Asked to cancel only return leg, now don't even have ticket

[iPwnJ00]

Hi all,

My first post here unfortunately is an ask for help -- I've been put in a very emotional rollercoaster for the past couple of days and this might be a lengthy post, but I hope someone here knows what I can do.

My sister is getting married in Kuala Lumpur this coming week and I've booked tickets with my SO to fly over from Australia for the wedding. This was a Classic Rewards Flight through Qantas, for an MH flight.

All was good -- I put the flight through on the Qantas website and everything was confirmed; a MEL<>KUL trip. I was then informed that due to some personal reasons, I had to fly over to attend to something in USA. Therefore, I bought another ticket from KUL>LAX (not via Qantas).

Obviously now that I'm not taking the return KUL>MEL trip anymore, I decided that I would go ahead and ask for only the return leg (KUL>MEL) to be cancelled and refunded to me. I was not sure this was possible but I saw a couple threads here mentioning it so I decided to ask the agent on call to see if it was possible. He assured me that it was possible to convert it into a one-way flight (MEL>KUL) and I would just need to pay a cancellation fee of 5000 points per person, which of course, I agreed to. He went ahead and did everything and said that the ticket will be reissued and all was well. I did not receive anything though -- but I thought it was just Qantas systems taking their time so I didn't think too much about it.

The following day, I checked my Qantas app/website, both showing "No trips upcoming". Now not only has my inbound flight been canceled, but my outbound flight also has been cancelled. I tried looking up the booking reference, which comes back as invalid.

Unsure what's happening with Qantas now, but I made a call to the Qantas phone line, which after 3 hours of waiting on hold, I finally got someone that was not very helpful. He told me the reason is because I haven't yet paid for my ticket (which doesn't even make sense because I should be expecting a refund) and therefore once they receive payment the ticket will be issued. After a while, he said just wait a day and see if the payment goes through.

I decided that I would take this opportunity to call Head Office, because I'm completely confused about what's happening; a really lovely lady in the Head Office team told me that MH needs to reissue the tickets and that it should just take an additional day but she'll follow it up for me.

The next day, I called Head Office back -- they told me that it usually takes up to 48 hours, so to call back again tomorrow, because MH hasn't responded.

Today, (the following day), I called Head Office back again, they told me that they haven't heard back and that they're going to send another request, which will take up to 48 hours.

I'm completely at a loss of what I can do. No one in Qantas seems to be useful and I really really really need to get on that flight as you can imagine. It's not just affecting the brother of the bride, but my booking is also with my SO, which she also cannot go unless this is fixed. I don't know what team I should get to because I'm just getting the same response over and over again and the time to fly is imminent. I'm worried I won't even have a flight to catch at this rate.

I really hope someone can help me out. Thank you all.

 

[Oubline]

Hi all,

My first post here unfortunately is an ask for help -- I've been put in a very emotional rollercoaster for the past couple of days and this might be a lengthy post, but I hope someone here knows what I can do.

My sister is getting married in Kuala Lumpur this coming week and I've booked tickets with my SO to fly over from Australia for the wedding. This was a Classic Rewards Flight through Qantas, for an MH flight.

All was good -- I put the flight through on the Qantas website and everything was confirmed; a MEL<>KUL trip. I was then informed that due to some personal reasons, I had to fly over to attend to something in USA. Therefore, I bought another ticket from KUL>LAX (not via Qantas).

Obviously now that I'm not taking the return KUL>MEL trip anymore, I decided that I would go ahead and ask for only the return leg (KUL>MEL) to be cancelled and refunded to me. I was not sure this was possible but I saw a couple threads here mentioning it so I decided to ask the agent on call to see if it was possible. He assured me that it was possible to convert it into a one-way flight (MEL>KUL) and I would just need to pay a cancellation fee of 5000 points per person, which of course, I agreed to. He went ahead and did everything and said that the ticket will be reissued and all was well. I did not receive anything though -- but I thought it was just Qantas systems taking their time so I didn't think too much about it.

The following day, I checked my Qantas app/website, both showing "No trips upcoming". Now not only has my inbound flight been canceled, but my outbound flight also has been cancelled. I tried looking up the booking reference, which comes back as invalid.

Unsure what's happening with Qantas now, but I made a call to the Qantas phone line, which after 3 hours of waiting on hold, I finally got someone that was not very helpful. He told me the reason is because I haven't yet paid for my ticket (which doesn't even make sense because I should be expecting a refund) and therefore once they receive payment the ticket will be issued. After a while, he said just wait a day and see if the payment goes through.

I decided that I would take this opportunity to call Head Office, because I'm completely confused about what's happening; a really lovely lady in the Head Office team told me that MH needs to reissue the tickets and that it should just take an additional day but she'll follow it up for me.

The next day, I called Head Office back -- they told me that it usually takes up to 48 hours, so to call back again tomorrow, because MH hasn't responded.

Today, (the following day), I called Head Office back again, they told me that they haven't heard back and that they're going to send another request, which will take up to 48 hours.

I'm completely at a loss of what I can do. No one in Qantas seems to be useful and I really really really need to get on that flight as you can imagine. It's not just affecting the brother of the bride, but my booking is also with my SO, which she also cannot go unless this is fixed. I don't know what team I should get to because I'm just getting the same response over and over again and the time to fly is imminent. I'm worried I won't even have a flight to catch at this rate.

I really hope someone can help me out. Thank you all.

It sounds like when the consultant cancelled the return leg, the consultant would have sent it off to be reticketed as MEL-KUL. Each change has to be reticketed.

When the consultants don’t ticket it straight away it goes into some sort of queue and during this time it’s possible for the other airline to pull back any flights on the booking and they will disappear from your booking - it sounds like that is what might have happened. That’s why a number of people on this site including me who have been burned before now are super-insistent on getting any changes ticketed straight away.

I’m really sorry to hear this has happened to you, it would be stressful!

I think what you are doing is right - to keep calling them. I think you should be adamant with them that you had a ticket issued by Qantas to carry you from MEL-KUL and that the only reason this has been cancelled is because of their incompetence, therefore they need to find another way to get you there. You can suggest that they open up availability for you on QF MEL-SIN and then from there add on MH for SIN-KUL.

 

[iPwnJ00]

It sounds like when the consultant cancelled the return leg, the consultant would have sent it off to be reticketed as MEL-KUL. Each change has to be reticketed.

When the consultants don’t ticket it straight away it goes into some sort of queue and during this time it’s possible for the other airline to pull back any flights on the booking and they will disappear from your booking - it sounds like that is what might have happened. That’s why a number of people on this site including me who have been burned before now are super-insistent on getting any changes ticketed straight away.

I’m really sorry to hear this has happened to you, it would be stressful!

I think what you are doing is right - to keep calling them. I think you should be adamant with them that you had a ticket issued by Qantas to carry you from MEL-KUL and that the only reason this has been cancelled is because of their incompetence, therefore they need to find another way to get you there. You can suggest that they open up availability for you on QF MEL-SIN and then from there add on MH for SIN-KUL.

Thank you for your response.

The more I try to understand what's happened, the more I feel like it's my fault to have canceled the return leg, but all-in-all, I can't seem to understand what I did wrong.

I mean, if I knew it was going to be this hard to just cancel a return leg, I would have just cop the loss of the entire leg, but at least I wouldn't be driven around in circles, especially since this time it's more than just a vacation which I could delay, but more like an important event that I cannot control and I have to be at.

I think Qantas did offer to do a MEL-SIN-KUL to get me to the destination as a solution. It's something that I might consider at the last minute because right now the biggest problem that I left out in the original post because I didn't think it was important is that I booked my mother (who hasn't taken a plane for the last 30 years) on that specific flight, but directly via MH because I didn't have enough points to put her on a Classic Rewards flight via Qantas. Therefore, she's guaranteed to still be travelling to KUL via the original flight as she's not affected by these shenanigans, but I'd really hope to be able to travel with her as I'm afraid she might not be very familiar with flight protocol given she hasn't taken a plane for so long.

That's also why even an upgrade to business class on that flight doesn't help, because I want to be able to assist my mother on the flight if need be.

This was meant to be an enjoyable family trip + my sister getting married. I really hope that this can get sorted.

 

[Oubline]

Thank you for your response.

The more I try to understand what's happened, the more I feel like it's my fault to have canceled the return leg, but all-in-all, I can't seem to understand what I did wrong.

I mean, if I knew it was going to be this hard to just cancel a return leg, I would have just cop the loss of the entire leg, but at least I wouldn't be driven around in circles, especially since this time it's more than just a vacation which I could delay, but more like an important event that I cannot control and I have to be at.

I think Qantas did offer to do a MEL-SIN-KUL to get me to the destination as a solution. It's something that I might consider at the last minute because right now the biggest problem that I left out in the original post because I didn't think it was important is that I booked my mother (who hasn't taken a plane for the last 30 years) on that specific flight, but directly via MH because I didn't have enough points to put her on a Classic Rewards flight via Qantas. Therefore, she's guaranteed to still be travelling to KUL via the original flight as she's not affected by these shenanigans, but I'd really hope to be able to travel with her as I'm afraid she might not be very familiar with flight protocol given she hasn't taken a plane for so long.

That's also why even an upgrade to business class on that flight doesn't help, because I want to be able to assist my mother on the flight if need be.

This was meant to be an enjoyable family trip + my sister getting married. I really hope that this can get sorted.

It’s not your fault at all!

Hopefully it can work out for you both!

 

[serfty]

@iPwnJ00 No - the agent has mucked up, followed by the other agents with shockingly poor advice.

Even if not ticketed, the PNR will show.

Both segments are likely to have been cancelled.

You really really need to get in touch with Qantas - urgently!

 

[iPwnJ00]

@iPwnJ00 No - the agent has mucked up, followed by the other agents with shockingly poor advice.

Even if not ticketed, the PNR will show.

Both segments are likely to have been cancelled.

You really really need to get in touch with Qantas - urgently!

Thanks for your assuring words



An update from when I posted the original post:

- I called Qantas another two times; once for an update which again, got "try again tomorrow", and finally, my last call which was an ask to cancel the flight entirely for a full refund.
- I've cop the bullet and decided to book the flight directly with MH using cash just so I don't need to continue stressing about this. I really want/need to be at my sister's wedding so I can't afford to keep "waiting tomorrow" without any clear indication what's happening.

Thanks once again to everyone that's shared the time to read my lengthy post.