Couple loses at VCAT over Lifetime QF Club card allegedly issued in error

[RichardMEL]

@RooFlyer - what I meant by "tried it on" was that they pursued their claim - I wasn't trying to insinuate that they were doing it deliberately fraudulently - as I wrote I have some sympathy for the confusing situation they were in from their pointof view given the error of the card and the (alleged) comment of the phone agent to he husband (but as has been demonstrated that was likely conjecture and not from actually looking at the actual situation due to privacy constraints). So yes, they had the card and an agent *appearing* to confirm it (but not really). The thing is, if it was a joint membership or something or however they paid for the membership - with a defined benefit this is all they should have expected. And yes, when hubby's card showed up with the correct expiry date they queried it. Again, the situation was compounded by the agent (allegedly) using the line about promotion/prize" - but MOST people would be uh yeah there's no actual documentation about this promotion or a draw we entered or naything - and if it was a prize or promotion, why only one and not both of them. Later QF confirmed there was no such promotion.

So yeah as I wrote I have sympathy for the thought that MAYBE they had something but the reality is no.

One wonders if the reporter contacted them from monitoring VCAT cases and saw QF and "oooh juicy" and followed up, or the couple went to the journo and did the woe is us nasty QF type whining. Now we have the earlier poster who says they know them and finds this hard to believe so who really knows. I've already commented on the emotive nature of the reporting on this too so I won't repeat that.

So, sorry if you think I'm being harsh. I was actually trying to show them some leeway. My sympathy ends when they rejected the QF offer and seem to be claiming QF still owes them. That's where the whole thing lost me.

 

[Vic]

Here’s the judgment.
Wilson v Qantas

TL;DR
Got card in Dec 2018 did nothing.
Husband got card March 2019 and rang up as his didn’t say Lifetime.
Advised that wife would have won a prize.
Didn’t travel at all in 2020
Card rejected April 2021.
June 2021 told in writing that she doesn’t have Lifetime QP.

So basically

Got something they thought was wrong,
called the airline prompted by the important fact that the primary membership did not match the partner membership, of that primary, on expiry.
Official airline representative told them it was valid.
I'm sorry the airline official told them it was correct. Are they supposed to not believe the official advice of the airline? (this is probably a rhetorical question because at the moment most call centre advice from qantas is aboslutel nonsense)

The way Qantas handled this was appalling. I go with the complainants view that there airline is arrogant, this is just another example of Qantas' current inablility to even do basic customer care. Plenty of example coming up here, almost daily - Qatar awards anyone?
Regardless of the validity of their claim - I see absolutely no reason to defend appalling customer service by qantas. Excuse this only delays Qantas in become less broken.

Gotta love the comments before your post making claims about the "evidence" when they haven't even read the judgement.

back in 2018 you only had to show your card to get lounge access but these days you have to scan it.

Not in my experience, I have generally been required to scan something since about the time they introduced the now defunct checkin posts.

oh and "back in 2018" lol

 

[RichardMEL]

PS I think there has been plenty of outrage here when status errors have occurred on-line and later taken away. Fortunately most have the sense to know when it was an error, and corrected.

And this is half of the thing. Most of we, more seasoned(shall we say) types have the sense to understand this was obviously a mistake. Less experienced folks, like this couple appear to be, may have had a genuine expectation that they had, indeed, won some sort of promotion based on the alleged conversation. I can accept that absolutely.

As I wrote though, in my view, they lost me when refusing the QF offer - when they were told there was no such promotion or offer and then declare QF to be arrogant about it all. QF is like OK there was an issue here. we stuffed up.. here's an offer of compensation but they still seemingly decided to pursue it and claim to be victims. That's too far for me.

 

[Vic]

I don’t believe they had proof of Lifetime Club membership.

They had a card that said ‘lifetime’, but they had not paid for that. In fact they rang, knowing they had not paid for it, to find out why Lifetime wasn’t extended to both parties.

It’s a bit like a bank paying you in error. Your statement doesn’t prove the money is yours, it only proves the money is in the account, or was in the account.

Aside from any of that, where is their loss? There is none. They got what they paid for. And the offer of compensation was a whole lot more.

And Got told they won something.

It's like the bank giving you $1 million and when queried telling you that was your $1 million.

 

[RichardMEL]

@Vic - I don't think anyone has defended the bad way this was handled and it is typical for QF unfortunately. This all went south when QF failed to promptly acknowledge the error and send a new card and apology letter. Let's say it was missed somehow OK. Next fail was the agent's claim it was valid, which clearly was false - but the caller isn't supposed to know that. Agree. Third is no resolution through QF customer complaint process - or at least no resolution to the satisfaction of the claimants. Yes. Agree. Poor.

Seems though when push came to shove QF did make the offer of a four year QC membership for them. Now it's unclear to me from reading when that was made? but that was rejected. How does that make QF arrogant?

yes, multiple points of failure here absolutely. poor customer care. yes. "arrogant"? perhaps more dismissive? I'm not sure. I guess everyone's mileage varies - and will be influenced by their own bias.

(I'm still waiting for a new round of accusations that I work in Marketing for QF !!)

 

[RichardMEL]

And Got told they won something.

yes. Apparently so per the claim.

You know what.. if it were me I reckon I'd want some kind of documentation on this.

And wouldn't one have received said proof of a promotion or other "win" - that may have come with the card? Sounds like the wife got the usual renewal card letter that said nothing much - here's your renewal blah blah blah and the card. I dunno. No email or any kind of other record? I'd still want to know what promotion?

maybe that's just me and I can absolutely accept it's reasonable, and would be in the view of the average person (ie the pub test) that it would be reasonable to believe what the agent said *to the husband*

that part, assuming the account is accurate, is on QF. Again gee you'd love to have that tape!

It's like the bank giving you $1 million and when queried telling you that was your $1 million.

Having been there lol it's true I was most definitely NOT told it was mine

 

[p--and--t]

Got something they thought was wrong,
called the airline prompted by the important fact that the primary membership did not match the partner membership, of that primary, on expiry.
Official airline representative told them it was valid.
I'm sorry the airline official told them it was correct. Are they supposed to not believe the official advice of the airline? (this is probably a rhetorical question because at the moment most call centre advice from qantas is aboslutel nonsense)

I firmly believe at no point in time would the agent have confirmed the wife's entitlements, because the system and scripts would not allow wife's profile info to be released to a third party (her husband). It would be a clear privacy breach. I believe the husband has embellished whatever was said to meet his interpretation of events.

The agent with probably little experience would have taken the husbands comments on board and not argued with him that she couldn't have been entitled, especially as the system would have shown the husband was an "elite" member and the agent couldn't check anyway.

A lesser experienced agent probably would not know anything about lifetime membership as they haven't been issued for many years and the subject never have normally come up and just excepted whatever the "elite" member (husband) said was the situation.

 

[RooFlyer]

I don’t believe they had proof of Lifetime Club membership.

They had a card that said ‘lifetime’, but they had not paid for that. In fact they rang, knowing they had not paid for it, to find out why Lifetime wasn’t extended to both parties.

It’s a bit like a bank paying you in error. Your statement doesn’t prove the money is yours, it only proves the money is in the account, or was in the account.

Aside from any of that, where is their loss? There is none. They got what they paid for. And the offer of compensation was a whole lot more.

I agree with most of that, esp the bank analogy - I was mainly addressing richardMel's take on it, which I thought was a bit harsh. One of them was sent a Liftime card (not both, but its not like Qantas is known for its consistency, is it ) and an agent apparently 'confirmed' it. That to me is reasonable 'proof', but instantly fell away when the airline made it clear it was a mistake. That's where it should have ended.

 

[CaptJCool]

it took 6 months From hearing to written ruling....

benefit in error

so recently I heard of a lifetime coffee card for $2.50 everyday every time. The place is now going broke as the punters take advantage of the lifetime discount...
reminds me of was it AA who offered “Lifetime” F class for $50,000

i pose these as examples of what happens if the business offers the lifetime supply of goods.... which isn’t the case here.

what baffles me is how the logistics of the QF IT System led to the mailing error. Having worked adjacent to a mailing out system, I would suggest a serious disconnect between the client system and the expiry date recorded on it (and we didn’t hear anything much about if the system had triggered an expired date override thus meaning an auto issue directly from it versus dumping data into a xcel spreadsheet for checking and an oops being made while the operator was prepAring the spreadsheet for referral to the mail out agent or a ‘replace all with’ function.

often in the old days, it was a ‘send all these people letter 1, this lot letter 2 etc where 1 = lifetime, 2 = one year forward. You get the idea

given the view QF stopped giving Lifetime cards out years ago, how did this mistake EVEN happen ?

it’s such a rare unusual mistake - a partner of a member “granted Lifetime” status - and

which letter accompanied the card? Generic or date specific?

worse, why did QF wait until after the lounge confrontation to send a renouncing letter
why was no letter despatched after the husbands phone call in 2019? Let alone before April 2021 because it’s clear by then QF had realised the mistake so when the card was scanned, despite Lifetime status emboldened on the card, it was rejected. At least the lounge dragons said, we don’t get it, and allowed access anyway.

I had this episode in the USA one Feb/March when I dropped from WP to G just before or during the trip, yet for obvious reasons the new card hadn’t arrived. To say it baffles staff, well yea it does - the card says one thing and the boarding pass another. On that occasion, I too, was allowed entry.

but like the bank account example, it’s upon the sending party, to rectify the benefit issued in error, ASAP.
IMAGINE if our friend who received $11 million had kept low and two years later it was for some reason still there because it was a govt agency error, and they had not yet audited ‘payments’ or inadvertently was stuck in your bank account accidentally by an international scammer.

that said, having left it for however many years, it was always going to come to a dispute

we’ve all heard stories of SCs being added twice or thrice to accounts. What if QF came along years later just as you’re about to hit LTG and they reversed all the mistakes. there Was never going to be an elegant result even in the face of compensation of 4 years complimentary membership.

 

[nlagalle]

Got something they thought was wrong,
called the airline prompted by the important fact that the primary membership did not match the partner membership, of that primary, on expiry.
Official airline representative told them it was valid.
I'm sorry the airline official told them it was correct. Are they supposed to not believe the official advice of the airline? (this is probably a rhetorical question because at the moment most call centre advice from qantas is aboslutel nonsense)

According to the ruling the husband called up, not the wife, so we don't know what was asked or what they were told. they certainly wouldn't have told them anything about the wifes account due to privacy rules

 

[nlagalle]

given the view QF stopped giving Lifetime cards out years ago, how did this mistake EVEN happen ?

there is still people with Lifetime QP and don't forget LT Plat gold and silver cards are still requested and printed.

my guess is there was some error in the batch file sent to the mail house resulting in some cards being printed with "lifetime".

 

[CaptJCool]

there is still people with Lifetime QP and don't forget LT Plat gold and silver cards are still requested and printed.

my guess is there was some error in the batch file sent to the mail house resulting in some cards being printed with "lifetime".

And apparently from the comments on the article in the press, some 80,000 suggesting the batch file was not a direct automatic lift from the client system but rather a human prepared file in which this error was created. Seems to me though the accompanying QC letter, unlike the annual renewal and re-issue of FF membership system WAS UNLIKELY to be DATE SPECIFIC

 

[Vic]

@Vic - I don't think anyone has defended the bad way this was handled and it is typical for QF unfortunately. This all went south when QF failed to promptly acknowledge the error and send a new card and apology letter. Let's say it was missed somehow OK. Next fail was the agent's claim it was valid, which clearly was false - but the caller isn't supposed to know that. Agree. Third is no resolution through QF customer complaint process - or at least no resolution to the satisfaction of the claimants. Yes. Agree. Poor.

Seems though when push came to shove QF did make the offer of a four year QC membership for them. Now it's unclear to me from reading when that was made? but that was rejected. How does that make QF arrogant?

yes, multiple points of failure here absolutely. poor customer care. yes. "arrogant"? perhaps more dismissive? I'm not sure. I guess everyone's mileage varies - and will be influenced by their own bias.

(I'm still waiting for a new round of accusations that I work in Marketing for QF !!)

Arrogant to not say whoops we made a mistake. Arrogant to not engage way before it got to VCAT. Arrogant to dismiss the customer not seek earlier resolution.

Keep waiting, there are a few here who defend everything Qantas do, you're not one of those, imo. By the same token, I haven't defended the validity of their claim.

According to the ruling the husband called up, not the wife, so we don't know what was asked or what they were told. they certainly wouldn't have told them anything about the wifes account due to privacy rules

Yep, exactly. You don't know either so laughable to be speculating. We also don't know if permission had been given about the account, so I'm not going to speculate about how the privacy rules may have been applied.
I'm not entirely sure that a call centre person who said they won a prize (for something that disappeared in 2007) is going to be that bothered about sticking to privacy rules.

 

[Austman]

Arrogant to not engage way before it got to VCAT.

According to the case, that was done in June 2021.

 

[Quickstatus]

my guess is there was some error in the batch file sent to the mail house resulting in some cards being printed with "lifetime".

Agree

The underlying HCoA legal authority alluded to by the tribunal speaks of "unjust enrichment" which this case is a classic example

Essentially the plaintiff was unjustly enriched due to a mistake by the bank in printing an incorrect expiry date. The details of the membership as held by the airline did not reconcile with the card. There was no evidence that any lottery was conducted and the airline provided evidence that the type of membership had never been associated or eligible for lifetime since 2007.

The claim by the husband that he was told by an airline agent that his wife won a lottery draw was not even entertained by the tribunal as there was no evidence for it.

Basically on the facts, had the plaintiff been allowed her application she would have been unjustly enriched by the misprinting of a card.

I don't think the airline was arrogant or dismissive. They proposed a resolution which was beneficial it ultimately not acceptable to the plaintiff .

Similarly, If you go to a store and you buy an item advertised at a certain shelf price, but subsequently the checkout price is erroneously more than the shelf price, the store owner has a right not to sell it to you at that price. However many (as part of store policy and a "scanning code of conduct" will sell you the first item at the shelf price (or give you the first item free if the value is less than $50 as in the case of Woolies) but not subsequent items

 

[Vic]

According to the case, that was done in June 2021.

When they offered a 20% discount? and waive the application fee?
I agree waiving the application fee would be making good their loss. Since the alternative pathway, where they continued to be asked to renew, they could have avoided the application fee.
But a 20% discount for Qantas' error? ISTR numerous qantas club discount offers during the last two years.

While it does not change the "win fall" aspect of the ruling for Qantas, I note Qantas' actions in allowing access for an account Qantas claims to be expired could be taken to confirm the "lifetime" thing.

 

[RooFlyer]

misprinting of a card.

Or the apparent random generosity of the airline

 

[Austman]

When they offered a 20% discount? and waive the application fee?

Yes. You said "Arrogant to not engage way before it got to VCAT." But Qantas did engage.

The couple decided that the Qantas engagement was not enough and wanted "the equivalent value in points, or pay compensation of $9,750.00."

So VCAT was the result.

The VCAT applicant did apparently get the Qantas life benefit for about 1.5 years. Before Qantas discovered their "mistake".

VCAT sided with Qantas. VCAT did give quite comprehensive reasons for its decision.

 

[nlagalle]

Yep, exactly. You don't know either so laughable to be speculating. We also don't know if permission had been given about the account, so I'm not going to speculate about how the privacy rules may have been applied.
I'm not entirely sure that a call centre person who said they won a prize (for something that disappeared in 2007) is going to be that bothered about sticking to privacy rules.

No i don't know, but given the privacy rules and also what was stated in the VCAT case it doesn't appear they did either get the wifre to call or have her verify they could access her account.

I also wonder did they log in and check the account online to see what it said there too? because that would show the expiry date along with the digital card.

 

[drron]

The lifetime card was issued in December 2018. It as a normal membership would have expired in December 2019. She was knocked back in May 2021. Did she even have another flight from December 2019 until May 2021. I would guess the minority of QFF members would have had a flight in that time frame.

So even I who is quick to criticise QF do not think QF was arrogant. I think they had got some terrible advice when QF made the second offer on the day of the hearing. It was very generous IMHO.