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Exclusive: A Brisbane widow has described a “nightmare” experience trying to get thousands of dollars refunded from Qantas after her husband’s death.
After booking flights, Pam Thomas then had a change of heart and decided she wasn’t up to travelling to Rome for her son’s wedding because she was still grieving the tragic death of her husband.
On December 9 she cancelled her return flights that were booked from Perth to Rome in June and July 2023, expecting to be given a $3500 refund.
But it emerged the flights had been bought on her credit card, for which her husband had been the primary card holder, and the card had been cancelled by their bank since his death.
Thomas then got herself a new bank card and a Statutory Declaration from her bank so Qantas would process the refund to the new card.
She provided Qantas with the Statutory Declaration in January, as confirmed by Qantas.
But as of March 3, she was still waiting for her money, despite being in contact with Qantas many times and having been told the refund had been processed on February 16.
“I’ve rung them and rung them and rung them,” she told 9news.com.au.
“They say they will call me back and they never do. It’s causing me a lot of grief while I’m also grieving for my husband.”
Thomas said when she had managed to speak to someone they were unable to give her answers about where the money was and passed her on to someone else.
“It is a nightmare,” she said.
“It’s definitely not adequate customer service.”
After 9news.com.au reached out to Qantas on March 3, Thomas said she was finally contacted by the company and told she will be issued the refund.
A Qantas spokesperson has told the refund was paid into Thomas’ husband’s account by mistake and that the company has now fixed the error.
“The refund was paid into Ms Thomas husband’s account on 16 February, three weeks after all the necessary paperwork was provided. We have since learnt this was not the correct account and the refund has now reprocessed.”
“We thank Ms Thomas for her patience.”
The spokesperson told 9news.com.au that Qantas is rolling out new technology that will allow it to direct customer requests to more experienced staff so that issues can be resolved more quickly.
