Disillusionment sets in … is it worth it?

[JohnK]

Maybe if the politicians weren't Chairman's Lounge and had to use the overseas call centres they would be more inclined to do something with regulation to force the airline to address the call centre problems.

Fair point but it's not just airlines.

This moving call centre to the overseas lowest bidder has to cease. There has to be a minimum standard that all businesses need to adhere to for customer service.

Turning up to the airport and you have issues and told to call to get issues resolved is unacceptable.

Making 2 fully refundable hotel bookings and cancelling each within the time required and finding that they've charged the first one and then refunded $25 less and stole 2,000 points for the 2nd booking. I've been trying to get it resolved for over 1 year without success.

I had enough points for 3 days car hire with Hertz. They owed me points and it took over a year of back and forth and I had no activity for 18 months due to pandemic and points expired. I've tried getting them back without success. They promise to help and nothing gets done.

Where do you go for help? Court for each issue? You end up giving up and the business wins. Very sad how we've ended up at this point.

 

[Mr H]

But oversea call centers, we have to contend on, (a)if the line is good or not, (b)what their (other side's) English is like, (c)if the call will drop off or not, (d)how knowledgeable they are, (e)what they can do without having to contact their QF/QFF liaison, for whom we can't contact directly, (f)what they do when their KPI have been met for the day/week, do they keep trying their best, or do they slow down.
Not to mention calls not being answered by the overseas call center.

Over and above this, with the overseas call centres the operators have no personal experience of travel or frequent flyer schemes. They do not understand what customers are trying to do, or why it matters. They don't get why a refund (within 8-12 weeks) might not be an acceptable remedy. They don't get that an itinerary will be cancelled if it is not ticketed within 24 hours because the script says that ticketing takes 48 hours. They don't get that a replacement flight in three weeks in a different class is unlikely to work. They are completely fixed to their script, and completely bound to what might or might not show on their first screen, and fixed to a rule that their supervisor swears to be true, even though it isn't. They will not try something to see whether it works.

If you can get through to South Africa, you have some hope of being able to explain your situation and work with an agent to find a way through. But Fiji - my goodness, you'll get nowhere with that call centre. They will make stuff up just to get you off the line, and if that doesn't work they will hang up on you. While calling you Sir.

 

[ketsuzei]

I have an Indian colleague, cleaner

You dirty dog.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Sorry, I am the other cleaner on that site, we are a group of cleaners.
I didn't mean that I employ her.
Should have made that clear.

 

[encryptededdy]

snip

I've never had an issue with understanding the overseas call center due to their english skills. Sometimes the line can be a bit dodgy, or they're having a party in the background, but most of the time it's fine.

I think the main issue as has been discussed countless times in this forum is the operators are not experienced with airlines/FF schemes, and have no idea how a lot of things work. This is how you end up with the classic examples such as when they say things like Qantas doesn't have any flights between MEL and SYD on any given day, when anyone with experience would know that's not true.

The most advantages, is once a person gets to QFF WP/P1, and can get 95% the HBA call centre.

For P1 yeah, for WP nope. More like 50% (and a lot less on a bad day).

Overseas, the staff are contractors on behalf of QF, where as the HBA ones are QF staff.

Auckland has QF staff too.

 

[RichardMEL]

I'd love to hear some experienced members to speculate (or confirm or debunk) on this. I have a gut feel - but can't pinpoint it - that when I have a few forward bookings on my account, the treatment becomes every so slightly more preferential. E.g. rebooking to better alternative flight in case of an IRROPS (better = closer to the original departure time, or similar). At times of no forward bookings, the treatment is "more mainstream".

Would this possibly influence the actual or (potential) predicted life-time customer value and hence some kind of a score on when & how issues are resolved?

There is the concept of "PCV" (Perceived? Customer Value) which basically is a measure used to determine (or describe) our value to QFF in terms of yield. Literally a "ranking"

now I am sure that having upcoming bookings has a small effect on this score. Does it mean anything outside of the higher status levels? no idea. There has long been a belief that some P1's get better treatment (ie: reward seats released etc) with the PCV score as a factor, but that's just a hypothesis rather than anything concerete for those of us outside of QFF Loyalty.

For lower status levels it probably still is something associated with a customer.. would it have any bearing on things like IRROPS? I say no. That would be status based. I doubt gate agents and general CS agents have access to this kind of information, and if they did I doubt it is something they factor in.. specially when doing things like trying to rebook. Of course the portal they use may provide options with this in mind I suppose, but honestly I doubt it. Most things like fare rules etc go out the window when it comes to IRROPS so it's probably more basically a function of status if anything in terms of providing options.

Again though, just a thought.

 

[Vic]

It's a lottery on what will work best. I also have the amex points for transfers to VA. But I've recently had to book two things for the first half of next year. India and Europe.
India was QF awards, business on Malaysian and Srilankan. I waited too long and the Srilankan option disappeared so I now have
Malaysian to India, QF returning from Singapore and I'm going to buy a one way with Singapore Airlines from India to SIN. All in around $1800 from Australia to India return in business, plus some points.

The Europe trip involved a plus one, so paid for me and awards for them. Also I'm there for 3 or 4 weeks, and they have 2 weeks. The answer (all business)
Me: paid Qatar SIN to Europe. QF business to SIN.
Plus one: Virgin awards - Singapore airline to SIN, Etihad SIN to Europe, Qatar Europe to SIN.
Virgin Award for both on Singapore airlines SIN to Oz.
We're also together on the Qatar flights back from Europe.

I've used 250k qantas points and about the same in Virgin points.

My next question: Do I send my paid Qatar flights to QF, VA or BA? lol

And I know all those separate bookings cost me more points and are risky for making connections. At least for the connections there is at least 24 hours in between each booking

 

[robolb]

I am currently a silver but up until now I've always been bronze and in the last few years we've used points to fly return to South Africa, first class on EK to NZ, numerous interstate trips and more domestic upgrades than I can remember. In April next year we'll be flying to Europe in Y and return in J.

It is frustrating but with some flexibility, forward planning and advice from AFFers there are trips to be had.

How did you get the EK upgrades? was it a Qantas flight number?
My understanding is that we can now only get upgrades on Qantas aircraft. i.e. Not a code s hare.

 

[love_the_life]

How did you get the EK upgrades? was it a Qantas flight number?
My understanding is that we can now only get upgrades on Qantas aircraft. i.e. Not a code s hare.

I don't think this means there were EK upgrades as they say 'and more domestic upgrades....' EK used to to 'free' upgrades possibly where they had overbooked - been lucky there before.

 

[VeniVidiVici]

How did you get the EK upgrades? was it a Qantas flight number?
My understanding is that we can now only get upgrades on Qantas aircraft. i.e. Not a code s hare.

Wasn't an upgrade, I booked using rewards. SYD-CHC

 

[Stargazer]

Every comment in this thread has been an eye opener. I guess as a newbie who has never travelled overseas, the issue of using points seems daunting. I don’t cope well with the unknown and like to feel that I have things under control. So I will be burning my posts on domestic flights waiting for international travel to settle down and hopefully the airlines (Qantas in particular) get their act together and set in place procedures to manage more effectively their frequent flyer programmes. Is this wishful thinking or as I suspect Qantas doesn’t care and will continue to show disrespect and disregard for their loyal customers

 

[Mr H]

I will be burning my posts on domestic flights waiting for international travel to settle down and hopefully the airlines (Qantas in particular) get their act together and set in place procedures to manage more effectively their frequent flyer programmes. Is this wishful thinking or as I suspect Qantas doesn’t care and will continue to show disrespect and disregard for their loyal customers

If I had a crystal ball, I would predict that Qantas will sort out its ticketing issue as this must be costing them in both goodwill and revenue. I would predict that either the overseas call centres will improve or they will lose their contracts whenever they are up for renewal, but I doubt the contracts would be terminated early. And I would predict that availability of award flights will get worse and worse as more people accumulate points and have the confidence to try to spend them.

But nothing dates faster than the future...

 

[Stargazer]

If I had a crystal ball, I would predict that Qantas will sort out its ticketing issue as this must be costing them in both goodwill and revenue. I would predict that either the overseas call centres will improve or they will lose their contracts whenever they are up for renewal.

But nothing dates faster than the future...

I just hope that you are right. At the moment I feel that travel is for Experienced travellers, who learnt the ropes pre COVID when I think there was more stability and availability. At the moment there are too many unknowns and without prior experience navigating the ins and outs of travel, in the current environment I feel safer staying closer to home.

 

[p--and--t]

I just hope that you are right. At the moment I feel that travel is for Experienced travellers, who learnt the ropes pre COVID when I think there was more stability and availability. At the moment there are too many unknowns and without prior experience navigating the ins and outs of travel, in the current environment I feel safer staying closer to home.

Did you learn to ride a bike? Wasn't it scary at first.

 

[Stargazer]

Riding a bike was easy. Didn’t fall. Being stranded overseas without a fall back (ie a competent call centre) to request help is the issue. Plus all the other points members have posted. The entire booking/travel process is a minefield.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Did you learn to ride a bike? Wasn't it scary at first.

Yes, but there weren’t multiple people trying to jam sticks into the spokes either…

 

[RichardMEL]

Riding a bike was easy. Didn’t fall. Being stranded overseas without a fall back (ie a competent call centre) to request help is the issue. Plus all the other points members have posted. The entire booking/travel process is a minefield.

To be fair the vast majority of issues have been before travel. It's pretty unlikely you'd be stranded once travel has commenced and not protected one way or another imo

Yes, the recent thread/issue about the QF/QR connection in BNE proves the exception to the above (which is why I wrote "vast majority") but in general once ticketed and confirmed you're going to be covered.

And of course as with any sort of travel, international travel insurance is a must.

 

[Catweazle]

Domestic and South Pacific (NZ, New Caledonia etc) redemptions are more-or-less the only thing that Qantas points are good for at the moment.

Yes, some good deals to be had out there still. Thinking of saving my points for those domestic and Pacific hops.

 

[JohnK]

I just hope that you are right. At the moment I feel that travel is for Experienced travellers, who learnt the ropes pre COVID when I think there was more stability and availability. At the moment there are too many unknowns and without prior experience navigating the ins and outs of travel, in the current environment I feel safer staying closer to home.

I consider myself a fairly experienced traveller and I've had some warped routings in my time but reading most of the stories on AFF this is not the time for complex itineraries involving multiple carriers. It's too stressful to try and find alternate routings and some have even had issues after trip has commenced.

I've go lots of points but I'll wait until this settles down and the schedules preCovid return.

 

[RichardMEL]

I consider myself a fairly experienced traveller and I've had some warped routings in my time but reading most of the stories on AFF this is not the time for complex itineraries involving multiple carriers. It's too stressful to try and find alternate routings and some have even had issues after trip has commenced.

I've go lots of points but I'll wait until this settles down and the schedules preCovid return.

Agree totally. my most recent lots of reward flights have been essentially simple direct routings (eg: MEL-SYD-LAX and v.v and MEL-DFW/DFW-MEL. simples). I would absolutely recommend keeping things simple and all on QF (if possible) or a very direct routing (and hopefully no changes) on a partner.