Flown with Qantas during the pandemic? You could be sitting on a slice of a multi-million-dollar payout, and the airline has started making the calls.
More than one million Qantas customers are being contacted this week about their eligibility for a $105 million settlement.
The payout follows a class action alleging Qantas failed to refund passengers for flights cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you booked a flight with Qantas that was cancelled between January 2020 and November 2022, you may be one of the eligible customers.
Notices are landing in inboxes and phones as text messages and emails, sent out this week by law firms Echo Law and Piper Alderman on behalf of the class action.
Echo Law partner Andrew Paull told ABC News the notices mark “a critical step towards distributing settlement funds”, but customers need to act on them to take part.
“We’re reaching out by email and text message using the details that customers provided to Qantas when purchasing tickets,” Mr Paull said.
Here is the part many will not expect. You do not need to have missed out entirely to qualify.
“Even customers who used the flight credit they were issued, or subsequently received a refund are eligible to participate if they meet the relevant criteria,” Mr Paull said.
Eligible customers can expect a minimum payment of $50, with some receiving considerably more depending on how many bookings were affected and how long they were left waiting.
Understandably, plenty of people will look twice at an unexpected text about a cash payout and assume it is a scam.
Piper Alderman lawyer Kate Sambrook has moved to reassure worried recipients that these particular messages are the real deal.
“We’re aware that the large number of scams” circulating has made people wary, she said, but the notices from Echo Law and Piper Alderman are legitimate and court-ordered.
Lawyers involved say the whole process will take several months to work through, with the first payments expected to reach customers by the end of the year.
So if a message about a Qantas settlement turns up on your phone this week, do not delete it in a hurry. It might just be the airline finally squaring things up.
Image: wa
