Finnair status run experience from hell

[Yada Yada]

Yada Yada - my flight is showing as on time so doesn't look like we'll meet this time.

Oh well, never mind. I'm sure we'll cross paths soon.

I met JohnK for the first time this evening. He was waiting at the gate when my flight (QF9) arrived at 9:00pm. We walked and talked until it was time for him to return to his departure gate. A good mini-meet!

 

[markis10]

So JohnK, down to important things, were the prawns back on the menu or was it fish that was substituted again????? This is a life and death question you do realise :roll:

 

[JohnK]

So JohnK, down to important things, were the prawns back on the menu or was it fish that was substituted again????? This is a life and death question you do realise :roll:

OK for the real important matters first

BKK-SIN or BKK-HKG there is 4 prawns for entree
SIN-BKK or HKG-BKK there is 3 prawns for entree

Both flights out and back have fish as a main meal option not salmon. I think red snapper and garoupa (as the Fins call it).

 

[markis10]

OK for the real important matters first

BKK-SIN or BKK-HKG there is 4 prawns for entree
SIN-BKK or HKG-BKK there is 3 prawns for entree

Both flights out and back have fish as a main meal option not salmon. I think red snapper and garoupa (as the Fins call it).

Ahh - so they are real and not an imaginary entry, I can sleep now!

 

[JohnK]

The experience from hell did not end there. When I arrive at BKK yesterday for flight BKK-SIN I noticed that AY097 ffrom HEL had been cancelled. Can this trip get any worse? I am put on Swiss Air LX182 which arrives 1/2 hour later but should still enable me to make connection to QF10 SIN-MEL at 19:45.

By the way for anyone interested in Swiss Air's A340 configuration in whY it absolutely sucks. Don't do it if you have a choice. And to make it even worse the QF10 747 flight was also one of the worse I have ever had.

From what I understand from the powers to be so far I have lost 135 SC's from Finnair, I may be able to reclaim 60 SC's for the Cathay leg but this is a stab in the dark as I did not pay CX for this flight.

What do I do? This is not my fault. I have wasted $1,300 on the short AY flights BKK-SIN-BKK and BKK-HKG-BKK. The only reason, and I highlight ONLY, I did this was to get to 700 SC's for QF Gold. The cost was even higher if you include taxi fares to and from airport and departure tax3 times. Now I am stuck in limbo and no money or time to try to get to 700 SC's before end May.

 

[Mal]

What do I do? This is not my fault. I have wasted $1,300 on the short AY flights BKK-SIN-BKK and BKK-HKG-BKK. The only reason, and I highlight ONLY, I did this was to get to 700 SC's for QF Gold. The cost was even higher if you include taxi fares to and from airport and departure tax3 times. Now I am stuck in limbo and no money or time to try to get to 700 SC's before end May.

John.

There should be nothing to worry about.

Finnair will post the points, or if they don't you email/phone/fax Qantas//Finnair for further advice on how to claim the status credits.

Qantas will backdate the points to when they were earned, and all will work out correctly.

 

[JohnK]

I certainly hope you are right Mal but somehow I don't share your optimism.

So far QF has been ignoring my e-mails and just received this reply from Finnair support in Singapore.

Hi John,

I can understand your frustrations but unfortunately you are Qantas frequent flyer member not Finnair frequent flyer member. As such I am not able to credit the points for your cancelled Finnair flights to your Qantas frequent flyer account, only Qantas has access to your account. My suggestion to you is contact Qantas FF dept and ask them to help u credit these points so that you could reach your Gold tier, I am quite sure they could help since you are only missing what 120 points?

Below is the reply I got from my Helsinki frequent flyer dept concerning your case.

It' s up to QF if they want to give points to their own member for this AY flight. If a QF flight had been cancelled, QF wouldn't have credited points for this flight for an AY member but we (AY) had possibly given these points for a member of our own. Of course we credit our own cancelled flights to our own customers but we usually don't if a partners flight is concerned.
If you need to seek redress for your cancelled flights, you could forward your email to our Customer Relations Dept, [email protected]

Best Regards as always,

Daniel

I have also sent a letter to feedback for Finnair.

 

[Yada Yada]

I certainly hope you are right Mal but somehow I don't share your optimism.

So far QF has been ignoring my e-mails and just received this reply from Finnair support in Singapore.

John - if you can find a contact address at OneWorld, I'd write to them too. I hope that they would be unhappy that two of their member airlines are buck passing over this matter as it provides no incentive to you (or others) to remain loyal to their alliance.

 

[JohnK]

John - if you can find a contact address at OneWorld, I'd write to them too. I hope that they would be unhappy that two of their member airlines are buck passing over this matter as it provides no incentive to you (or others) to remain loyal to their alliance.

I will wait a few more days and see what happens with QF. I hope QF comes through but I really don't see it as their problem. This is something that Finnair needs to address but they are washing their hands of it.

You would think that either airline would be more than happy to have a customer who just does some flying with their alliance to maintain status or jump to higher status. This is loyalty from the customer.

Is it any wonder that Oneworld Alliance is 3rd behind Star Alliance and Sky Team and falling further behind. I just don't think that they genuinely care about loyalty. We have proven it over and over with QF and lifetime gold or even lifetime silver. Giving away business class seats to staff when paying customers are begging for them. We can go on and on.

Let this be a lesson to the rest of you who are contemplating future status runs on AY. Their fleet is tired. Beware their recent record is not good and is getting worse by the day. I hope your luck is better than mine and you don't go through what I am going through.

 

[Yada Yada]

Let this be a lesson to the rest of you who are contemplating future status runs on AY. Their fleet is tired. Beware their recent record is not good and is getting worse by the day. I hope your luck is better than mine and you don't go through what I am going through.

When you next correspond with them, tell them about this thread as they have the opportunity to gain some good publicity or some bad publicity. It is their choice.

I for one will not ever consider flying with them if they do not come through with the points.

 

[Mal]

This is very unusual.

I expect Finnair is the one responsible for posting the points. If they can't post flights to your account, then how do they normally post flights???

I assume AY pays Qantas a certain amount of $ for the points. Maybe they are trying to get out of paying that? Hopefully Qantas can sort out this mess.

The way I see it is that you purchased flights on Finnair. (Reason doesn't matter). You were involuntarily rebooked by Finnair on other flights because they had issues with their planes.

You still flew on the flights arranged by Finnair. You had tickets with Finnair and didn't do anything in your actions to change that. You were denied the points being credited to your account automatically because of this.

You are entitled to SC's and points.

This does not bode well at all, and definately does not inspire confidence in the OneWorld processes.

(Qantas can take a few weeks to get back to you, so I wouldn't give up on them resolving it).

 

[JohnK]

Let this be a lesson to the rest of you who are contemplating future status runs on AY. Their fleet is tired. Beware their recent record is not good and is getting worse by the day. I hope your luck is better than mine and you don't go through what I am going through.

When you next correspond with them, tell them about this thread as they have the opportunity to gain some good publicity or some bad publicity. It is their choice.

I for one will not ever consider flying with them if they do not come through with the points.

Funny how we are thinking on the same wavelength.

I did mention that I am a prominent member of 2 frequent flyer websites and would be seeking advice on this matter. The final outcome and publicity they receive is entirely up to them and how they handle this situation.

 

[Yada Yada]

This thread has had over 1,110 hits already so let's hope they come through.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

JohnK - relax. I, and many others here, have been in this situation many times. This is a fairly common occurrence - I've had 3 such cases of involuntary change of flights already this year. They always come through with the points, even if it takes a little chasing up.

1) You should be chasing QFF not AY about this. Only QFF can credit the points and SCs to your account. If you give QFF the relevant details (booked flight, date, paid class, reason for change outside your control) they will contact AY to verify and then credit according to your booked and paid for flights.

2) You shouldn't need to, but if you wish, you could ask AY for written confirmation that you were booked on their flights and only changed due to factors outside your control. This won't change the outcome but may possibly speed things up. In your case I wouldn't bother (it may be different if you also have status with AY).

3) Thanks for the reminder I need to follow up my latest such involuntary change of routing.

 

[JohnK]

JohnK - relax. I, and many others here, have been in this situation many times. This is a fairly common occurrence - I've had 3 such cases of involuntary change of flights already this year. They always come through with the points, even if it takes a little chasing up.

Easy to say relax but very hard to do. I put a lot of money and effort in trying to get to Gold and now through no fault of my own there is the possibility that I will miss out. I should have had that Gold card by now after all I have qualified. What about access to QC? I have flights coming up to Darwin and I was counting on the QC access and the extra points. Instead I have to sit around and wait to see whether I will be granted something I have already earned.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

I guess it is easier for me to relax about this now than when I first experienced this several years ago.

I would be flabbergasted if it doesnt come through though. When is your trip to Darwin?

 

[QF WP]

Like Kiwi Flyer, I too have had things go wrong and had the original flights posted. In my USA trip in 2003 (see my Trip Report), what was meant to be two AS sectors GEG/SEA/LAX became two UA sectors GEG/DEN/LAX. Now having to fly towards the middle of America simply to get to LAX disn't seem too smart, but was our only hope to connect to our QF LAX/AKL. QF ans AS had some discussion (back then when they did credit) and I got the miles.

Having experienced the positive side (where they did credit them...eventually) means we have that to fall back on. You don't, so you are rightfully more concerned.

Just show them that you mean business by continually following them up...

 

[JohnK]

When is your trip to Darwin?

First weekend in June for 4 days of golf. You can see I take my golf seriously not like some AFF'ers.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

Okay you still have time on your side. If by early-mid May they haven't posted yet I'd chase up QFF again and explain you'd like to use the SG (better not refer to the "S" bit!) benefits on your upcoming trip. Even if they can post in time (which they should do), they may be able to give you some lounge passes to tide you over.

 

[JohnK]

Okay you still have time on your side. If by early-mid May they haven't posted yet I'd chase up QFF again and explain you'd like to use the SG (better not refer to the "S" bit!) benefits on your upcoming trip. Even if they can post in time (which they should do), they may be able to give you some lounge passes to tide you over.

I think all will be OK it just takes time. I have faxed off e-ticket receipt and boarding passes to QF today and also spoke to someone in the QF service centre who assured me that I will receive SC's and FF points as long as they can verify that I was indeed re-routed. It will take around 2-3 weeks which should be OK for June trip.

Thanks to you and everyone else who has given me advice on this issue. I know better for next time.