Goal: book MEL-SYD-HKG
Agent: Carl
Time on phone: ~5 minutes
Outcome: Success (mostly-see later)
What happened: I quoted the instructions verbatim as per recommendations here verbatim: “I would like to book a Classic Award fare as an Any Seat Award please.” Carl was on to it and as my aim had me in MEL-SYD in J and SYD-HKG in P so quickly it almost made my head spin. He confirmed it was the type of booking that would earn points and SCs, calling it a "marginal Any Seat Award."
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I look at my activity statement and see that instead of:
QANTAS & JETSTAR ANY SEAT AWARD 1 ADT REF
my MEL-SYD-HKG booking is listed as:
CLASSIC AWARD POINTS DEDUCTION 1 PASSENGER REF
Panic stations! And on then on to:
CALL 3:
Goal: fix first booking and book NRT-SYD-MEL
Agent: Nikki
Time on phone: 12 minutes
Outcome: Success (hopefully)
What happened: I asked Nikki to have a look at the MEL-SYD-HKG booking and said it seemed to be showing up as a Classic award despite what I’d asked for and what Carl had assured me was booked. Nikki had a look and assured me everything was what it was meant to be. She assured me I’d get points and SCs and made notes in the booking about our conversation to cover it. Then she put me on hold and a few minutes later came back saying there had been some issue which, she said, would have been picked up at some stage, however it was good that I called them about it now. She assured me it was fixed and I’d definitely get points/SCs.