Qantas leaves Aussie mum with two kids stranded in Paris for two weeks after ticket error

An Australian mother has criticized Qantas as “a despicable company” for being prepared to strand her family “on the other side of the world” for two weeks after it botched their flights.

Brisbane mother Tarnya Allen and her two sons checked into Paris airport for their return journey home from a European holiday on January 8 to discover that Qantas did not have a ticket for the youngest.

Ms Allen and her daughter Cora, 12, were given tickets but there was no record of a booking for Caden, 10.

That’s despite the fact that Ms Allen paid for three return tickets six months earlier and all of them are listed on a Qantas receipt.

Without a Qantas desk to ask in Paris, Ms Allen was forced to frantically phone Qantas, which she did five times.

Every time the call timed out with no answer and it was terminated.

The family missed their flight home due to frantic phone calls, leaving both children in tears and the entire family suffering from anxiety.

Although Ms. Allen’s e-ticket included her and her two children, when they checked in to fly home from Paris, they were only issued two tickets.

But the situation worsened when a Qantas operator finally responded only to say that there was no economy flight available for two weeks.

The final outrage came when he was told there was a vacant seat on a Qantas flight to Australia in business class, but the airline would not allocate it to his family, even if it meant the seat was unused.

Left with no options, the distraught Ms Allen took to social media, tagging Qantas in two posts, including an angry video clip.

“Qantas, you absolutely suck and you don’t care about your customers at all,” she fumed in the clip.

“We are stuck in Paris and no Qantas customer service person has sympathy, empathy and care about their customers and will not help us.

‘There’s a flight in two days, there’s a space, in business class, but they won’t put us in business class even though this whole thing is their fault.

My children have been crying. This is supposed to be the ride of your life and you just don’t care. It’s disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

Ms Allen (pictured with her family at Euro Disney) told Daily Mail Australia that her opinion of Qantas is that it has “appalling customer service” after it “left us out”.

Ms Allen told Daily Mail Australia Qantas ‘left us outside to dry’.

‘My main gripe is that the failure was caused by their own mistake and we were left outside to dry.

“My opinion of Qantas now is that they have lousy customer service.

‘They don’t care at all about the safety of their customers. I think they are trying to recoup their Covid losses at the expense of their customers.

“Qantas, you absolutely suck and don’t care about your customers at all,” Ms Allen said in a video.

Finally, Ms Allen took an Air France flight to London two days later and from there a Qantas flight back to Australia.

But he claimed to have spent thousands of dollars to get accommodation in Paris at the last minute after missing his flight home, which he is trying to repay.

A Qantas spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that “due to a ticketing error, Ms Allen and her family were unable to fly on their original flights.”

“We are investigating what caused the ticketing error and have contacted Ms. Allen to apologize for the inconvenience.”