Qantas denies manipulating prices after customer’s fare farce

Qantas has apologised to a customer, attributing the episode to glitches in a new display it was trialling at the time.

Mining executive Mark Bennett at his Victorian property. Picture: David Geraghty

Mining executive Mark Bennett was shocked when he found the cheapest Qantas flight from Perth to Melbourne would cost him more than $2500. But an even bigger surprise came when he asked three colleagues to search for the same flight on their own phones.

The Qantas app showed Mr Bennett, a Platinum frequent flyer after a lifetime of corporate travel around the world, only business-class airfares remained available for his selected flight. The other three people, all of whom had far more modest frequent-flyer statuses, were shown available economy fares at just over $500 each.

The experience prompted Mr Bennett to wonder if airlines use customer information and algorithms to tailor fares offered to individuals. Qantas emphatically denied such practices, instead putting his experience down to glitches in a new display it was trialling on a handful of flights. The trial has since been stopped.

“Qantas never targets pricing for specific customers based on any data point, including tier or IP address,” a spokeswoman said.

“We have spoken to the customer to apologise for the confusion and for the technical issue he experienced.”

Mr Bennett told The Australian that while Qantas’s explanation was plausible, the saga had left him sceptical about the way companies could use data to shape their pricing. “It’s really opened my eyes to the extent of big data and algorithms and all sorts of ways people can potentially profile you to manipulate what you can see,” he said. “It just doesn’t feel right in my gut.”

Mr Bennett’s suspicions resonated with several travel veterans.

A LinkedIn post he wrote – including a video of two phones side by side, showing the dramatically different booking options – has attracted dozens of comments from other professionals claiming similar experiences across a variety of airlines.

Mining executive Clint Moxham said he had managed to secure a far cheaper airfare to the US after using a different web browser to search for the same flight.

Doug Bowie told how he had seen the price of a flight he was interested in “skyrocket” over the space of 20 minutes. “Got someone else to check and they booked me in at a lower price,” he said.

Banjima Native Title Aboriginal Corporation general manager Mark Gregson said he had also found cheaper fares when using a different device, slamming what he said were “disgusting consumer abuse tactics”.

Sydney consultant Stacey Edmonds has written a 10-point guide on how to get fairer airfares, including advice on how to “outsmart the algorithm”.

“With the shift to the on-demand pricing model in combination with ever-improving algorithms, it seems like … business ethics and customer service in the airline industry are well and truly over,” she said.

Mr Bennett’s suspicions and the traction they found with other travellers show the extent of the erosion of trust in Qantas.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last year took court action against Qantas after it continued to sell tickets for flights it had already cancelled. The airline also ditched a plan to scrap an expiry date for customers to claim hundreds of millions of dollars in Covid-era refunds only after immense public pressure.