The Challenges of Booking Qantas Reward Tickets By Phone

Call centre problems
Successfully booking or changing a Qantas reward booking via the call centre has become an unacceptably frustrating experience. Photo: freestocks.org.

Many Qantas customers are already well aware of the major problems right now with the Qantas call centre.

To Qantas’ credit, the horrifyingly long wait times have now started to come down. But even if you can get through to somebody and don’t get hung up on, trying to make or change a Classic Flight Reward booking through the Qantas call centre in 2022 can be like banging your head against a brick wall.

 

Status makes a difference

If you’re lucky enough to have Platinum One status, you’ll have access to the VIP Service Team which is well-trained and generally able to help. Similarly, if you have Qantas Platinum status, you have at least a chance of getting through to somebody at Qantas’ excellent Hobart call centre (even if you have to call back a few times) who has plenty of experience and should be able to competently help with booking or changing your Classic Flight Reward ticket.

Qantas also has an Auckland call centre which offers reasonably good service.

Unfortunately for everyone else, the vast majority of calls to Qantas’ contact centres are currently being routed to offshore third-party call centres in Cape Town, Suva or Manila. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, except that many of these staff lack experience and are not properly trained. Many are failing to provide even basic assistance with Classic Flight Reward bookings and some staff are even making mistakes as basic as cancelling customers’ existing award bookings when someone calls to request a flight change!

 

Not everything can be done online

Most Qantas customers would prefer to self-service online and bypass the Qantas call centre entirely. But this is not always possible as many things can’t be done online, including:

  • Booking a Classic Flight Reward ticket originating in many other countries
  • Changing some existing Classic Flight Reward bookings
  • Selecting a new flight following an airline schedule change, in cases where the computer presents an alternative that is not viable
  • Adding flights to an existing Classic Flight Reward booking (this is sometimes necessary when booking a Oneworld Classic Flight Reward in stages, as seats become available)

Some Qantas customers are also forced into phoning the call centre after trying to book reward seats that appear to be available online but receiving an error message.

 

Common problems when booking or changing a Classic Flight Reward over the phone

Here are some of the most common problems that Qantas Frequent Flyer members are currently experiencing when trying to book or change a Classic Flight Reward ticket…

Agents unable to see available seats

There have been many reports on AFF of Qantas Frequent Flyer members trying to book a reward seat over the phone that is showing as available on the Qantas website, only to be told by the call centre that there’s no award availability.

It seems that the Qantas call centre staff based overseas either have access to a reservations system that is showing them different availability to the Qantas website, or they don’t know how to use it properly. Either way, if a customer can see a seat on the Qantas website, there should be no reason the Qantas call centre can’t!

Agents saying flights don’t exist

In a twist on the previous issue, the AFF team was recently told by one Qantas call centre agent that a flight with award availability simply didn’t exist. Not just that there were no seats available, but that there was no such flight as JL51 (Japan Airlines’ Tokyo-Sydney service) and that we were imagining its very existence!

Perhaps this agent didn’t realise that there is a different procedure for searching and booking Japan Airlines flights. This is something they ought to have known if Qantas had trained them properly…

Japan Airlines Boeing 787
Japan Airlines is a Qantas partner and its flights do exist! But good luck booking a seat over the phone… Photo: Pexels.

Agents not understanding the award routing rules

Due to the frustrating limitations with the multi-city booking tool on the Qantas website, it’s sometimes necessary to book Oneworld Classic Flight Rewards over the phone. Adding or changing flights to an existing booking also requires a phone call as this can’t be done online.

Unfortunately, many of the Qantas call centre staff have never heard of this redemption and have no idea what to do. Some of them have even confused this with the Oneworld Explorer round-the-world ticket, which is a totally different product with different routing rules.

It seems some staff are also unaware that booking a mixed-class award is possible.

It’s a sad day when Qantas expects its customers to educate its call centre staff about the airline’s own products!

Agents looking for the incorrect RBDs

When calling to enquire about British Airways Premium Economy award availability, I’ve been told by the Cape Town call centre that British Airways had Premium Economy award seats available on every single flight between London and Glasgow. This seemed strange as British Airways does not even offer Premium Economy for sale on this route.

Upon pressing further, I discovered the agent was looking for “Y” class availability and thought this was the Reservation Booking Designator (RBD), or fare class, used by British Airways for Premium Economy award seats.

Pretty much every airline in the world uses “Y” class as the RBD for full-fare Economy Class, including British Airways which in fact uses “P” class as its Premium Economy award bucket. I politely told the agent this, but she was totally convinced that she was right and there was nothing I could say to change her mind.

British Airways Airbus A321 taking off, Heathrow, UK, 08 April 2010 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)
British Airways doesn’t actually have a Premium Economy cabin on its short-haul flights. Photo: Nick Morrish/British Airways.

This may seem like a basic error to someone not familiar with the airline industry. But someone with such poor knowledge of airline reservations should have no place taking phone calls from Qantas customers attempting to use their points! There is very little chance that a call centre agent with this level of knowledge could successfully complete an award booking for anyone without the ticket being flagged for manual processing due to errors.

Agents in need of a geography lesson

Qantas call centre agents have recently asked whether Delhi is in Canada, whether Doha is near Vanuatu and whether we were calling to book a Qantas flight from Tokyo to Sydney, Australia or Sydney, Canada.

Qantas will resume flights to Delhi, India
Delhi is a long way from Canada! Photo: Mohd Aram on Unsplash.

Agents giving incorrect advice

There are countless other stories on AFF about Qantas call centre agents authoritatively giving advice which was totally incorrect. Many of these experiences have been posted in this AFF thread.

Agents accidentally cancelling confirmed bookings

It’s one thing not to be able to assist with making a new booking. But there have now been three separate incidents reported on AFF where a call centre operator has accidentally cancelled a customer’s confirmed Classic Flight Reward booking after they called to enquire about changing their flights. This is not a normal thing that happens with any other airline and often has serious implications for Qantas customers.

Because of this, Australian Frequent Flyer is now advising Qantas customers not to attempt to change Classic Flight Reward bookings over the phone (even if the change can’t be made online). Instead, if you can, it might be better to make a new booking and then cancel your existing booking.

If you do need to make a change over the phone, bring up your reservation through “Manage Booking” on the Qantas website. Before ending the call, refresh your itinerary to make sure there have been no changes that you did not request!

Flights not getting ticketed

Sadly, there’s also a well-known issue where Qantas is failing to issue Classic Flight Reward tickets in a timely manner. This often results in flights getting cancelled by the operating airline.

Simple bookings made on the Qantas website are usually ticketed automatically within a few minutes. But many bookings made over the phone are getting placed in a manual processing queue that could take weeks or months to clear. This often happens when the call centre employee made an error that causes automatic ticketing to fail.

This is not the customer’s fault, but it becomes the customer’s problem when they lose their flights due to their booking not being ticketed!

Many customers are probably blissfully unaware when their booking has not been ticketed – only to realise on the day of travel that they have no booking. But even when customers do realise that their booking hasn’t been ticketed, there’s very little they can do. The only real option is to call Qantas again and insist that you won’t hang up until you have received a ticket number.

If you’re unsure whether or not your Qantas booking has been ticketed yet, you can try entering your booking reference (PNR) on the Royal Jordanian website and check if there’s a ticket number starting in “081” visible. If you can see a ticket number, a ticket has been issued.

Agents promising to call back but not doing so

When calling Qantas to request that their booking gets ticketed, many offshore employees simply promise that this will happen in the next 24 hours and that they will call back. But neither of these things usually happen.

I can’t believe I have to say this as it seems obvious, but if agents are unwilling or unable to call back, they should not say that they will do so…

Agents unable to take ownership of problems

In cases where something has gone wrong – such as a flight cancellation – the offshore call centre agents are also unable to do much. It seems that Qantas does not empower them to actually try to fix problems, so instead they often just read from a script or say there is nothing they can do to solve problems caused by Qantas in the first place.

 

Conclusion

When booking or attempting to change a Qantas Classic Flight Reward, be warned that trying to do so over the phone could end in tears unless you’re able to reach the Hobart call centre.

Qantas ought to be extremely embarrassed that this is the level of service its customers now have to put up with. The current state of Qantas customer service is unacceptable and demonstrates an astounding level of contempt towards customers. Sadly, the airline doesn’t seem to care as these problems have existed for some time and still haven’t been fixed.

If anyone from Qantas management is reading this, you urgently need to either:

  • Invest a lot more in training the staff at your offshore call centres,
  • Shut down your offshore call centres operated by Mindpearl, or
  • Direct all calls relating to international Classic Flight Reward bookings to the Hobart call centre.

 

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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Well- this has been discussed up and down on so many threads here before: If you end up with one of those off shore call centres (not counting Auckland, as you say they’re usually okay), you might as well put the phone down. And if you’re “only” Gold or below, then fat chance to get anywhere.

Being badly skilled uneducated cheap labour is one thing though- what really cracks me up if they then have the audacity to lecture you or showing some attitude. Totally unacceptable but I’m quite certain that the bean counters at Qantas will ensure that this won’t change- unless there’s a full change in management and attitudes. Not likely, but you can always hope.

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If anyone from Qantas wants to chat to me about the last three months of dealing with their call center staff after experiencing pretty much every issue identified in that article, on multiple occasions, I'd be more than happy to meet with them. I'll even buy the coffee. The editor has my contact info.

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Although VIP are excellent they to sometimes get things wrong. Earlier this year I booked the first part of a OW booking that was starting in AKL to JP back to AU then 6 months later to the EU (not yet booked). We have changed our plans and will no longer go to JP however we will still start in AKL. A couple of weeks back I changed the bookings and as some of the points had not come back I called on Monday to request the points be sent back to my account and was informed that the bookings had not been setup correctly, have not been re ticketed and this would be sorted within the hour. Today I received Mrs&MissM's ticket but not mine, I am sure mine will come through shortly and am not to worried I will lose the reward seats as they are with QF. If booking with partner airlines I will stay on the line until the trip has been re ticketed as I am aware of TTL issues with other carriers. Pre Covid I had lost F rewards with the likes of EK, QR and JL due to QF delays however on all occasions QF were able to get them back and I assume that my status played a big factor in that.

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I had a bit of a chuckle when i read the 'not knowing basic geography' commentary. When it happened to me it was such an unreal experience I thought i must have been the only one who had experienced it. Along the lines of "I haven't heard of Rome before, where abouts is that?" "Italy?, i don't think so".

In the past 9 months I've flown SYD-LAX, YVR-SYD, SYD-YVR on QF J awards and I can honestly say I've spent at least as much time on the phone to Fiji and South Africa as I did in the air.

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I feel the title of this article could have ended at "tickets".

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And sadly, some here just dismiss these problems as 'ranting' or some form of racism when the shortcomings of overseas call centres are brought up. 🙁

Anything but the fact that Qantas' offshore call centres (ex Auckland) are poorly trained and the resultant problems are at the feet of Qantas management. The issue isn't those who complain about their award seats being lost, it the the sheer volume of these issues. (And all the other service issues with Qantas at the moment.)

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And sadly, some here just dismiss these problems as 'ranting' or some form of racism when the shortcomings of overseas call centres are brought up. 🙁

Anything but the fact that Qantas' offshore call centres (ex Auckland) are poorly trained and the resultant problems are at the feet of Qantas management. The issue isn't those who complain about their award seats being lost, it the the sheer volume of these issues. (And all the other service issues with Qantas at the moment.)

Prejudice is a more appropriate word, but I certainly get what you’re saying…

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Prejudice is a more appropriate word, but I certainly get what you’re saying…

You are correct, but 'racism' or 'casual racism' or something like that were the words used. 🙁

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… Qantas' offshore call centres (ex Auckland) are poorly trained …

Although, Hobart is very good 🤣

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