Qantas Promises to Fix Ongoing Reward Flight Ticketing Failures

[AFF Editor]

Over the past year or so, many Qantas Frequent Flyer members have lost their Classic Flight Reward bookings for travel on partner airlines due to Qantas' failure to get the bookings ticketed (or re-issued) on time.

This is something AFF has been in regular contact with Qantas about over recent months. The good news is that Qantas has now taken some concrete steps to fix this problem, which you can read about here:

Qantas Fixes Ongoing Reward Flight Ticketing Failures

Qantas is taking concrete steps to ensure Classic Flight Reward tickets are issued and re-issued correctly in the future.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

If you have a ticketing issue relating to a Classic Flight Reward booking, you'll be able to escalate this by emailing a dedicated support team from midday today.

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[snabbu]

"As the first step, Qantas has set up a dedicated team of trained staff to proactively monitor Classic Flight Reward bookings. This team will proactively re-issue tickets, if required, after they are notified of schedule changes."
"We are also opening a direct line of support for our members whose reward seat bookings on partner airlines have been impacted by a flight change or cancellation, so they can be confident that their ticket is confirmed.”"
Translation - non vanilla award calls get routed to HBA.

 

[SydneySwan]

Translation - non vanilla award calls get routed to HBA.

I hope you are right.

 

[bam71]

So, I just went to cancel a KLM ticket due to a family issue this morning, seems it was never ticketed anyway, and only one lot of points were deducted ( not two). Will need to call……..

 

[SydneySwan]

This new team is a promising start but the fact that this article advises you to use the Royal Jordanian website or apps like Check My Trip to see if you have an issued ticket number demonstrates just how far behind the mark Qantas are on this issue.

 

[_TheTraveller_]

I'll believe it when I see concrete changes to AFF member's experiences. I've given up from booking OWA travels given the experienced many members have had previously.

 

[rumma]

I hope this improves the service, I leave in a few weeks on a multi city rewards booking, so far everything ins good in the RJ site (we are flying RJ also) and Checkmytrip. Last August we were victims of this error and even after exiting a cruise early to make the flight Qantas moved us to with Qatar we were not reticketed and were left stranded at Rome Airport - oddly our Ticket was still for the original flight (that we really wanted and would have saved us thousands) but the booking was for the morning flight. The call centre told outright lies (Qantas have now admitted that) and were of no use whatsoever. Exiting a cruise early and being penalised, travelling across Europe and extra hotels was not in my budget - hopefully this new email will solve that happening to others. As a side note I have not got anywhere with Qantas on this, travel insurance didn't cover it and Qantas are just being pig headed. Looking forward to a better support mechanism on tis years reward flights.

 

[Berlin]

This new team is a promising start but the fact that this article advises you to use the Royal Jordanian website or apps like Check My Trip to see if you have an issued ticket number demonstrates just how far behind the mark Qantas are on this issue.

Couldn’t agree more, that’s quite ridiculous, isn’t it! Though the RJ website is a good tip, generally.

I had a funny reward seat on AY recently (which I needed to get Hobart to ticket manually as, guess what, it didn’t happen automatically) and wanted to sort my seat assignments which wasn’t possible on either Qantas or Finnair directly. Did it on Royal Jordanian and voila, those seats now also magically appear on AY’s own website. Crazy.

But back to topic- generally I am of course glad that Qantas is acknowledging the issue and, as it seems, tries to fix it. That bug has been around for way too long but better late than never.

 

[Ktan89]

Great work @AFF Editor. Thanks for jumping on this!

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

I hope this improves the service, I leave in a few weeks on a multi city rewards booking, so far everything ins good in the RJ site (we are flying RJ also) and Checkmytrip. Last August we were victims of this error and even after exiting a cruise early to make the flight Qantas moved us to with Qatar we were not reticketed and were left stranded at Rome Airport - oddly our Ticket was still for the original flight (that we really wanted and would have saved us thousands) but the booking was for the morning flight. The call centre told outright lies (Qantas have now admitted that) and were of no use whatsoever. Exiting a cruise early and being penalised, travelling across Europe and extra hotels was not in my budget - hopefully this new email will solve that happening to others. As a side note I have not got anywhere with Qantas on this, travel insurance didn't cover it and Qantas are just being pig headed. Looking forward to a better support mechanism on tis years reward flights.

After all that happened, why would you still fly QF?

 

[tooten69]

I am currently working through a classic reward flight cancellation issue. Que 12 o'clock email!

I will report back my experience!

 

[Youfah Mizzum]

the fact that this article advises you to use the Royal Jordanian website or apps like Check My Trip to see if you have an issued ticket number demonstrates just how far behind the mark Qantas are on this issue.

Indeed.
If Royal Jordanian and CMT can show ticket numbers on their site, then QF can too. It's just an Amadeus field which any web designer should be able to insert into the screen display. Not rocket science.

I've given up from booking OWA travels

Me too.
Until such time as I am comfortable these issues are ironed out, then I will be delaying any OWA bookings.

For pax travelling some time away, lets say Aug, Sept or later what checking interval should they be doing to see if any cancellations have happened behind the scenes? Daily (not gonna happen), weekly (might happen), monthly?

 

[jumpjam]

Hopefully they can sort out a decent alternative to my CBR-DOH-OSL flight originally booked on Qatar for July.

 

[Captain Halliday]

<checks date to ensure it’s not 1 April>

I guess the negative PR has forced their hand.

Just how many agents are assigned and the frequency with which that email account is monitored are not stated.

But in any case, why a band-aid solution?

Why not fix the underlying ticketing problem, whatever it is.

 

[exceladdict]

Being aware this was an issue had stopped me stockpiling points to use on an OWA. Hopefully indeed it is resolved and this becomes viable again.

 

[wsthong]

In country like Japan, the top management would have resigned.
Unfortunately, in Australia top management would hang on to their post.

 

[PaulyB]

Can't wait to see if there will be some real-life benefits. The OWA journey over the last few months has truly aged me and I am still nervous even though it is properly ticketed! If callers who have rung multiple times are re-routed to the new support team I'd have been at the head of the list. Probably lost literally 3 working days of my life dealing with them,.

 

[Youfah Mizzum]

But in any case, why a band-aid solution?

Not entirely sure it's a band-aid solution.
The creation of this dedicated team I think is an excellent initiative and ideally will be a permanent inclusion to QF staffing.
To be able to reticket cancellations from partner airlines in the most efficient and prompt method, and also have a means for punters like you & me to get in touch is a good move.

It's clear that prior to this team there was no one at QF who had responsibility for reticketing as it just wouldn't happen (in many cases anyway). Hopefully this team will resolve the issues.

I'm looking forward to QF regaining the trust of Aussie flyers!

 

[adenda]

Indeed.
If Royal Jordanian and CMT can show ticket numbers on their site, then QF can too. It's just an Amadeus field which any web designer should be able to insert into the screen display. Not rocket science.

Me too.
Until such time as I am comfortable these issues are ironed out, then I will be delaying any OWA bookings.

For pax travelling some time away, lets say Aug, Sept or later what checking interval should they be doing to see if any cancellations have happened behind the scenes? Daily (not gonna happen), weekly (might happen), monthly?

Due to previous stressful experiences I've been checking our May OWA on a daily basis for several weeks

 

[adenda]

<checks date to ensure it’s not 1 April>

Was thinking the same thing