A Good Jetstar Call Centre Story

[Warragul]

We all like to have a go at Jetstar and I rarely use them, but having been enlightened recent about Max bundles and QFF Status Credits I thought I'll give that a whirl.

Some months ago I booked a Max bundle for around $275 - by comparision QF red-e-deal was almost $400. Last week Jetstar had a sale with the my exact flight with Max bundle being $176. I immediately thought I'll book another seat, cancel the first and pocket the change. Ah, no refund, credit voucher issued, damn.

After some conisderation and seeing some other flights that I could use to utilise the voucher ( I didn't want to be 'stuck' with a JQ voucher as I don't envisage using them a lot), I booked the $176 seat and cancelled the original thinking the voucher would appear an hour so later, second rookie mistake. Realising it may not come before the sale ends, I contacted them and the rep said I could book the flights paying with credit card, then when the voucher comes through contact them and they'll use the voucher for any existing bookings and refund that amount to the credit card.

I was not expecting this sort of helpfulness, but sounded pretty good but was a bit suspicious if this was true ( too many times trying to change a QF award booking perhaps) so kept a transcript of the chat just in case. Voucher arrives this morning, get on the online chat - 10 minutes later all done. Refund back to credit card to be completed within 7 days.

Long time since I've contacted Jetstar support was impressed. Along with the ability to use credit vouchers on already paid bookings, all positive. Does QF offer this ability? Long time since I've had a voucher with them.

 

[elanshin]

Long time since I've contacted Jetstar support was impressed. Along with the ability to use credit vouchers on already paid bookings, all positive. Does QF offer this ability? Long time since I've had a voucher with them.

As dumb as it sounds, QF uses different ways to do flight credits. JQ gives a voucher as you would expect from any voucher online, bunch of codes that when entered equates to a balance you can use as a payment method. (Incidentally you can use it multiple times until completely exhausted).

QF on the other hand has flight credits effectively stored as a ticket with a PNR. Then just rebooks you with the same PNR. Thats why it runs through a completely different booking site/ portal and is extremely rigid in what you can do with it.

 

[Warragul]

As dumb as it sounds, QF uses different ways to do flight credits. JQ gives a voucher as you would expect from any voucher online, bunch of codes that when entered equates to a balance you can use as a payment method. (Incidentally you can use it multiple times until completely exhausted).

QF on the other hand has flight credits effectively stored as a ticket with a PNR. Then just rebooks you with the same PNR. Thats why it runs through a completely different booking site/ portal and is extremely rigid in what you can do with it.

Ah yes, now I remember the QF (and to a degree VA) way, certainly something I rather forget. I'm sure there is reasonable logic in handling credit that way for the business, for the punter maybe not.

 

[AIRwin]

Some months ago I booked a Max bundle for around $275 - by comparision QF red-e-deal was almost $400. Last week Jetstar had a sale with the my exact flight with Max bundle being $176. I immediately thought I'll book another seat, cancel the first and pocket the change. Ah, no refund, credit voucher issued, damn.

After some conisderation and seeing some other flights that I could use to utilise the voucher ( I didn't want to be 'stuck' with a JQ voucher as I don't envisage using them a lot), I booked the $176 seat and cancelled the original thinking the voucher would appear an hour so later, second rookie mistake. Realising it may not come before the sale ends, I contacted them and the rep said I could book the flights paying with credit card, then when the voucher comes through contact them and they'll use the voucher for any existing bookings and refund that amount to the credit card.

Is the refund for $176 and the remaining $99 from what was originally paid issued in the form of a new credit voucher?

 

[Warragul]

Issued with a $275 voucher. $176 went to the 'duplicate booking' with the remaiing $99 credit used to part pay some unrelated bookings I recently made. If I hadn't used that $99 it would still be on the original voucher.

As an aside the refunded money was in my credit card card account 4 days later.