Virgin poised to refund 61,000 customers for pricing error on ticket changes (2025)

Virgin Australia is offering to refund 61,000 customers who were overcharged after an error was discovered in the company’s pricing systems.

The airline said the transactions occurred when tickets were repriced in response to customer changes to itineraries.

“We have policies that determine when and how we reprice a guest’s booking when they make a change to their itinerary,” a Virgin spokesperson said.

In “some instances ... some bookings were repriced in a way that does not align with our policy”, they said.

The errors occurred between April 21, 2020, and March 31, 2025.

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The company is believed to have discovered the error as it tested an upgrade of its booking and ticketing system. The discovery is understood to have prevented further incidences of incorrect pricing.

The total value of all bookings up for refunds is $3.4 million, representing 0.1 per cent of bookings over the period.

All impacted guests will be proactively contacted to process their refunds, the company said, noting that the average refund amount is $55.

However, after notification, customers will need to request their funds back – which could have originally been paid to Virgin in the form of money, credit or points.

They will also be given the option to donate funds to charity.

“We sincerely apologise to those affected guests,” a Virgin spokesperson said.

Virgin “proactively” notified the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about the error. ACCC is one of the regulatory agencies that approved Qatar’s long-haul alliance with Virgin last month.

One equities analyst, who asked not be named, said that for Virgin, it was “not a great look” but the response was more muted than if Qantas had made the same mistake.

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The disclosure of the pricing error comes at a sensitive time for the Brisbane-based airline, which is on a path to list as a public company. Chief executive Dave Emerson last week was engaged in a non-deal roadshow to speak to stakeholders and potential investors.

However, the company’s plans to list on the sharemarket have been complicated by the market upheaval that sent sharemarkets plunging, triggered by US President Donald Trump’s unilateral tariffs.

Emerson, Virgin’s former chief commercial officer, was named chief executive last month, taking over from Jayne Hrdlicka, who led the airline after it was placed into administration in 2020 and was bought by US-based Bain Capital.

After receiving regulatory approval last month, Virgin Airlines is pushing ahead with a plan to offer long-haul flights from capital cities to Doha, through partner Qatar Airways this year. Qatar holds a 25 per cent share of Virgin.

After facing years of losses, Virgin Australia made its first statutory profit in 11 years, raising hopes of successfully relisting as a public company.

Net income in the year ended June 2024 rose to $545.4 million from $129.1 million the year before.

With a share of about one-third of the Australian domestic market, Virgin Australia continued to challenge Qantas last year.

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