Award booking cancelled without notice

[Inuniform]

Hoping I can get some advice.

Toward the end of last month, I phoned Qantas to book the first leg of my RTW award ticket. It was from SYD to JRO via DOH with QR. About a week after the first booking, I rang up again and booked my second leg, JRO to LON via DOH with QR. Fees were paid, my first booking confirmation arrived via email and I was told the second booking would take about a week to also turn up via email.

I check my FF account today and see that my points are higher than they should be. Check my activity statement and it says booking was cancelled last week and a cancellation fee (10,000 points) was also debited.

Perplexed, I rang Qantas. I was told that the second leg was held by Qantas too long and remained unconfirmed by QR, who then cancelled the entire booking. CSR says that there is no availability for the dates that I had booked. They are taking this up with QR and trying to get seats released on the dates I wanted. I am to ring back Friday to receive an update.

What are my rights here? I asked the CSR if I had done anything wrong and was assured that I had not. Can I enforce the dates that I requested be provided. Being an award booking on a different airline I am unsure how hard I can push Qantas to rectify this issue.

I'm pretty disappointed considering the amount of time and effort I have taken to get to this point. I am hopeful of a good outcome. Suggestions of where I go from here welcome!

 

[JohnK]

That's not good at all.

They had no right to cancel booking and charge a cancellation penalty on top.

I think you have every right to keep pushing for a successful resolution. Not sure whether Qantas can do too much for you as you need QR availability but you won't know unless you try.

Good luck.

 

[travelislife]

Geezus, Qantas is making a mess of these QR bookings. There are a lot of recent stories of this.

 

[Pleb Status]

Currently, QF can go for months without ticketing changes to existing bookings (both award and revenue). I had to chase them numerous times for about two weeks (after initially waiting about four weeks) to ticket a change to a CX flight on an upcoming U booking.

As QF and QR are not 'mates', it will be interesting to see how you go. QR will blame QF and there is nothing QF can do if QR do not come to the party.

Your post has reminded me to chase QF over another unticketed change however....

 

[Pushka]

Good luck with this, and how annoying to lose the chosen award seats, and then be charged a penalty for cancellation. Really the icing on the cake but not sweet.

 

[RichardMEL]

This sounds like a QR issue affecting QF. really bad. so hope it can be resolved!

 

[Buzzard]

I'm reading too many of these QR award issues. QF need to sort this out quick smart.

 

[juddles]

........ Can I enforce the dates that I requested be provided. Being an award booking on a different airline I am unsure how hard I can push Qantas to rectify this issue. ..!

Bad experience you are having there, but as for "can I enforce the dates that I requested be provided"? No.

 

[Inuniform]

Good luck with this, and how annoying to lose the chosen award seats, and then be charged a penalty for cancellation. Really the icing on the cake but not sweet.

Just to clarify, I was told that my cancellation fee of 10000 points would be refunded. It's not much of a consolation at this stage though.

 

[RichardMEL]

btw I think it's pretty poor QF telling YOU to call them back to follow up. They admit the screw up, they should be proactive and contact YOU!

What I'm reading from that is they'll send a request through to QR who will probably ignore it or whatever but QF won't be proactive to follow this up further with them but wait for you to call then they say oh "computer says no"

You'd think they would keep you in the loop not have you chase them over their issue.

IMHO

 

[travelislife]

This sounds like a QR issue affecting QF. really bad. so hope it can be resolved!

Not a QR issue. It is a QF issue. It is usually okay on new bookings as they ticket them reasonably quickly. It is when changes are made and they get queued for manual ticketing in order of departure date. Often with these award bookings the departure date is months away so it just sits there with nothing being done.

 

[RichardMEL]

Not a QR issue. It is a QF issue. It is usually okay on new bookings as they ticket them reasonably quickly. It is when changes are made and they get queued for manual ticketing in order of departure date. Often with these award bookings the departure date is months away so it just sits there with nothing being done.

yes, I understand your point. OK let's say it's a QF/QR issue.

I was just thinking that it's QR's policy (clearly) to cancel these unticketed bookings by a certain deadline.. not smething occuring with other OW (or partner) airlines that QF has - since QF likely behaves the same way with ll award bookings on itself or other partners. In that sense I consider it a QR issue of their policy, but yes QF is triggering it by not ticketing bookings promptly.

 

[Pushka]

Just to clarify, I was told that my cancellation fee of 10000 points would be refunded. It's not much of a consolation at this stage though.

Well that is a start.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Airlines have the right to cancel bookings which haven't been 'paid'. This is either through points or revenue. Most airlines will allow bookings to be held - usually 3-5 days, although the 'safe' period is usually something less than three days.

This is a common issue with star alliance airlines - hence the need to force ticketing in the event an airline doesn't do it.

in this case, QF can't 'force' QR to release more space. If QR cancelled and has given the seats to someone else that could be the end of the matter. QF can approach QR and ask them to release more award inventory, but that's up to QR's discretion.

If this is a QF error, you could ask QF to pay for the flights for you, out of their pocket. Chances this will happen? Probably slim to zero. For some reason QF doesn't ticket instantly. i have no idea why. They 'claim' it's because the issue more urgent tickets first, or that they issue tickets in date order. But seriously, QF is one of the few airlines that seems to have this problem.

It's always a good idea to call the issuing airline for award travel after 48 hours. Explain to them that the operating airline will cancel the booking unless it is ticketed immediately. That should prompt action.

 

[Inuniform]

Airlines have the right to cancel bookings which haven't been 'paid'. This is either through points or revenue. Most airlines will allow bookings to be held - usually 3-5 days, although the 'safe' period is usually something less than three days.

This is a common issue with star alliance airlines - hence the need to force ticketing in the event an airline doesn't do it.

in this case, QF can't 'force' QR to release more space. If QR cancelled and has given the seats to someone else that could be the end of the matter. QF can approach QR and ask them to release more award inventory, but that's up to QR's discretion.

If this is a QF error, you could ask QF to pay for the flights for you, out of their pocket. Chances this will happen? Probably slim to zero. For some reason QF doesn't ticket instantly. i have no idea why. They 'claim' it's because the issue more urgent tickets first, or that they issue tickets in date order. But seriously, QF is one of the few airlines that seems to have this problem.

It's always a good idea to call the issuing airline for award travel after 48 hours. Explain to them that the operating airline will cancel the booking unless it is ticketed immediately. That should prompt action.

Thank you for an explanation of the likely process. This was my first award booking after saving points for a very long time and my knowledge of the whole process is limited. The situation is hard to fathom considering Qantas has admitted fault yet they'll likely just shrug their shoulders and say 'sorry'.

 

[cjd600]

Thank you for an explanation of the likely process. This was my first award booking after saving points for a very long time and my knowledge of the whole process is limited. The situation is hard to fathom considering Qantas has admitted fault yet they'll likely just shrug their shoulders and say 'sorry'.

Might be worth keeping at them.
I was in the same situation, my experience related a few pages/weeks back in this thread**
I have ended up with my QR 4 X J back.
And ticketed.
(Still check it every day!)

**Edit - sorry, in the One World Award thread, getting confused as you have posted same in both

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thank you for an explanation of the likely process. This was my first award booking after saving points for a very long time and my knowledge of the whole process is limited. The situation is hard to fathom considering Qantas has admitted fault yet they'll likely just shrug their shoulders and say 'sorry'.

Wait till Friday and see if QR (and QF come through). If they don't, you can ask Qantas to release award seats on their own services - this is easy for them to do as they have complete control over their own inventory. This could get you to say Johannesburg or Dubai, from where the connection to JRO may be a little easier (or at least you might be able to buy something). The QF reservations agent may not wish to put in the call to request additional seats - this is usually something reserved for platinum members and above - but under the circumstances this is an appropriate course of action.

 

[kpc]

Thank you for an explanation of the likely process. This was my first award booking after saving points for a very long time and my knowledge of the whole process is limited. The situation is hard to fathom considering Qantas has admitted fault yet they'll likely just shrug their shoulders and say 'sorry'.

I know someone who got QF to release a commercial F ticket from Lhr to Syd on QF because QF did not ticket a points award in F Lhr to Syd in time, and it got cancelled.

 

[cjd600]

Wait till Friday and see if QR (and QF come through). If they don't, you can ask Qantas to release award seats on their own services - this is easy for them to do as they have complete control over their own inventory. This could get you to say Johannesburg or Dubai, from where the connection to JRO may be a little easier (or at least you might be able to buy something). The QF reservations agent may not wish to put in the call to request additional seats - this is usually something reserved for platinum members and above - but under the circumstances this is an appropriate course of action.

Assuming there is still 2 non-QF carriers to validate the Award if QR are lost.

On my award QF had ticketed 4 x J LAX SYD AA73.
My flight before this was QF12 JFK-LAX....which could only connect to an onward QF flight.
They called me to advise AA73 must be cancelled, and offered LAX-SFO-SYD (which had 4 J available) in its place.
I said a bit disappointed they confirmed LAX-SYD direct with AA for me, and now I have lost my direct flight.
They 'magically' found 4 x J LAX SYD QF12 for me (as NB this is never available via normal release).
I was thankful, and asked 'how?'. The helpful QF agent said he 'did something behind the scenes'.
Extra taxes, but a good outcome.
So, do try and make QF find a solution for you (and not make you rely on the award availability gods).

 

[Inuniform]

Might be worth keeping at them.
I was in the same situation, my experience related a few pages/weeks back in this thread**
I have ended up with my QR 4 X J back.
And ticketed.
(Still check it every day!)

**Edit - sorry, in the One World Award thread, getting confused as you have posted same in both

Thanks for that, your experience certainly has similarities as it seems my issue came when ringing through the second booking. I read that thread quite closely in the past but did not think anything of your issue as my booking seemed to go very well over the phone.

My question is, why doesn't QF issue tickets immediately? Why wait and allow these issues to crop up again and again?

Your positive outcome gives me some confidence but being in limbo at the moment is not a good feeling.