Flight sale and cancellation fees

We booked our flights for our holiday to Australia thinking the tickets were a good price. A week later, they had dropped by 20%, on their red tail sale, of the fee we paid. I called Qantas, in South Africa, to ask whether there was anything they could do to assist. They told me that we would need to cancel and rebook. First disappointment. So, I asked specifically for our booking what the cancellation fee was, which the operator told me in Rands, which related to $110 or approximately R1700 per ticket. Based upon this, if we cancel and rebook, we would still recover some of the reduced sale fee from our original booking. So, I went ahead and did this.

Today, we get the refund, which was quite quick, but instead we were charged $220 per ticket, thereby increasing the overall cost from our original booking by around R1400. I am bitterly disappointed with the entire situation, the information provided over the phone and now not receiving any benefit back and having to actually pay more! It has started our holiday planning on a very sour note and I hope that someone will reach out to us.