Award booking cancelled due to Qantas Error - AGAIN

[hb13]

Hi All, Qantas has done it again and completely and utterly stuffed up a booking.

On Sunday morning, I made a Qantas Award booking for my brother, his wife and their infant baby (4 months old) to fly from Amman (Jordan) to Dammam (Saudi) flying Royal Jordanian.

On Monday, the booking got cancelled and no longer existed. I called Qantas and they said just book again, they have no idea what happened. The seats were still available so I booked again.

On Tuesday, the same thing happened. I called Qantas and they told me 'the points weren't logged' (I've never heard this before) and so the booking wasn't made. The agent apologised and offered to 're-instate' the booking free of charge. The agent promised me that she would monitor the booking and ensure it is ticketed within the next 24 hours.

On Wednesday, flights were gone again. I got hold of a supervisor and at this point I'm furious. But as usual, Qantas wouldn't accept blame. The manager told me the tickets were cancelled because they 'timed out', which is because Qantas didn't ticket them in time. I asked her why this didn't happen, and she said there was an issue with the payment - which makes no sense because the credit card I used is fine and it made no sense to me whatsoever. She couldn't explain further what went wrong. The disastrous thing now is that there is only one seat available and the alternatives are non-existent. There aren't even revenue economy seats available on the flight. This manager said she'll put in a request to RJ for the seats to be re-instated and that's all she can do.

How the hell does this keep being allowed to happen with Qantas??? What can I do now because my brother's trip is completely screwed at this point if he doesn't make this flight.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? What needs to happen for Qantas to actually have some competence and treat customers with respect?

Is there any legal avenues for me to take against Qantas with this?

 

[RooFlyer]

Hi All, Qantas has done it again and completely and utterly stuffed up a booking.

On Sunday morning, I made a Qantas Award booking for my brother, his wife and their infant baby (4 months old) to fly from Amman (Jordan) to Dammam (Saudi) flying Royal Jordanian.

On Monday, the booking got cancelled and no longer existed. I called Qantas and they said just book again, they have no idea what happened. The seats were still available so I booked again.

On Tuesday, the same thing happened. I called Qantas and they told me 'the points weren't logged' (I've never heard this before) and so the booking wasn't made. The agent apologised and offered to 're-instate' the booking free of charge. The agent promised me that she would monitor the booking and ensure it is ticketed within the next 24 hours.

On Wednesday, flights were gone again. I got hold of a supervisor and at this point I'm furious. But as usual, Qantas wouldn't accept blame. The manager told me the tickets were cancelled because they 'timed out', which is because Qantas didn't ticket them in time. I asked her why this didn't happen, and she said there was an issue with the payment - which makes no sense because the credit card I used is fine and it made no sense to me whatsoever. She couldn't explain further what went wrong. The disastrous thing now is that there is only one seat available and the alternatives are non-existent. There aren't even revenue economy seats available on the flight. This manager said she'll put in a request to RJ for the seats to be re-instated and that's all she can do.

How the hell does this keep being allowed to happen with Qantas??? What can I do now because my brother's trip is completely screwed at this point if he doesn't make this flight.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? What needs to happen for Qantas to actually have some competence and treat customers with respect?

Is there any legal avenues for me to take against Qantas with this?

That’s awful – but typical of Qantas. You ask how it can be allowed to keep happening with Qantas? It’s because they simply don’t care Or simply won’t spend the funds to fix up their totally stuffed up systems. End of story.

 

[Seat0B]

Hi All, Qantas has done it again and completely and utterly stuffed up a booking.

On Sunday morning, I made a Qantas Award booking for my brother, his wife and their infant baby (4 months old) to fly from Amman (Jordan) to Dammam (Saudi) flying Royal Jordanian.

On Monday, the booking got cancelled and no longer existed. I called Qantas and they said just book again, they have no idea what happened. The seats were still available so I booked again.

On Tuesday, the same thing happened. I called Qantas and they told me 'the points weren't logged' (I've never heard this before) and so the booking wasn't made. The agent apologised and offered to 're-instate' the booking free of charge. The agent promised me that she would monitor the booking and ensure it is ticketed within the next 24 hours.

On Wednesday, flights were gone again. I got hold of a supervisor and at this point I'm furious. But as usual, Qantas wouldn't accept blame. The manager told me the tickets were cancelled because they 'timed out', which is because Qantas didn't ticket them in time. I asked her why this didn't happen, and she said there was an issue with the payment - which makes no sense because the credit card I used is fine and it made no sense to me whatsoever. She couldn't explain further what went wrong. The disastrous thing now is that there is only one seat available and the alternatives are non-existent. There aren't even revenue economy seats available on the flight. This manager said she'll put in a request to RJ for the seats to be re-instated and that's all she can do.

How the hell does this keep being allowed to happen with Qantas??? What can I do now because my brother's trip is completely screwed at this point if he doesn't make this flight.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? What needs to happen for Qantas to actually have some competence and treat customers with respect?

Is there any legal avenues for me to take against Qantas with this?

Maybe media avenues would be faster, cheaper and more effective than legal?

 

[jbman]

Terrible news again about award travel booked through Qantas.

I don’t see any commercial media outlets ever saying a bad word about Qantas. Always glowing reviews about new ‘game changing’ flights Ep 21 - Qantas PR - Media Watch

 

[hb13]

Maybe media avenues would be faster, cheaper and more effective than legal?

I would like to go down this route but I'm not sure how I get started. I'd love to get this story and the previous story out in the open.

Qantas I'm sure is stuffing up so many people's journeys and putting people through a significant amount of financial hardship because of all this. My brother is literally on holidays now and this gets thrown at him by Qantas and then they refuse to fix it.

 

[roby]

I spent hours everyday last week trying to deal with my SYD-SFO reward cancellation. I can tell you never to trust any agent telling you anything unless they can fix the problem on the spot. The 24 hour wait each and every time is ridiculous and nothing will happen after you hang up. I did get my booking re-reacommendated eventually when an agent in South Africa got hold of the ticketing team while I was on hold, however I did have 30,000 more points taken (stolen) from my account without consent. I guess that wouldn't solve your problem now that the seats you wanted are no longer available. I have never dealt with a more terrible airline in my whole life and I seriously can't think of anything their super inefficient call centres can do for you.

 

[adenda]

The media storm about call centre wait times earlier this year seems to have had an effect in that the several hours wait times seem to be a thing of the past - at least in my experience. But a consequence of that "improvement" appears to be a drastic drop in the competence of most call centre staff - seemingly due to inadequate training.

I've had a few near disasters myself that were fortunately all resolved - mostly late ticketing related - and am now outright too scared to call up to try and make any changes to my OWA itinerary.

Personally if I had to choose between (1) waiting an extended period to get connected to an agent of the calibre of the Hobart centre and (2) getting through relatively quickly to an agent who is unable to assist with even the simplest request I would choose (1) every time. Waiting is an inconvenience but having a booked itinerary destroyed would be shattering.

It seems to me the only way Qantas would do something meaningful about the competence of their call centre staff would be to get a similar media storm brewing.

As with the OP, I don't know how to get this started but I'm wondering if a couple of things might help:
1. If all the Platinum and above members make it known to call centre staff when on a call of the deplorable level of competence they've either encountered themselves or heard about
2. AFF management make some representation to Qantas to at least get an acknowledgment that there re-ticketing times are unacceptable.
3. AFF publish more articles on ticketing and other disasters in the hope the mainstream media decides to run an article.

Can only hope.

 

[Seat0B]

I would like to go down this route but I'm not sure how I get started. I'd love to get this story and the previous story out in the open.

Qantas I'm sure is stuffing up so many people's journeys and putting people through a significant amount of financial hardship because of all this. My brother is literally on holidays now and this gets thrown at him by Qantas and then they refuse to fix it.

I’m not an expert in media but this has worked for me. Start with a small local news outlet - they need stories to fill out their pages. Some kind of local angle usually helps. Then if you are lucky it gets picked up by other media and escalated. Local radio stations are good for this too. It’s really important to distill your message down to no more than 3 key points plus what restitution you seek. Cut out all details and complexities and keep it as simple as you can so anyone can understand the problem.
Also, the TV programs do love a sensational story so you can try to contact producers of A Current Affair, the Project or similar. Use any social media you can access with your clear tight story eg the vegetarian meals on Qantas story.

Good luck.

 

[hb13]

The media storm about call centre wait times earlier this year seems to have had an effect in that the several hours wait times seem to be a thing of the past - at least in my experience. But a consequence of that "improvement" appears to be a drastic drop in the competence of most call centre staff - seemingly due to inadequate training.

I've had a few near disasters myself that were fortunately all resolved - mostly late ticketing related - and am now outright too scared to call up to try and make any changes to my OWA itinerary.

Personally if I had to choose between (1) waiting an extended period to get connected to an agent of the calibre of the Hobart centre and (2) getting through relatively quickly to an agent who is unable to assist with even the simplest request I would choose (1) every time. Waiting is an inconvenience but having a booked itinerary destroyed would be shattering.

It seems to me the only way Qantas would do something meaningful about the competence of their call centre staff would be to get a similar media storm brewing.

As with the OP, I don't know how to get this started but I'm wondering if a couple of things might help:
1. If all the Platinum and above members make it known to call centre staff when on a call of the deplorable level of competence they've either encountered themselves or heard about
2. AFF management make some representation to Qantas to at least get an acknowledgment that there re-ticketing times are unacceptable.
3. AFF publish more articles on ticketing and other disasters in the hope the mainstream media decides to run an article.

Can only hope.

This would be great. If AFF can publish this articles, I'm more than happy to give all the details, then it would gain some traction I'm sure and possibly get picked up by local media outlets.

 

[Anna]

Media who earn advertising revenue from QF and/or get invited to QF junkets (eg the recent jaunt to Bangalore, or the one before that to Rome) aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them over one disgruntled person. Get together a large group all willing to appear on camera and maybe you'd get some media traction for 5 minutes. But even then the media is quite likely to think they've already done the QF story this year and don't want to rehash it even if it is from a slightly different angle.

My question is why are people continuing to try to make these bookings when they've already been bitten? What's that old adage about continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome?

 

[Danger]

AFF might also like to consider issuing press releases. I'd be happy to write them and it's not hard to put together a list of journalists' email addresses. Through my work, I have access to a broad database as part of our service my company pays for.

This would certainly be a shift in approach for the site, though and I doubt management would take that approach.

 

[Happy Dude]

Gonna guess the reward seats weren't actually there despite what the OP and QF saw online. The flight, a relatively obscure one, went from having plenty of reward availability to no revenue fares available within three days?

 

[UP4014]

Being honest I don’t think the media is going to be interested in a failed reward booking you made via QF with an airline in Jordan.

As Happy Dude said, it possibly wasn’t there in the first place and the media will ask did you try to book a ‘normal ticket’ using money first before calling us.

As for legal action, are you prepared to spend more than the ticket price and risk a loss in court.

As painful as it is be pragmatic otherwise this type of thing with airlines leaves you bitter and twisted with nothing to show for it.

 

[hb13]

Gonna guess the reward seats weren't actually there despite what the OP and QF saw online. The flight, a relatively obscure one, went from having plenty of reward availability to no revenue fares available within three days?

Actually there were two award seats and then they went to one award seats and there are still revenue seats in business only. I've been able to book and get the one award seat ticketed. The revenue seats are extremely expensive (over 2k for a 2hr flight).

Three different managers/supervisors who listened to a recording of the calls where the agent told me she has booked the seats and they will soon be ticketed have now admitted it was indeed Qantas at fault - but they refuse to do anything about it. Their response was 'sorry but we can't do anything else".

 

[djkelly69]

The flight, a relatively obscure one, went from having plenty of reward availability to no revenue fares available within three days?

Makes sense to me - there was seemingly 5 award seats available originally, then 2 seats were booked and cancelled twice, and don't go back to award inventory for whatever reason (which is what some airlines do, not sure about RJ).

 

[adenda]

Agree the media wouldn't be interested in a failed reward booking but it seems to me the consistent failure to ticket - or re-ticket - itineraries in time to avoid sectors being lost and then washing their hands of any responsibility might be of interest.

If more QFF members were aware of the potential traumas they may face in trying to use their points they might decide to direct their loyalty to another program eg. Velocity. That certainly seems to be a sentiment being expressed more and more on AFF.

I wonder also if there are a lot more horror stories out there than the ones that have been documented in these forums from time to time - I haven't bothered to detail my 4 or 5 "near-death experiences" as I was fortunate to get them all rectified.

 

[hb13]

In my family we have some more Qantas points we are looking to burn but we have stopped collecting them. I've taken up the Virgin Australia status challenge and will look to stick with earning Virgin points and AMEX membership rewards points.

The biggest perk of QFF points were EK and QR premium bookings, however, QR bookings are basically non-existent using QFF points and the taxes alone for EK premium awards are almost like buying premium tickets outright.

Qantas has treated members with arrogance and contempt and I'd be shocked if more and more people don't soon realise this.

 

[Pele]

Sad to say but now it is my turn.

In May this year i booked three pax on RJ AMM-DOH for 30th November. Award flight, points deducted, paid the taxes, ticketed etc all visible on QF and RJ websites. I get an email on 20th October saying my flight time had been changed by 1 hour. No problems. A quote from the email :

Sit back and enjoy the journey​

The good news is these changes have been automatically updated and you don't need to do anything.

Today i decided to go in and check all of my upcoming flights to see everything i ok. Sure enough this flight is gone. Not visible on Check my trip, QF or RJ. Had a hunch that QF did not ticket it in time.

As a pleb bronze i ring them, get through to someone in Fiji who confirms my suspicion of a failure to reticket but even after multiple attempts refuses to admit QF were the ones who were responsible for reticketing. She said they will send a reinstatement request to RJ. Timeline for response unknown but to reassure me she says 'you will get a response by departure time'. WTF!

I have no confidence RJ will reinstate the three tickets. There are still revenue tickets on the flight but Y is $750 per person. I need to be in Doha on this flight so at some point i might have to buy them.

I plan to wait three days, ring again to see if there is a response from RJ. In the meantime if there is any platinum QFF member who wants to ring so i can get through to Hobart and help me i would be greatful. If i end up out of pocket i plan to look at NCAT to be compensated my out of pocket expenses. QF still havent refunded the points for this booking nor the taxes.

 

[Anna]

The Traveller section in the SMH/Age/online publishes all sorts of pax stories. Maybe someone could try writing a letter to Traveller about their experience to see if it gets published, or even maybe if it gets followed up by the media.

Sometimes one letter published in Traveller generates an avalanche of 'me too' letters that then gets looked into.

 

[Nitro6333]

Sad to say but now it is my turn.

In May this year i booked three pax on RJ AMM-DOH for 30th November. Award flight, points deducted, paid the taxes, ticketed etc all visible on QF and RJ websites. I get an email on 20th October saying my flight time had been changed by 1 hour. No problems. A quote from the email :

Sit back and enjoy the journey​

The good news is these changes have been automatically updated and you don't need to do anything.

Today i decided to go in and check all of my upcoming flights to see everything i ok. Sure enough this flight is gone. Not visible on Check my trip, QF or RJ. Had a hunch that QF did not ticket it in time.

As a pleb bronze i ring them, get through to someone in Fiji who confirms my suspicion of a failure to reticket but even after multiple attempts refuses to admit QF were the ones who were responsible for reticketing. She said they will send a reinstatement request to RJ. Timeline for response unknown but to reassure me she says 'you will get a response by departure time'. WTF!

I have no confidence RJ will reinstate the three tickets. There are still revenue tickets on the flight but Y is $750 per person. I need to be in Doha on this flight so at some point i might have to buy them.

I plan to wait three days, ring again to see if there is a response from RJ. In the meantime if there is any platinum QFF member who wants to ring so i can get through to Hobart and help me i would be greatful. If i end up out of pocket i plan to look at NCAT to be compensated my out of pocket expenses. QF still havent refunded the points for this booking nor the taxe

Sad to say but now it is my turn.

In May this year i booked three pax on RJ AMM-DOH for 30th November. Award flight, points deducted, paid the taxes, ticketed etc all visible on QF and RJ websites. I get an email on 20th October saying my flight time had been changed by 1 hour. No problems. A quote from the email :

Sit back and enjoy the journey​

The good news is these changes have been automatically updated and you don't need to do anything.

Today i decided to go in and check all of my upcoming flights to see everything i ok. Sure enough this flight is gone. Not visible on Check my trip, QF or RJ. Had a hunch that QF did not ticket it in time.

As a pleb bronze i ring them, get through to someone in Fiji who confirms my suspicion of a failure to reticket but even after multiple attempts refuses to admit QF were the ones who were responsible for reticketing. She said they will send a reinstatement request to RJ. Timeline for response unknown but to reassure me she says 'you will get a response by departure time'. WTF!

I have no confidence RJ will reinstate the three tickets. There are still revenue tickets on the flight but Y is $750 per person. I need to be in Doha on this flight so at some point i might have to buy them.

I plan to wait three days, ring again to see if there is a response from RJ. In the meantime if there is any platinum QFF member who wants to ring so i can get through to Hobart and help me i would be greatful. If i end up out of pocket i plan to look at NCAT to be compensated my out of pocket expenses. QF still havent refunded the points for this booking nor the taxes.

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