“This may seem like a bizarre amount of money to refund when the ticket only cost around AUD 2,800 (₹1,45,622). But the amount wasn’t quite a coincidence. As the first flight on this ticket departed from Indonesia, the fare was originally paid in Indonesian Rupiah. The total airfare, converted into Indonesian Rupiah, was IDR 28,179,000 (₹1,46,340).”
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Qatar Airways Noticed Their Mistake And Correctly Processed The Refund
This might be a costly mistake for the airline. But somewhere during the refund process, the refund was accidentally quoted in Australian Dollars for the amount in Indonesian Rupiah. However, the bank or Qatar Airways, fortunately, noticed this mistake. And they corrected it the next day. Qatar Airways also ut out a statement for Simply Flying stating “Qatar Airways is aware of a story regarding the overpayment of a refund. The airline processed the refund correctly and was not involved in the transaction between the bank and the passenger. We are glad to learn that the matter was swiftly corrected.”
Significant Rise In Mistake Fares During The Coronavirus Pandemic
According to Scotts Cheap Flights, there has been a significant rise in mistake fares ever since the coronavirus pandemic started. Between March the months and April, the flight-tracking service recorded seven error fares. This is in comparison to the same period in 2019 there only three error fares were recorded. Currency conversions are usually a frequent cause of error.
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Human mistakes in currency conversion, typos, removal of fuel charges and airfares filed for the wrong class of travel can lead to major refund mistakes. Error fares can actually result in really cheap travel for passengers. Flights usually rectify these errors quickly. However, most of the time airlines honour mistake fares. But Qatar Airways did not honour this error, as it was too big to ignore. In the meanwhile, Vistara CCO Vinod Kannan assured people that air travel is the safety way to travel during the pandemic.