Downgraded from Business Class.

[bam71]

If I was involuntarily downgraded LAX BNE or vv I'd be wanting around $4000.00 back plus the J class points I would have earned. That is IF i accepted to go Y as offered on the day of travel, instead of being put on another carrier in J ( or P) or next day on J.

I wonder what others feel is warranted.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Keep in mind QF read this so anything suggested here may weaken your position.
However in any situation it's important to identify what is important to both parties because what you think is important may not be important to QF.

For example - you want an apology. This cost QF nothing and imagine if AJ picked up the phone and personally called your parents. That alone might be enough (to some people).
To QF - cash is important. Ask for something that is a sunk cost for them and doesn't require any extra outlay. An additional year on their Gold status, some Qantas Club passes, a "space available" to first class when they next pay for a business class ticket. Be creative.

When you pay for a biz ticket price is not primary driver, so I believe a good way forward would be not to tie compensation to financials. Make it about something else that is important to you.
Think about it - say you get $5,000 back. You still don't like QF because money was never the issue, the treatment and bad in-flight experience were the issues. Make it about the problems and forget the cash component and you'll get further, more likely a satisfactory outcome and you'll likely feel good about flying Qantas in the future.

Most people at Qantas are easy to deal with and want to make it right. Keep that in mind when dealing with them.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

As they have been told by QF many times - 'When you book a flight with us you are not guaranteed a seat. It's in our T&C's that you agreed to when paying for the flights"

If QF are seeking to rely on this they may need to acquaint themselves with the relatively recently amended Competition and Consumer Act.
There are now grounds to have onerous terms in a consumer contract set aside if the contract is a formula contract and the consumer had no real opportunity to negotiate the terms and no real option to purchase the same or similar goods or services elsewhere under less onerous terms.
I don't think there has been a relevant test case as yet.


* Important disclaimer: this is a personal opinion, it is not offered as legal advice, and you should neither take nor refrain from taking any action in reliance on it. You should seek your own qualified, independent legal advice on these matters.

 

[timster]

Contact consumer affairs before accepting any offer.

Is this shaping as a test case for proper compensation in these situations ? It could have happened to any of us. Appallingly handled from beginning to now, although probably not it seems, illegally, although it should be. I am sure there are some legal eagles on here who would be prepared to advise.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-protection/where-to-go-for-consumer-help

 

[Flying mermaid]

The problem is the longer these situations escalate the harder it is to soothe things down. Perhaps Red Roo could say whether they are doing anything to counsel the supervisor who walked away mid conversation with a customer? These are the things that need to be fixed up. Things are always going to go wrong and downgrades happen, but it is how they are handled that makes the difference. This seems to have been handled insensitively and with disrespect by both the ground staff in the USA and the call centre - presumably just reading off a script.

 

[Princess Fiona]

When we next fly together I'll have my $500 waiting for you to trade seats ;-)

Clever trippin
Actually I know that I might get bumped, unlikely but it might happen.
I'd take the next J seat available. If not I'd take the points, $500 and the coughpy fare difference.

If it were my parents they would be feeling the same way at check-in as EmilyP's I'm sure. I wouldn't want them to continue to pursue it beyond the offer as I don't think the angst, time, effort +/- legal fees would be worth it.

Just my 5 cents worth.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Clever trippin
Actually I know that I might get bumped, unlikely but it might happen.
I'd take the next J seat available. If not I'd take the points, $500 and the coughpy fare difference.

If it were my parents they would be feeling the same way at check-in as EmilyP's I'm sure. I wouldn't want them to continue to pursue it beyond the offer as I don't think the angst, time, effort +/- legal fees would be worth it.

Just my 5 cents worth.

Small claims is an easy avenue.

This is why the advice of Consumer Affairs is important. It would be a shame to suggest someone accepts an offer for them to later find out they might have received much more.

 

[Johnno101]

AS someone getting on in age If I booked a business class seat with my wife and was seperated WITHOUT due consultation during the flight I had paid for then I would be extremely upset. Not becuase I had to move to economy when I had paid for business but because of the sepearation aspect. I think the least I would expect is points equivalent to two business class flights return to LAX. If not forthcoming I would take to the state small claims tribunal, obviously also mentioning to the various coughpy tv shows like today tonight that are always after these types of stories. I have no sympathy with large companies that overbook. It is not as though they cant use computer booking systems.
All I can say is another nail in Qantas coffin.

 

[NM]

Provided the fare difference offered is the difference between the business class fare actually paid and the cheapest economy fare available on the date of purchase - or something similar - then I tend to agree.

Its most unlikely to be calculated that way. Expect it to be something more like this:

Of the approx $7500 paid for the return I class ticket (it was previously noted that $15K for two return fares was paid), the "taxes and surcharges" will be removed, which for such a ticket are likely to be around the $1000 mark. So the "fare" component is say approx 6500 for the 4 sectors. Only the LAX-BNE sector was downgraded, so that may have accounted for approx $2400 of that total fare component ($3250 of the fare for JFK-LAX-BNE, and say 75% of that for LAX-BNE being around $2400).

The economy seat used is likely to be calculated at the full Y fare (yes, I totally agree it should be at lowest fare offered at time of booking, but expect it won't be), being $2166, for a refund of less than $250.

Now, there is no way I believe this to be proper compensation or refund, but I expect that is about all that will actually be available when its processed :evil:. but I hope I am proven wrong. This is based on my own experience of a DONE4 fare with a segment downgraded by BA from J (D) to Y and the way they calculate the "fare difference" between J and Y on a sector.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Small claims is an easy avenue.

This is why the advice of Consumer Affairs is important. It would be a shame to suggest someone accepts an offer for them to later find out they might have received much more.

No experience with Small Claims.
Regardless my comments stand as that's what I would do.
I'm not suggesting anyone accepts an offer they don't feel is acceptable to them.

 

[eastwest101]

As well as all the valid compensation issues (which will be discussed at length I am sure) for an involutary downgrade from J to Y class - I would just like to see the OP kick up a bit of a fuss if only to put a fire underneath some people in QF (particularly QF LAX) as to why it seems that QFs own policies and procedures for voluntary downgrades from J or volunteers from J to stay overnight and travel the next day. Obviously early in the thread we heard about an entire A380 service being cancelled, which can flow through for days afterwards when you have a plane load of passengers waiting in LAX to return to Australia, and this then becomes a massive rolling delay which fills up every cabin and every available seat on every QF flight. Throw in some optimistic overselling of flights and I guess that QF got overwhelmed by the number of delayed and overbooked passengers. I don't think we will get much satisfaction here on a public forum but I hope that QF will be taking some action to prevent this in the future.

Also very unfortunate that the OP's parents had a non-cancellable medical appointment in Australia that prevented them from travelling the next day. If they didn't have that - they would have over-nighted in LAX at QF's expense and flown J class the next day, still be happy QF customers and we would probably not have such an interesting thread.

 

[BD1959]

My sympathies go to EmilyP's parents, this must come as a bit of a rude awakening after considering themselves loyal customers trusting in a favoured brand.

Whilst I understand that all airlines do oversell flights and that QF are usually not amongst the worse at yield management, up until now I'd been pretty confident that - courtesy of my status - QF would look after me in the event of IIROPS or their deliberate overbooking. From what has been said and posted by RR, this appears to not be the case.

Unusual events would usually illicit an apology. It appears that QF do not consider this to be unusual (just refer to our T&Cs) so - to protect myself the next time I'm flying, I too would like to understand the order in which passengers can be told their seat is gone and provided with a list of T&Cs to ponder from a rammed Y seat.

Regards,

BD

 

[RAM]

As you're well aware, any staff are onloaded only after the flight has closed.

So no. If paid J pax were downgraded then there's a snowballs chance in hell that staff even got into the flight. Not one of them would have been in a premium cabin.

That is what is SUPPOSED to happen but twice I was told flight was over-booked only to see Q staff come running to get on the plane. Each time I was travelling on business and had a colleague who was there and acted as a witness.

Both times I asked to see the airport supervisor (think that's what the duty mgr was called) for Q and both times they caved without getting the AS and the Q staff walked off glaring at us. Once it happened while I worked with the Q CEO's other half - and yes we gave her all the details but did not get any apology from Q officially. Pre-dated camera phones unfortunately.

 

[maninblack]

For your reference, Mr and Mrs EmilyP were offered alternatives, including the option to overnight at our expense in LAX with confirmed Business seats on QF16 the next day. As this was not an option for them, the ground team confirmed the only available seats.

But they already had confirmed Business seats which were taken off them so a confirmed seat means nothing.

 

[knasty]

This thread has been viewed over 11,000 times including, I'm sure, a very large contingent of frequent premium QF passengers. Let's hope QF uses this as an opportunity to 'make it right' and hopefully explain whether this was just a stuffup in the process or otherwise provide some transparency over how the process should work - there's a very interested audience.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Its most unlikely to be calculated that way. Expect it to be something more like this:

Of the approx $7500 paid for the return I class ticket (it was previously noted that $15K for two return fares was paid), the "taxes and surcharges" will be removed, which for such a ticket are likely to be around the $1000 mark. So the "fare" component is say approx 6500 for the 4 sectors. Only the LAX-BNE sector was downgraded, so that may have accounted for approx $2400 of that total fare component ($3250 of the fare for JFK-LAX-BNE, and say 75% of that for LAX-BNE being around $2400).

The economy seat used is likely to be calculated at the full Y fare (yes, I totally agree it should be at lowest fare offered at time of booking, but expect it won't be), being $2166, for a refund of less than $250.

Now, there is no way I believe this to be proper compensation or refund, but I expect that is about all that will actually be available when its processed :evil:. but I hope I am proven wrong. This is based on my own experience of a DONE4 fare with a segment downgraded by BA from J (D) to Y and the way they calculate the "fare difference" between J and Y on a sector.

I posted an involuntary downgrade table earlier on in the thread.
Point to point North America to Australia is (or was as at 2012) $1400 from J (D/C/I) to Y. I doubt it will have risen significantly since then.

 

[Pushka]

This thread has been viewed over 11,000 times including, I'm sure, a very large contingent of frequent premium QF passengers. Let's hope QF uses this as an opportunity to 'make it right' and hopefully explain whether this was just a stuffup in the process or otherwise provide some transparency over how the process should work - there's a very interested audience.

And let's hope this is the ONLY time we ever have to read such a thread.

I cannot believe that paying $15,000 for two seats really means that under the terms and conditions outlined by Q, that there is no guarantee of a seat. If there had been a major equipment malfunction then of course stuff happens. But that is just not what happened here.

 

[coles525]

Read to page 16 so far, but the "airline ombudsman" it was noted in another topic somewhere ob here.

 

[serfty]

...
If QF wants to get technical, the one way journey was JFK-LAX-BNE. ...

... Only the LAX-BNE sector was downgraded, so that may have accounted for approx $2400 of that total fare component ($3250 of the fare for JFK-LAX-BNE, and say 75% of that for LAX-BNE being around $2400). ...

Just to note that this has been clarified - the actual booking was BNE-xLAX-JFK,LAX-BNE.

So the one-way journey was LAX-BNE and the entire return journey was downgraded.

Taking the booking as a whole, distance wise the downgrade was for 42% of the fare. That's $3200 of $7500 or excluding the mainly airline surcharges, $2730.

 

[get me outta here]

$15,000 is a huge amount of money. If I'd bought say theatre tickets for $150 and got bumped I'd be very very upset. For $15,000 I'd be 'furious'. QF seems to think that $15,000 (each time I write is seems even more), is not very much at all. All the pax's inconvenience and angst is priceless. Even though it was only the return portion of $15,000.