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Virgin Australia to refund 61,000 customers it overcharged

The airline has apologised after it found a system error that led to it overcharging customers between 2020 and 2025.

Two white aeroplanes on the runway at an airport. They both have Virgin written in red on the tail.

The average refunds for affected travellers will be $55. Source: AAP / Dan Peled

Tens of thousands of Virgin Australia customers are in line for refunds after the airline found a system error that overcharged travellers for years.

Some 61,000 customers will get refunds averaging $55 for the error, which occurred between April 2020 and March 2025.

The airline said it had policies that determine what extra costs a customer will be charged when they make a change to their itinerary.

Affected customers being contacted

All those affected will be contacted by Virgin but will need to lodge a claim to receive their refund.

They will have a year to make a claim, with the airline committing to donate any unclaimed money to charity.

Virgin has engaged the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and will work with it on anything else necessary to make up for the error.

What has Virgin said about the error?

"We recently found that in some instances … bookings were repriced in a way that does not align with our policy and we are refunding all impacted guests for that amount," a Virgin spokesperson said.

"We sincerely apologise to those affected guests and have launched [a program] under which all eligible guests are being proactively contacted to process their refunds."

In case you missed it

Virgin Australia recently sold a 25 per cent stake in its business to Qatar Airways.

The ACCC ticked off a five-year partnership that's set to double flights between Australia and Doha.

Virgin claimed the deal could be worth $3 billion to the national tourism economy across the period.

That approval came more than two years after the federal government rejected Qatar's application to run an extra 21 weekly flights into Australia, saying the change could cause problems for local carrier Qantas.


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Source: AAP


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