Changing or cancelling a flight bought with points

[tomleen]

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone can help me out. I am in Bali at the moment. I have a flight booked to sydney on dec 30th which I wish to change. When i ring up the local qantas in Bali, they say there are no available dates in dec but yet when i go on the website there are plenty. I am unable to make a change throught the website. From reading another post i understand this is because i have been on the phone to a consultant since and therefore the status on the website changes. What I would like to know is Can I cancel my flight, get my points back and then just use them to book another flight myself? Is there some cancellation policy in regard to a flight that was booked with points??
Any help suggestions much appreciated.
Thanks,
tom

 

[ksthommo]

G'day, you will lose 5000 points off the original booking.
You could try Jakarta Qantas to see if they are more
user friendly?

 

[serfty]

Hi tomleen, welcome to AFF.

Be aware - If this flight out of Bali is part of an award booking that you have already flown some flights on and you cancel you will not get any points reimbursed.

Otherwise, (if it's the first or only flight of you booking), you can cancel and "only" lose the 5K in cancellation fees.

Note it would cost 2½K to change the flight date in any case.

 

[one9]

I find many Qantas overseas offices hopeless when dealing with award flight changes etc. Often better to dial International to Australia (i.e. +61131313)

 

[tomleen]

many thanks for reply's. the flight i have is an award one. it is the first flight of journey, i return again to bali in feb so i hope i will not lose points because of this? for sure it is easier deal with qantas at home but impossible to get through to from bali it seems!

 

[JohnK]

Often better to dial International to Australia (i.e. +61131313)

Has anyone had success dialing the 6 digit local phone numbers from outside Australia. I have tried a number of times to call Qantas, Telstra, Citibank etc and all to no avail. I have to resort to finding the 8 digit phone number before being able to call.

 

[Evan]

No issues from Singapore
E

 

[JohnK]

OK. I have tried from Thailand using my Australian mobile while roaming, the Thai sim and overseas call booths. No luck so far....

 

[one9]

I have been able to call +61131313 from Thailand and Hong Kong. When calling on landline phone from Thailand I think you dial 0061131313.

 

[JohnK]

I don't know what I am doing wrong. I will try again when I am there in a few weeks just to satisfy my curisosity.

 

[NM]

a lot of the time it depends on the dialling rules configured into the PABX you are calling from (i.e. the hotel, office etc). Some PABXs can assume some predefined numbers of digits for certain call types. So when dialling an international number, using their international calling prefix (0011 in Australia, 011 in USA etc), they then assume a certain format for the rest of the number so it can be sent to the carrier in E.164 format. In many cases the PABX system assumed a number like +61131131 is too short and you have not entered all the digits and its waiting for you to enter more before trying to place the call with the carrier.

So in some cases it will work fine and in some cases it won't. I have successfully used such 6 digit Australian numbers via both Optus and Telstra calling cards from overseas. I would expect it to also work from most mobile/cellular phone systems overseas since the calling number is built on the handset and sent as a complete number to call, rather than relying on a PABX to build the number and place the call.