Downgraded without notification - what are my options?

[chrispy3276]

Interesting to read that it happens to P1's though (and really surprised by that). When it happened to me I was temporarily down to Silver, and was told based on their policy that it was the person with the lowest QFF status that got bumped to Y. Although the QF staff member was very kind when she had to do the downgrade, she spent a couple minutes complaining about how bad the policy was

 

[miniyazz]

Interesting to read that it happens to P1's though (and really surprised by that). When it happened to me I was temporarily down to Silver, and was told based on their policy that it was the person with the lowest QFF status that got bumped to Y. Although the QF staff member was very kind when she had to do the downgrade, she spent a couple minutes complaining about how bad the policy was

Perhaps if I hadn't checked in online, someone would have actually told me I was being downgraded before I opened my boarding pass 5 minutes before reaching the gate. The lack of communication is probably the most frustrating thing. That would also have given me the opportunity to pick a more suitable seat than 10F.. which I think is the only 'window' seat on the plane without an actual window.
Although I'm not sure exactly when I was bumped - it may have been after I checked in, since 24hrs pre-flight I was still booked in I.

 

[Pushka]

Perhaps if I hadn't checked in online, someone would have actually told me I was being downgraded before I opened my boarding pass 5 minutes before reaching the gate. The lack of communication is probably the most frustrating thing. That would also have given me the opportunity to pick a more suitable seat than 10F.. which I think is the only 'window' seat on the plane without an actual window.
Although I'm not sure exactly when I was bumped - it may have been after I checked in, since 24hrs pre-flight I was still booked in I.

Hey. Better than being removed from the plane...clearly an enhancement has been enacted.

 

[CMA222]

Hey. Better than being removed from the plane...clearly an enhancement has been enacted.

Qantas - the spirit of we will do whatever we want and the PAX cannot do anything about it except be inconvenienced. Your bundle of (no) rights has been delivered.

 

[opusman]

My understanding is it's in the enterprise agreement that deadheading pilots get J. Qantas don't have much room to move here, even if that means displacing a P1.

 

[D747]

My understanding is it's in the enterprise agreement that deadheading pilots get J. Qantas don't have much room to move here, even if that means displacing a P1.

Why would Qantas be flying a pilot at what, I assume, is late notice?

 

[opusman]

Last minute shift change? I imagine these things happen frequently. Dunno though.

 

[D747]

Last minute shift change? I imagine these things happen frequently. Dunno though.

I know it's not a massive inconvenience but I totally sympathize with the OP here. They had a seat in J and because Qantas need to move a pilot from A to B, they get bumped. If a P1 does not outrank any of the other 11 pax in J, that seems incomprehensible to me. It also says Qantas need to be more proactive. What about the pilot use the jump seat or Y seats? Sure, the pilots have an agreement, but so does the OP! If you want to repair your reputation with your most valuable customers, you don't invol downgrade them without even talking to them first.
What selection criteria does QF use to select the pax?
BTW, I'm not a P1, just WP.

 

[miniyazz]

Why would Qantas be flying a pilot at what, I assume, is late notice?

I would think most likely because of sick leave given the late notice. Equally, it could be they were routed to SYD for really any reason and had to get home following their shift.

 

[miniyazz]

I know it's not a massive inconvenience but I totally sympathize with the OP here. They had a seat in J and because Qantas need to move a pilot from A to B, they get bumped. If a P1 does not outrank any of the other 11 pax in J, that seems incomprehensible to me. It also says Qantas need to be more proactive. What about the pilot use the jump seat or Y seats? Sure, the pilots have an agreement, but so does the OP! If you want to repair your reputation with your most valuable customers, you don't invol downgrade them without even talking to them first.
What selection criteria does QF use to select the pax?
BTW, I'm not a P1, just WP.

I'll just flag I'm a WP, not P1. But I would think it comes down to who has paid the most for their seat, and possibly the time the seat was booked - although I might hope to outrank a SG passenger who also booked a classic flight reward even if they booked a couple of months prior, I assume there weren't many (?any) other classic flight reward seats on that plane in U that might have given me a shot of not being the first off. Additionally, I don't know how many people were bumped as it's possible I wasn't the only one.

I understand pilots have a contractual arrangement to use J seats for repositioning that is a legal requirement for Qantas, unlike a bog standard commercial ticket where we only get to sit in the class we booked due to Qantas's good graces (because their contract is to get you there, or something).

I quite agree that they have gone about this the wrong way in my opinion - and while I don't disagree with them, the gate agent saying "it's only a 737" or something along those lines didn't much improve my mood at the time!

 

[JohnK]

My understanding is it's in the enterprise agreement that deadheading pilots get J. Qantas don't have much room to move here, even if that means displacing a P1.

It's not about being displaced as such. It's how Qantas handles the displacement and the attitude of take it or leave it.

No Qantas. Life is not like that at all. If you have to displace someone then do it subtly and best of all provide them with more than adequate compensation for the displacement.

 

[dajop]

It's not about being displaced as such. It's how Qantas handles the displacement and the attitude of take it or leave it.

Was going to make the same comment. Most of realise these sort of things can and do happen. QF should have a standard process for dealing with it which involves some sort of recompense for the inconvenience, and not just the points or the fare difference between discount J and full Y . Particularly in the OP's case, where there would be no points difference on MEL-SYD-ADL in J and MEL-SYD(J)-ADL(Y)..

 

[Pushka]

Was going to make the same comment. Most of realise these sort of things can and do happen. QF should have a standard process for dealing with it which involves some sort of recompense for the inconvenience, and not just the points or the fare difference between discount J and full Y . Particularly in the OP's case, where there would be no points difference on MEL-SYD-ADL in J and MEL-SYD(J)-ADL(Y)..

And not have to make people grovel take the first contact to get any compensation as well. It's about the manner of service recovery and not the initial issue.

 

[wenglock.mok]

And not have to make people grovel take the first contact to get any compensation as well. It's about the manner of service recovery and not the initial issue.

I asked about this before at the Sydney domestic business lounge service desk and was told the reason they don't automatically process refunds for downgrades is because there will still be a "regrade flag" on the booking and a chance that when boarding commences, we may still get the J seats that we paid for if someone doesn't show (although we know the chance of that happening is near 0 on 737 flights).

Take what you will from that comment...

 

[Pushka]

I asked about this before at the Sydney domestic business lounge service desk and was told the reason they don't automatically process refunds for downgrades is because there will still be a "regrade flag" on the booking and a chance that when boarding commences, we may still get the J seats that we paid for if someone doesn't show (although we know the chance of that happening is near 0 on 737 flights).

Take what you will from that comment...

Hmmm. We had to initiate it and the plane was delayed departing because the pilots delayed boarding. So ?

 

[wenglock.mok]

Hmmm. We had to initiate it and the plane was delayed departing because the pilots delayed boarding. So ?

The long and short of it is we had to chase them up for weeks on end to get the points refunded, a process that we had indicated to the service desk should have been automatic as we were the ones being inconvenienced.

Unfortunately that's just how their systems work I guess. I have found sending a DM to their Twitter team to be much easier and quicker than having to ring the frequent flyer service centre.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Recently my on departure upgrade flight was cancelled and was rebooked into Y. Syd J Lounge said upgrade points would be refunded automatically. Of course they haven't been. Called the FF centre and asked for refund, told would happen within a few days. Still not done days later. Just pathetic that I need to spend my time chasing this. The FF centre can see what's happened, it's a damn simple case - should be fixable immediately

 

[Mr_Orange]

This just happened to Mrs_O and I. We had checked in online for BNE-PER having booked J reward seats ages ago. Seats were confirmed as 3A & 3C. When we got to the baggage drop kiosk, the computer beeped and told us to go and see an agent.

Got told we were being downgraded for travelling staff. Whilst I understand that, I wasn't happy since we were travelling J as part of a wedding anniversary trip. We got handed off to another agent who just kept saying "no" to literally every request we had to mitigate the change and lied to us about how we were selected for the downgrade, claiming the computer randomly selects passengers, where as I knew that the booking class and QF status would have come into it and a random selection process would probably not have picked both of us. We now asked to see a manager who, whilst continuing to refuse anything other than the offered seats (Row 8 and middle seat blocked), did at least be honest about why we were selected.

Mitigation that I asked for was Row 4 seating, J F&B. Row 4 was denied due to a family of 4 travelling together and the J F&B was too hard. The latter is just a crock of dog doo since they serve dietary meals to pax on every flight so it would not have been that hard.

Row 4 had 5 pax in it so Mr 4E could have had 9A/B/C to himself whilst we had 4E and 4F or Mrs 4D could have been moved to 5C and Mr 5C and Mr 4E moved to 9A & 9C.

Rows 5, 6, 7 & 8 all had an empty B seat so there were definitely ways to have treated the situation better. One would think that J pax would out rank Y pax, regardless of status.

On the flip side, the CSM on board really turned things around for us after I had gone up to the J toilet because the food trolley was blocking the aisle to the back (plus I was still annoyed and felt as though I could use the J toilet - I know, I know, not cool). When I came out of the toilet she asked me what had gone wrong, sympathised, apologised (even though the decision was nothing to do with her) and then proceeded to bring us J wine, gave us a full bottle when we disembarked and credited 10,000 FF points to my account. The empathy that she showed was really all it took to get us back on side which just reinforces the other stories about QF's general lack of service recovery.

The airport staff told us that we would get a refund of points and $$ to reflect the downgrade although that hasn't happened yet but it is only 5 days since the flights. I'm not sure how long I should wait before chasing customer services - any advice here?

The 10,000 points arranged by the CSM were credited pretty much immediately from what I can tell.

 

[Pushka]

This just happened to Mrs_O and I. We had checked in online for BNE-PER having booked J reward seats ages ago. Seats were confirmed as 3A & 3C. When we got to the baggage drop kiosk, the computer beeped and told us to go and see an agent.

Got told we were being downgraded for travelling staff. Whilst I understand that, I wasn't happy since we travelling J as part of a wedding anniversary trip. We got handed off to another agent who just kept saying "no" to literally every request we had to mitigate the change and lied to us about how we were selected for the downgrade.,claiming the computer randomly selects passengers, where as I knew that the booking class and QF status would have come into it and a random selection process would probably not have picked both of us. We now asked to see a manager who, whilst continuing to refuse anything other than the offered seats (Row 8 and middle seat blocked), did at least be honest about why we were selected.

Mitigation that I asked for was Row 4 seating, J F&B. Row 4 was denied due to a family of 4 travelling together and the J F&B was too hard. The latter is just a crock of dog doo since they serve dietary meals to pax on every flight so it would not have been that hard.

Row 4 had 5 pax in it so Mr 4E could have 8A/B/C to himself whilst we had 4E and 4F or Mrs 4D could have been moved to 5C and Mr 5C and Mr 4E moved to 8A & 8C.

Rows 5, 6, 7 & 8 all had an empty B seat so there were definitely ways to treated the situation better. One would think that J pax would out rank Y pax, regardless of status.

On the flip side, the CSM on board really turned things around for us after I gone up to the J toilet because the food trolley was blocking the aisle to the back (plus I was still annoyed and felt as though I could use the J toilet - I know, I know, not cool). When I came out of the toilet she asked me what had gone wrong, sympathised, apologised (even though the decision was nothing to do with her) and then proceeded to bring us J wine, gave us a full bottle when we disembarked and credited 10,000 FF points to my account. The empathy that she showed was really all it took to get us back on side which just reinforces the other stories about QF's general lack of service recovery.

The airport staff told us that we would get a refund of points and $$ to reflect the downgrade although that hasn't happned yet but it is only 5 days since the flights. I'm not sure how long I should wait before chasing customer services - any advice here?

The 10,000 points arranged by the CSM were credited pretty much immediately from what I can tell.

They choose Award seats first. We were both WP and got dumped when seated onboard. On Award tickets too.

 

[Bundy Bear]

We all understand that Qantas have to downgrade us but at least give us a warning when it happens, short flights are less of a problem but sometimes you don’t eat in the lounge and get something on board until you are about to board.
There should be an automatic process of refund of points that should happen automatically I guess Qantas could write a procedure for it but it seems they don’t care.
It wastes our time and the call centre staff.
Maybe a point to bring up with Qantas when AFF admin talk to Qantas.