Virgin Australia offers refunds to 61,000 customers after rebooking errors

Virgin Australia has announced that 61,000 customers who made bookings with the carrier between April 2020 and March 2025 have been overcharged and will be refunded as a result. The announcement came after the airline disclosed the error to the Australian competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The company has said that it will be working with the regulator to rectify the situation and put matters right with any customer that has been overcharged.

According to the Guardian Australia, customers were overcharged when changes were made to their itineraries during the period of April 21, 2020, and March 31, 2025. The airline added that it had calculated that around 61,000 customers who made bookings had been affected and would each be eligible for an average refund of AUD55 ($60).

“At Virgin Australia, we have policies that determine when and how we reprice a guest’s booking when they make a change to their itinerary,” an airline spokesperson said. “We recently found that in some instances from April 21, 2020, to March 31, 2025, some bookings were repriced in a way that does not align with our policy, and we are refunding all impacted guests for that amount. “We sincerely apologize to those affected guests and have launched an Itinerary Change Claim Program under which all eligible guests are being proactively contacted to process their refunds,” the spokesperson added.

Peter Gudella / ShutterstockThe airline has not disclosed the total amount that was incorrectly charged to its customers during the material period. However, with the average refund figure already provided by the airline, its total liability could be in the order of AUD3.3 million (£3.6 million).

In addition to issuing an apology to those affected, the airline has launched an investigation as to how the erroneous mischarging could have occurred. “A dedicated Virgin Australia team has also been working to fix the issue, and we have undertaken a range of actions to prevent this from reoccurring in the future, so our guests can be confident when making changes to their bookings,” the spokesperson said.

According to the airline, preventative measures have been taken to ensure that the same issue cannot happen again in its booking system. On its website, the airline states that it has worked to fix a specific technical issue in the relevant systems and has since “completed a wide review of the relevant processes across the business and implemented formal governance to support the ongoing management of our Booking and Ticketing Policy”.

Additionally, it has also launched an online itinerary change claim program, to be managed by accounting firm Deloitte, to handle the tens of thousands of claims it is likely to receive as a result of the announcement.

Peterfz30 / Shutterstock“At Virgin Australia, we want to do the right thing and that means acknowledging when we get things wrong and fixing it,” the airline said.  “We have appointed specialists in this area, Deloitte Australia, to accelerate the claims process for our guests, who will be able to claim for up to 12 months. Any amounts that guests elect not to claim will be donated to charity,” the statement concluded.

This embarrassing event comes as Virgin Australia’s US private equity fund owner Bain Capital prepares to re-list the airline on the Australian Stock Exchange after five years and follows the completion of Qatar Airways taking a 25% stake in the carrier in February 2025. Most recently, the airline announced that it had appointed Dave Emerson as its new CEO, taking over from Jayne Hrdlicka, who announced her retirement in 2024.

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