Your wins: Air New Zealand fee refunded

Helpfully, Air New Zealand offered a “hold fare” option. For $25, Leigh was able to hold the price of the flights as it was, like a quote.

Air New Zealand said in two separate emails and in it's terms and conditions that the hold would last for 3 days, until 11:59pm on the third day, a Sunday. If Leigh didn’t confirm the booking by the time stated, she would lose the $25 hold fare fee.

Yet 3.5 hours before the deadline, Leigh’s booking disappeared.

“Despite trying several times to complete booking online on Sunday evening I was told ‘sorry, we can’t find that booking’.”

According to Leigh, what followed was a 53-minute phone call with Air New Zealand’s customer service, who denied there was an issue. She asked, to no avail, for a refund of her money, as the booking closed before the stated time, 11:59pm.

Trying her luck via email, another customer service representative told Leigh that the fare hold lasted for exactly 3 days from purchase, rather than 3 calendar days.

The representative said in an email, “The time 11:59 PM is not the time that the fare has been [held], it was calculated at the start time of the ticket hold. Hence we are unable to process your request for a refund at this time.”

But the emails said that 11:59pm was the cut off, not any time before then. Leigh told the representative this, who still denied Leigh a refund based on Air New Zealand’s policy. Leigh tried again to explain how she felt misled by the three emails from the airline. Acknowledging a mistake, the representative said Air New Zealand’s software sets the time and automatically cancels bookings if the ticket isn’t paid for before the cut off. Yet again, Leigh was denied a refund.

Leigh decided to contact Consumer NZ. As a member, she had access to Consumer’s advice line and our expert advisers, who then contacted Air New Zealand on her behalf.

Air New Zealand’s response

After all of Leigh’s effort, it only took one email from Consumer to sort it all out. Our advisors explained that Leigh was owed a refund, and Air New Zealand agreed. Initially, the airline explained the mistake as a "systems error," but later stated it was human error.

The airline said in a statement to Consumer, “We have thoroughly reviewed the situation and found that while our Fare Hold policy is accurate, one of our customer service consultants miscalculated the three-day policy. This was a genuine human error, not an IT issue.”

“As soon as we realised the mistake, we promptly refunded the $25.00. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate the customer's understanding.”