Qantas customers have expressed anger and confusion on social media, saying they have been "charged twice", or more, for flights they have booked.
After being unable to get through to the Qantas call centre, several consumers pleaded on Twitter for answers from the national carrier.
"Two hours on hold… totally unacceptable," Gary Butterfield said in a post.
"This happened to me. I was charged twice, and it took 15 business days to get my funds back, after approximately 10 hours on hold with Qantas over a week," Ruby Halloumi wrote.
Jake MacMullin, who had similar experience, tweeted: "I thought I’d search Twitter to see if other people have been waiting on hold for a while."
Kay Steadman, who works for ABC News, is one of the growing number of people who have voiced their concerns about the matter on social media.
She and her husband recently booked a trip to London using their debit Mastercard.
She said she noticed on Wednesday Qantas had billed them a second time.
"The two transactions that came out on Saturday were for $2,025 each," she said.
"Yesterday, I was billed by Qantas for another $4,050."
Some customers have reported even larger multiple deductions from their accounts after making a booking.
David Clapin booked his flights to London on Tuesday by using both flight credits and his Amex credit card.
He said the actual deduction for the booking should have been around $3,500 but, instead, 14 pending transitions appeared on his account over the past two days totalling $42,000.
"Still no ticket issued as of this morning," Mr Clapin told the ABC.
Ms Steadman said, after several unsuccessful attempts to reach Qantas by phone and email, she called her bank for help.
"Basically what [the bank] was saying is as soon as you put your card details in when you bought those initial flights, you have given your permission for that company to take funds from your account, and they can continue to take funds from your account," she said.
"And there's nothing I can do about it or the bank can do about it."
Qantas 'urgently working' to resolve issue
The airline said it was aware that a small number of customers appeared to have been charged twice for flight bookings, but that was "not the case".
“Unfortunately, there is a delay in releasing pre-authorised funds which we are urgently working with our banking and payment partners to resolve,” a spokesperson told the ABC.
"If customers need the funds sooner, they should contact their banks to request a payment release."
Ms Steadman said eventually Qantas confirmed to her it was a glitch and should be resolved within seven days.
Many consumers have criticised Qantas' customer service since the pandemic began.
CEO Alan Joyce admitted that Qantas customers had been enduring excessive delays when trying to contact its customer service staff.
“Because the average wait time is an hour and a half and we shouldn't be at those levels for general calls, half an hour for premium calls.
“But that's because our call centre, with these changes of borders, has gone from 5,000 calls a day to 15,000 calls a day.”
