By aviation writer Scott Mayman

Red faces at Qantas over recent booking errors while, separately Virgin Airlines is dealing with a hacker, who’s breaking into the accounts of frequent flyers.

Frequent flyers are being warned that someone’s been able to hack Virgin’s frequent flyer accounts – stealing points, changing passwords and booking flights.

Virgin says it will work with affected customers and return any missing points.

And… an error from Qantas has seen first class tickets to Los Angeles go on sale for as cheap as $4000, but the airline says those tickets won’t be honoured and, apparently, legally, they’re right.

However, anyone who made the purchase, is being offered a seat in business.

Here’s how Qantas told its customers who bought the cheaper tickets: “We are contacting you regarding a pricing error on Qantas.com for some flights between Australia and the USA.

“Due to a coding error, incorrect First Class fares were published for some flights by mistake. We have identified that your booking was affected by this error and are contacting you with an important update about your booking. We sincerely apologise for this error.

“Instead of cancelling and refunding your booking, on this occasion, as a gesture of goodwill, Qantas will be rebooking you in the business class cabin on the same flight for the same price you have already paid. This represents a significant discount on our standard business class fares. We anticipate this will take us a few days to work through”.

Better protection for passengers under aviation reforms