bigbadbyrnes
Member
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2011
- Posts
- 273
Fellow members,
I ask for your understanding but also your feedback. I feel I have a right to consider myself hard-done-by, but let this be a lesson (a lesson most of you won't need due to your extensive experience) to all observers.
A co-worker and I were umm'ing and aah'ing about forking out, at our own expense, to upgrade ourselves to premium economy on a flight from MEL->OOL solely to take advantage of the double SC offer.
On 20 October we had originally booked OOL->MEL->OOL flying on the 7 Nov, returning 10 Nov on Saver fares. On the 4 Nov, we decided to double up on our SCs by cancelling the flight (at a forfeit of $60 per person, $120 in total, plus the big difference between Saver fares and PE) and rebooking the same flight PE - so we were forking out a few hundred each to get 120SCs instead of the standard 15.
That was fine for the flight down, 120 SCs rattled through, brilliant, and then after thinking hard about it, we decided mid week to do the same again for our returning flight.
At even greater expense to us (because of the greater difference between our existing Saver fare booking and PE, plus the $120 cancellation fee again) we set about getting ourselves re-ticketed. We changed our booking to an earlier flight flying PE via Sydney and started rubbing our financial wound with the balm of the prospect of 120SCs and gold status before the end of the month.
Alas... when we re-ticketed our flights, we 'changed' the booking, rather than cancelling it and booking it again. The costs involved are identical, but neither of us realised that changing the flight, even to such a great extent and at exactly the same expense, would not create a new 'booking date' event which we needed to earn the double SCs.
I saw the standard 60SCs awarded to my Velocity account yesterday, and immediately made contact with Velocity via phone to see if I could get this cleared up. The second I saw the 60SCs rattle through, I referred to our new itinerary we were issued when we modified our flight and my heart sank as I then saw and realised the booking date was still back on 20 October. I pleaded with the Velocity rep but to no avail, being repeatedly referred back to the terms and conditions, which I acknowledged was technically valid, but I felt (and still feel) that I had grounds enough to have this reviewed and for special consideration to be shown.
I had a few lounge passes sitting in my Velocity account having made silver a while back that we were going to use anyway, so really the only reason we forked out was for the SCs, and we made an innocent error in our effort to rebook our flight and have been denied 60SCs.
Is this fair and reasonable? The Velocity rep invited me to write in on the Velocity feedback page on their website if I had further queries - would anyone like to express an opinion on any of this? Is it worth while writing in? Is this fair enough?
The real sting is we fly OOL->MEL->OOL in PE again next week (getting double SCs for one of those flights, and thats all fine and dandy) and I would have made Gold status by the end of next week before an international flight to USA in December and I was really hoping to make use of some Gold benefits like lounge access in the Air NZ lounge and others in the US.
I hope this is at least entertaining for others to read.
CB
Velocity Silver, for now.
I ask for your understanding but also your feedback. I feel I have a right to consider myself hard-done-by, but let this be a lesson (a lesson most of you won't need due to your extensive experience) to all observers.
A co-worker and I were umm'ing and aah'ing about forking out, at our own expense, to upgrade ourselves to premium economy on a flight from MEL->OOL solely to take advantage of the double SC offer.
On 20 October we had originally booked OOL->MEL->OOL flying on the 7 Nov, returning 10 Nov on Saver fares. On the 4 Nov, we decided to double up on our SCs by cancelling the flight (at a forfeit of $60 per person, $120 in total, plus the big difference between Saver fares and PE) and rebooking the same flight PE - so we were forking out a few hundred each to get 120SCs instead of the standard 15.
That was fine for the flight down, 120 SCs rattled through, brilliant, and then after thinking hard about it, we decided mid week to do the same again for our returning flight.
At even greater expense to us (because of the greater difference between our existing Saver fare booking and PE, plus the $120 cancellation fee again) we set about getting ourselves re-ticketed. We changed our booking to an earlier flight flying PE via Sydney and started rubbing our financial wound with the balm of the prospect of 120SCs and gold status before the end of the month.
Alas... when we re-ticketed our flights, we 'changed' the booking, rather than cancelling it and booking it again. The costs involved are identical, but neither of us realised that changing the flight, even to such a great extent and at exactly the same expense, would not create a new 'booking date' event which we needed to earn the double SCs.
I saw the standard 60SCs awarded to my Velocity account yesterday, and immediately made contact with Velocity via phone to see if I could get this cleared up. The second I saw the 60SCs rattle through, I referred to our new itinerary we were issued when we modified our flight and my heart sank as I then saw and realised the booking date was still back on 20 October. I pleaded with the Velocity rep but to no avail, being repeatedly referred back to the terms and conditions, which I acknowledged was technically valid, but I felt (and still feel) that I had grounds enough to have this reviewed and for special consideration to be shown.
I had a few lounge passes sitting in my Velocity account having made silver a while back that we were going to use anyway, so really the only reason we forked out was for the SCs, and we made an innocent error in our effort to rebook our flight and have been denied 60SCs.
Is this fair and reasonable? The Velocity rep invited me to write in on the Velocity feedback page on their website if I had further queries - would anyone like to express an opinion on any of this? Is it worth while writing in? Is this fair enough?
The real sting is we fly OOL->MEL->OOL in PE again next week (getting double SCs for one of those flights, and thats all fine and dandy) and I would have made Gold status by the end of next week before an international flight to USA in December and I was really hoping to make use of some Gold benefits like lounge access in the Air NZ lounge and others in the US.
I hope this is at least entertaining for others to read.
CB
Velocity Silver, for now.
