Dead cheap trip through Qantas-owned holiday website TripADeal ends in $3.2K shock

When an Aussie couple booked a dream holiday, including scoring business class flights for just $1,000 ($644 USD) each through a travel site owned by Qantas they were ecstatic – but things took an unexpected turn when they later learned an extra $5,000 ($3,200 USD) could be added to their bill.Rod Gaynor had booked a holiday with travel website TripADeal, which included three nights in Fiji, an 18-day cruise through the islands down to Sydney and business class flights back to their home town of Perth.In total, the retirees paid $12,000 ($7,700 USD) for the trip, which included $2,000 ($1,300 USD) for the business class seats.“I said to them: ‘That’s ridiculous, that’s dead cheap,” Gaynor recalled, but is now warning people to always read the fine print when it comes to these types of deals.When the couple’s flight details dropped two weeks after booking their August holiday, they were shocked to discover they had been dumped in economy class seats on the Qantas flight back to Perth.“Naturally I contacted TripADeal and they were unsympathetic and quoted from the T&C’s that they were able to do this,” he told news.com.au.Gaynor was told by TripADeal any upgrade purchases are subject to availability and aircraft configuration.But the Perth man investigated the aircraft and discovered there were 12 business seats available on that flight.Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update.

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Never miss a story.Still the 68-year-old said TripADeal would not put them in business class and initially flat out refused to even refund the fare difference.He was then told by the company: “As the business class upgrade for the Sydney to Perth flight was over the net pricing built into the deal, unfortunately this was a part of the reason we were not able to provide the upgrade for this fl...