Downgraded from Business Class.

[scheps]

Just a personal anecdote here...

Flew AA in F fully paid ticket USA to europe, obviously picked our seats etc at the time of purchase, months ahead.

Then when checkin in, they told me our seats were taken and would need to downgrade us to J with $500 compo. I was SO angry.

Needless to say a few hodoukens and shoryukens got things back on track.

Maybe if i was EP then it wouldn't have happened.

 

[get me outta here]

Perhaps they pick on older people as they are least likely to need to get back for work. Although, the couple did explain that they had a pressing medical appointment.

Not everyone can afford to come back 1 day early from 10-12 day trips just in case the airline sfuffs up. Every day that I am delayed would be unpaid leave for me.

Why am I the one to suffer if the airline decides to oversell?

And I have scheduled specialist appointments the day after I have returned from leave. No choice. If I miss that appointment then I could easily wait 4-6 weeks for another appointment.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Provided the booking was made on a
credit card, and irrespective of whether the merchant is FC or QF, the charge back route has several advantages.

Once the charge back is processed for services not supplied, you are no longer waiting for QF or some one to get back to you, or make an offer you are happy with. If you charge back the whole transaction, they will be chasing you for payment. They are indeed entitled to fair payment for what they delivered, but as you have the money back, you need to agree what is reasonable (i.e. the net payment), hence what the "compensation" is. If you don't agree, they have to chase you - and ultimately pursue you via the courts. As soon as you have processed the charge back, advise FC or QF (or both) as appropriate, and state you are willing to pay the fair value for what was provided, but that you must reach agreement as to what is fair. Make sure you keep copies of this communication. Should agreement not be reached, this could be important to the way an outcome is eventually resolved.

Should it come to that, they will have the burden of proving what is fair (and they know it). It will also not be their interpretation that prevails, but that of a court or tribunal - which they also know.

Given that all this will cost them in lawyers and processing, and they well know that they are liable for damages, they will be much more reasonable about what they will accept - once you have the money, rather than them.

Credit card charge back is simple and powerful in these circumstances, so take advantage of it. This is one of the reasons I always pay for the airfares via CC - even when incurring the fees. This protects against non- delivery for all reasons, including insolvency of the provider, which most Travel Insurance policies won't cover.

Ok, in my continuing quest to educate myself on these matters :
Does anyone know which Australian financial institutions allow a charge back to be requested more than 30 days after the date the disputed charge appears on the statement?

None of my cards do

 

[ozbeachbabe]

No the early check-in doesn't suggest that all possibilities were exhausted IMO. Many passengers would have checked in long before them online.

It's pretty clear to me that there has been somewhat of a Swiss Cheese effect going on here and EmilyP's parents (amongst others) have landed at the bottom of it.

The best outcome would be an apology by QF, appropriate compensation that is acceptable to them. There should also be an assurance by QF that they will look internally at the processes behind the downgrade procedures to see if in fact things were handled badly or incorrectly so that future passengers may have confidence in booking with them.

I'm not sure how early the pax checked in eg 3 hours prior to travel however I believe you can do early checkin at LAX - maybe 6 hours beforehand, so there may have been people who took advantage of that not forgetting that pax flying from other ports eg BOS, JFK etc would've through checked some 8-10 hours earlier at their East Coast airport & received the QF16 passes at that time. Plus as mentioned above pax who have done OLCI at T-24.

Also just playing devils advocate for a moment - just say there was a couple bumped from QF16 the night prior to EmilyP's parents & they had been transferred over to the next day which resulted in the oversale then that couple would have wanted two seats together.

It's possible there wasn't two people with a lower status that had seats next to each other ie if they bumped a PS J pax in 16J and a SG J pax in 8B that wouldn't have helped get the two pax together disrupted from the previous night seated together.

 

[scheps]

It's possible there wasn't two people with a lower status that had seats next to each other ie if they bumped a PS J pax in 16J and a SG J pax in 8B that wouldn't have helped get the two pax together disrupted from the previous night seated together.

I wonder what % of people in J are SG or higher, typically.

 

[UP4014]

Also just playing devils advocate for a moment - just say there was a couple bumped from QF16 the night prior to EmilyP's parents & they had been transferred over to the next day which resulted in the oversale then that couple would have wanted two seats together.

The process isn't bump everyone back domino style until everyone is moved. When a flight is delayed or people bumped off only those people should be inconvenienced. There should be no flow on which simply increases the number of annoyed passengers.

Matt

 

[drron]

Oh Oh.In FJ lounge in Nadi flying J on a QF classic award.They have just asked for volunteers to fly tomorrow.
The Flying Fijians are on the flight.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Just a personal anecdote here...

Flew AA in F fully paid ticket USA to europe, obviously picked our seats etc at the time of purchase, months ahead.

Then when checkin in, they told me our seats were taken and would need to downgrade us to J with $500 compo. I was SO angry.

Needless to say a few hodoukens and shoryukens got things back on track.

Maybe if i was EP then it wouldn't have happened.

While the compensation is an issue ($500) it is entirely possible with flights to and from the USA on US carriers that pax in F can be moved or downgraded for Federal Air Marshals. By law, US carriers can't disclose you have been moved for an FAM. Flight choice for FAMs is completely at their discretion, and they can take up to two seats at any time up until departure.

my UA flight last year IAD-FRA went out with just 5/8 pax as one seat was for pilot rest and 2 for FAMs. Seat selection is often critical to try and ensure you're not the passenger moved!

 

[ozbeachbabe]

The process isn't bump everyone back domino style until everyone is moved. When a flight is delayed or people bumped off only those people should be inconvenienced. There should be no flow on which simply increases the number of annoyed passengers.

In a perfect world yes, however just say you were a WP couple who had arrived on a late inbound or cancelled flight and missed QF16 and there weren't J seats for another 3 days to SYD/MEL/BNE would you be happy to wait 3 days or would you expect the airline to try to do something to get you out earlier?

I don't believe it was staff passengers who got on as LAX ground staff don't do staff any favours as they don't see QF employees as fellow colleagues or friends - just people who get travel benefits that they (contractors) don't. They may even be a little bit spiteful and enjoy the discomfort of seeing them not get on.

 

[BD1959]

Agree, a forum like this can be a bit rough and tumble, don't come here if you can't take the bad along with the good.

If I just want to know how everything is rosy in the customer service department we can read it on the QF web site.

There's rough-and-tumble and then there's rough-and-tumble.

Regardless, the forum rules should still be applied: attack the message and not the messenger.

The QF website doesn't allow you the luxury of providing direct feedback which this forum does. That feedback should address the message and recognize the fact that Red Roo is a person(s) and not an entity.

Regards,

BD

 

[Katy]

Ok, in my continuing quest to educate myself on these matters :
Does anyone know which Australian financial institutions allow a charge back to be requested more than 30 days after the date the disputed charge appears on the statement?

None of my cards do

I have an HSBC card and a Citibank card and have been told that the limit is 120 days after the charge lands (not sure which one it was though). Apparently they can attempt to recover funds outside of this timeframe but there will be little chance of success.

NAB seem to have a 90 day timeframe.

 

[scheps]

my UA flight last year IAD-FRA went out with just 5/8 pax as one seat was for pilot rest and 2 for FAMs. Seat selection is often critical to try and ensure you're not the passenger moved!

how do you know they were for FAMs vs unsold vs other? just curious.

Seat selection months ahead in my case didn't make much difference, I suspect it was my well practiced original street fighter skillz that saved my bacon.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

how do you know they were for FAMs vs unsold vs other? just curious.

Seat selection months ahead in my case didn't make much difference, I suspect it was my well practiced original street fighter skillz that saved my bacon.

There's extensive discussion on seat movements due to FAMs on UA on other fora. FAMs are always easy to spot (no sleep, no alcohol, on board first etc etc). They also have preferred seating (for optimum security), so avoiding known 'hot seats' is good advice.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I have an HSBC card and a Citibank card and have been told that the limit is 120 days after the charge lands (not sure which one it was though). Apparently they can attempt to recover funds outside of this timeframe but there will be little chance of success.

NAB seem to have a 90 day timeframe.

Thanks.
My Westpac cards are 30 days.

 

[equus]

Ok, in my continuing quest to educate myself on these matters :
Does anyone know which Australian financial institutions allow a charge back to be requested more than 30 days after the date the disputed charge appears on the statement?

None of my cards do

Well, for the one I tend to rely on, I believe Amex is 120 days - but most importantly for this sort of case, the 120 days for provision of a service is from the expected provision date, not the payment date. So for a flight like this, 120 days from travel date. Much more useful.

The other big advantage of a directly issued Amex in these sort of situations is that you don't get caught in any problems between card issuers and merchant acquirers (basically your bank and the merchant's bank, if different). Amex has the direct relationship with the merchant.

Whilst different banks may have different rules, they are all in the end governed by the scheme rules (Visa or MasterCard being the most relevant). I don't have details to hand, but I seem to recall that both those schemes have some sort of expected delivery arrangement as well. Getting your bank interested may be problematic if they have chosen a "simpler" approach.

 

[BD1959]

FAMs are always easy to spot (no sleep, no alcohol, on board first etc etc). They also have preferred seating (for optimum security), so avoiding known 'hot seats' is good advice.

Sort of defeats the object of the exercise if they're so easy to spot - might as well wear their big silver star and have their horse sat in the second seat next to them

Regards,

BD

 

[Pushka]

Packsomepeaceofmind.gov.au

 

[Anna]

Getting your bank interested may be problematic if they have chosen a "simpler" approach.

I have never had any success getting the Commonwealth Bank interested in chargebacks even in the case of obvious duplication of transactions. Each time I have tried, I have been told I have to go back to the merchant and get them to reverse the duplicate transaction. Luckily for me so far, the merchants have been prepared to correct errors like that. But the Commonwealth Bank has never been prepared to do anything on my behalf to assist. (That's part of the reason why I now have cards with another bank).

 

[UP4014]

There's rough-and-tumble and then there's rough-and-tumble.

Regardless, the forum rules should still be applied: attack the message and not the messenger.

The QF website doesn't allow you the luxury of providing direct feedback which this forum does. That feedback should address the message and recognize the fact that Red Roo is a person(s) and not an entity.

Regards,

BD

The keystrokes are by a person, but the message is from an entity. When a personal message comes through from Red Roo it is signed off as such with no name or phone number which is a classic entitiy way of dealing with things.

Matt

 

[mannej]

The keystrokes are by a person, but the message is from an entity. When a personal message comes through from Red Roo it is signed off as such with no name or phone number which is a classic entitiy way of dealing with things.

Matt

Not always correct.