Jetstar refunds customers who paid for seats they didn’t get

Consumer advocate Aneleise Gawn paid an extra $44 to secure seats at the front of the plane for herself and her teenage daughter on their return flight from Wellington to Auckland in September.

“I’m not the biggest fan of being cooped up in a plane so paid extra for the seats in the front row where I’m assured of extra legroom and a speedier exit,” Aneleise said.

However, when she checked in on Jetstar’s app on the day they were due to fly, Aneleise found they’d been relegated to seats further back on both flights.

“Nobody alerted us to the seat change. Nor did they offer a refund of the extra $44 I’d paid. Somebody else got to sit in the seats I’d selected and paid for,” Aneleise said.

Aneleise has had a lot to do with Jetstar over the years as part of her work, so she emailed her contact there, James Madden, Jetstar’s Head of Customer. Madden told Aneleise he’d investigate and arranged a refund of $44.

He then emailed Aneleise again to let her know the team tasked with investigating the issue had discovered the problem. It was related to a website release done 3 months earlier in June.

“We found this release caused some seating requests to be processed incorrectly, which meant our seating droid (which runs 24 hours before departure, allocating seats to comply with weight and balance requirements) did not recognise some seating allocations and incorrectly moved customers to alternative seats,” Madden wrote.

“We have now implemented a fix for this issue, and our first priority has been to manually reallocate seats correctly for customers with future travel dates. The team is also investigating potential impacts to past bookings and will commence a process to remediate any impacted customers where required.”

Jetstar also agreed to look into its conditions of carriage, which Aneleise said unfairly state customers should request a seat selection fee refund if they are moved from the seat they chose.

“Customers shouldn’t have to be chasing the refund if they’re not given the seat they’ve paid for. The airline should automatically provide these refunds,” Aneleise said.

Jetstar said everyone owed refunds as a result of the website issue should be reimbursed by this week coming. If you’ve been bumped from a seat you’ve paid for and don’t get your refund, get in touch with Jetstar. And if you have no luck, let us know by emailing [email protected].

Despite Aneleise’s issue with not getting the seats she’d paid for on this occasion, she’s been finding herself booking more flights with Jetstar and fewer with Air NZ recently.