Absurd Qantas cancel fees and a question about no show rules?

[TheInsider]

So what actually happened?

Probably given INR price - 18000 is roughly $340 AUD
Depends on where the booking originates from and also what currency the booking was originally charged in.

The first agent probably didn't look hard enough at the cost or the currency it was in, or even know it was a different currency.

 

[levelnine]

If they were changing the routing and only Y class was available at that time, then the prices would've been a high price.

That's how ticketing works. You can't just cancel off one leg when it's been booked as a through fare, the routing needs to be repriced as there are new flights, it's a flight change.

Maybe the price given was incorrect and wasn't in the correct currency, who knows with those Mind Pearl agents. But it still remains, the OP requested a routing change, therefore a reprice on the booking. It's not as simple as just deleting the flight from the booking on international sectors.

The advice of MrJetSet and yourself suggested that $9,400 was the correct amount to be charged and that nothing could be done about it.

It turns out that was not even remotely correct.

 

[TheInsider]

The advice of MrJetSet and yourself suggested that $9,400 was the correct amount to be charged and that nothing could be done about it.

It turns out that was not even remotely correct.

It can be correct with the amount charged and what MrJetSet stated is correct. This does happen (maybe not those amounts), but changing to a full Y fare is very expensive. Full Y from DEL-MEL and then a full Y MEL-CBR - that sector by itself is around $1000
Clearly we don't have the booking to see.

 

[dajop]

Probably given INR price - 18000 is roughly $340 AUD
Depends on where the booking originates from and also what currency the booking was originally charged in.

The first agent probably didn't look hard enough at the cost or the currency it was in, or even know it was a different currency.

Not sure if INR came into it, being an AU issued ticket. Snacks entirely of agent incompetence. Would it surprise anyone that the only way some agents would find a way to change a ticket was to cancel the whole thing and rebook each sector, sector by sector in whatever fare class was available, including the unaffected outbound journey?

 

[offshore171]

Good news - got through to a very helpful service agent in the premium call centre at home this morning. Cancelling the first leg cost us $200pp, and we received a credit for $234pp, so we came out $34pp on top, it was sorted in 20 mins.

Has the eticket number come through after the changes? If not, monitor closely and ring back after 24hours.

 

[ChrisMars]

If they were changing the routing and only Y class was available at that time, then the prices would've been a high price.

That's how ticketing works. You can't just cancel off one leg when it's been booked as a through fare, the routing needs to be repriced as there are new flights, it's a flight change.

Maybe the price given was incorrect and wasn't in the correct currency, who knows with those Mind Pearl agents. But it still remains, the OP requested a routing change, therefore a reprice on the booking. It's not as simple as just deleting the flight from the booking on international sectors.

Could it be that an experienced agent can somehow ensure that the fare bucket of the initial booking is kept and reused for the new booking, preserving the booking price (to the extent of bucket fare price fluctuation / tax changes)? After all, they can do that with classic reward: removing some segments while preserving other segments, even if X/U class are not available anymore for the segments kept?

 

[encryptededdy]

Good news - got through to a very helpful service agent in the premium call centre at home this morning. Cancelling the first leg cost us $200pp, and we received a credit for $234pp, so we came out $34pp on top, it was sorted in 20 mins.

I couldn’t believe the wildly different answers I received to the same questions across multiple service agents, so definitely pays to be persistent! And don’t trust the advice you receive from some of the call centres - we were told it’d be fine to no-show last night, and were told this morning that a no-show would’ve left us stranded!

Thanks all for your advice!

I'm very glad you got your booking change done . Once again a case of some call centres having no idea how to price out even a seemingly basic request

We asked if we could alter the flights slightly to allow a few days in Delhi on our way home. No availability. No problem with that, flights get full.

I do wonder now if the flights were actually full, or if the agent did not know how to search the flights correctly .

To be honest, even though I won't pretend to know the intricacies of airline ticketing, I've definitely come across a few cases where seemingly small changes result in the ticket pricing way higher. For instance, I recently wanted to change a Cathay SYD-xHKG-HND ticket in Premium Economy to AKL-xSYD-xHKG-HND (adding a AKL-SYD leg). This caused the ticket to reprice from AU$1600 to AU$11,450 (on all dates!).

 

[MrJetset]

The advice of MrJetSet and yourself suggested that $9,400 was the correct amount to be charged and that nothing could be done about it.

It turns out that was not even remotely correct.

I suggest you reread what @TheInsider and I said the agent would have quoted. Fiji agents seem to be trained to cancel and book a new fare as we have seen with the QR fiasco.

Could it be that an experienced agent can somehow ensure that the fare bucket of the initial booking is kept and reused for the new booking, preserving the booking price (to the extent of bucket fare price fluctuation / tax changes)? After all, they can do that with classic reward: removing some segments while preserving other segments, even if X/U class are not available anymore for the segments kept?

Exactly this. The agent preserved the original fare class. Sometimes it can be done. e.g. QF to EK can often be separated with no penalty.

 

[levelnine]

I suggest you reread what @TheInsider and I said the agent would have quoted. Fiji agents seem to be trained to cancel and book a new fare as we have seen with the QR fiasco.

I suggest you reread what you and @TheInsider wrote and consider how an ordinary member of the public would reasonably interpret these comments.

 

[MrJetset]

I suggest you reread what you and @TheInsider wrote and consider how an ordinary member of the public would reasonably interpret these comments.

I don't consider AFF members the ordinary members of the public.