Virgin Australia hires Deloitte to help with mass refunds after overcharging customers
The airline has admitted to overcharging more than 60,000 customers who made itinerary changes in the last five years.
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Thousands of Virgin Australia customers have been told they are eligible for a refund after being overcharged for itinerary changes, dating as far back as April 2020.
A total of 61,000 people have been identified as being overcharged due to a coding issue within Virgin Australia’s online booking system.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been notified and is assessing whether any further action is required.
It’s understood the problem was only recently identified when Virgin Australia ran tests across all of its booking systems while adding a new product.
“In response, we immediately launched an internal investigation to understand what happened, the impact on our guests and took a number of actions to prevent this from occurring in the future,” said a statement on the airline’s website.
Deloitte Australia has been hired by Virgin to accelerate the claims process for customers, and a 70-person taskforce stood up to assist.
The average refund to be paid was $55, with about 15 per cent of those affected in line to pocket more than $100.
The total cost to Virgin was estimated to be about $3.4m, and a spokeswoman said they were “sincerely sorry” for overcharging some passengers.
“We have launched an itinerary change claim program under which all eligible guests are being proactively contacted to process their refunds,” said the spokeswoman.
“At Virgin Australia we want to do the right thing and that means acknowledging when we get things wrong and fixing it.”
She said Deloitte would help to accelerate the claims process, with eligible customers able to make a claim for up to 12 months.
Any amounts not claimed will be donated to charity, she added.
“We have undertaken a range of actions to prevent this from re-occurring in the future, so our guests can be confident when making changes to their bookings,” the spokeswoman said.
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission confirmed the regulator had been notified about customers being overcharged for itinerary changes.
A spokesman said the ACCC was “engaging with Virgin Australia about these issues and is assessing whether the remedial actions Virgin Australia is taking are suitable”.
In 2023, the ACCC took legal action against Qantas for taking bookings on already cancelled flights, and then re-accommodating customers on other flights or issuing a travel credit.
The matter was settled out of court last year with Qantas agreeing to pay a $100m penalty for its actions and provide $20m to compensate more than 86,000 customers.
Virgin Australia said the number of guests affected by its systems glitch, amounted to a mere 0.1 per cent of all bookings made through the period from April 21, 2020 to March 31, 2025.
The airline reported a record $439m in earnings before interest and tax for the half year to December 2024, and is expected to launch an IPO in coming months.
New chief executive Dave Emerson and chief financial officer Race Strauss have been meeting with potential investors ahead of the return to the ASX, which could be as early as June.
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Originally published as Virgin Australia hires Deloitte to help with mass refunds after overcharging customers
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