How long did Qantas take to process your refund for cancelled flights?

[cathalm8]

I had four separate PNR's, all reasonably complicated rewards (one was a OWA with 7 flights).
Cancelled all four at the same time on Monday online. Total of about 700k points and $2K.
Two bookings had the points refunded within a few hours (including the OWA).
The other two have not yet refunded points.
None have had the $ refunded yet.

Doesn't seem to be any consistency in the way they are processed.

Hi what does OWA mean?

 

[Guvner]

Hi what does OWA mean?

Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

Note that this is not exclusively a "Round The World" Award. While it can be so used, it can also be used for "Round Trips", "Circle" Trips or even "one-way trips" without actually going "Round The World". Also note the following from the T&C review that comes up on Qantas.com if you have...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[NamarrgonFlyer]

LOTS of eyes on this reddit post yesterday:

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/v22gqh

 

[jaseb]

I'm looking for some advice if I may.

I have a fully cancelled (due to e-ticketing failures on Qantas' behalf) Rewards Itinerary of which I am waiting for a large number of points and taxes to be refunded.
The booking in question had a number of changes made to it during it's lifetime:

Original booking - 418400 points + $818 taxes charged
Change 1 (flights added) - 359000 points + $1147 taxes charged
Change 2 (flights removed) - 0 points charged + $550 taxes charged
Change 3 (flights added) - 0 points charged (due to not being ticketed properly) + $847 taxes charged
Change 4 (whole booking cancelled) - 0 points / taxes charged

This booking is now fully cancelled with no sectors having been flown.

One of the flights on the booking was MXP-DOH for August. Change 4 occured on 09/05 - after which time the booking in MMB showed an unconfirmed flight from MXP-DOH for that day, on the 09/05.. the day I canceled the whole booking - has anyone seen this before?

I am owed ~777k points & $3361 in taxes

It's now been almost 1 month since the final change (booking cancelation) went through, I'm yet to receive any points or taxes back. I'm worried if I call to chase a refund for this now totally defunct, canceled booking that they will somehow manage to cancel one of our alternative award bookings!

Is it worth following up yet, or should I wait patiently?

 

[MELso]

Is it worth following up yet, or should I wait patiently?

FWIW, I cancelled a Classic Rewards return flight to Japan just before ANZAC Day, and am still waiting for both the points and taxes to be refunded...

 

[DC3]

FWIW, I cancelled a Classic Rewards return flight to Japan just before ANZAC Day, and am still waiting for both the points and taxes to be refunded...

Patience Grasshopper. Refunds make take several months.

 

[jaseb]

Patience Grasshopper. Refunds make take several months.

Thankyou, I needed that pep talk!


Is it likely that "all changes" to the booking will be refunded or am I going to have to chase up each booking modification charge independently? I'm going to need a bigger phone plan with the amount of minutes I'm spending onto Qantas each month!

 

[DC3]

Deleted. Too complicated.

 

[AIRwin]

I'm going to need a bigger phone plan with the amount of minutes I'm spending onto Qantas each month!

You may as well earn QF points at the same time:

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/partners/optus.html

 

[RAM]

I suspect it is a deliberate ploy to ensure the refund is not within the same credit card billing cycle as the original payment, so that people are not tempted to make a speculative booking and cancel for a refund and have it all processed in the same statement/billing period. Knowing you will have to pay the original amount in one card cycle and the refund will come later will put most people off making lots of speculative refundable bookings.

From an accounting perspective such a practice is normally a sign of one or more of these: (used to be taught in auditing as a red flag for potentially failing/fraudulent company)

• a way of achieving lowest possible working capital requirements, even negative (Woolworth's Project Refresh in late 1990's achieved -ve, pays suppliers on 90 days and typically sells the items within 12 days - WW earnt tens of millions in interest back in the 10% days this way)
• need to lower working capital as short of capital
• hiding syphoning of funds out of the company - a company version of cheque kiting (IIRC the term)
• serious internal control inefficiencies or DELIBERATE mgmt decision
• makes balance sheet look better with higher cash balance than would be otherwise, too many analysts just look at the asset side of the balance sheet (as analysing liabilities requires many times the effort) - cash is cash...

 

[pyffii]

Cancelled one Business class classic award ticket for two this morning and 2.5 hours later an email confirming that the points were returned to my account and that a refund for the taxes would follow....Must say a brilliant effort by Qantas....Now off topic a little bit but the taxes for this new booking were $415 compared to the cancelled booking on JAL where the taxes were just $196....a huge difference that doesnt quite make up for the awards costing 8000 points less per passenger.

 

[DC3]

Cancelled one Business class classic award ticket for two this morning and 2.5 hours later an email confirming that the points were returned to my account and that a refund for the taxes would follow....

Was this by phoning the Call Centre (and speaking with Hobart)?

 

[pyffii]

no prompting required as I said previously I just received an email from Qantas 2.5 hours after I cancelled my booking online....I'm WP so dont know if that made any difference

 

[DC3]

no prompting required as I said previously I just received an email from Qantas 2.5 hours after I cancelled my booking online....I'm WP so dont know if that made any difference

Yes. You must be special. Thank you for confirming that it was an on-line cancellation.

 

[pyffii]

not special but I was blown away with the returning of the points without making a call

 

[NM]

Cancelled one Business class classic award ticket for two this morning and 2.5 hours later an email confirming that the points were returned to my account and that a refund for the taxes would follow....Must say a brilliant effort by Qantas....Now off topic a little bit but the taxes for this new booking were $415 compared to the cancelled booking on JAL where the taxes were just $196....a huge difference that doesnt quite make up for the awards costing 8000 points less per passenger.

Remember that tax is only one portion of the +++$ charge for award bookings. The proper term is "carrier charges" and these include the real taxes set and charged by the government(s) as well as fixed charged imposed by airports, as well as whatever extra amount the airline thinks they can extract from their loyalty program members. Its the latter part that will make up the majority of the difference between a QFF award and a JAL award.

 

[pyffii]

Thanks NM and I am very much aware of the reasonings but cant help thinking that QF are a bit too heavy when it comes to carrier charges

 

[DC3]

not special but I was blown away with the returning of the points without making a call

Yes. Most unusual from reports on here.

 

[pyffii]

Yes I know what the general reaction has been so thats why I was blown away having reconciled many hours on the phone to recover points and money...Now lets see how long the taxes take to be refunded

 

[1022]

Thankyou, I needed that pep talk!


Is it likely that "all changes" to the booking will be refunded or am I going to have to chase up each booking modification charge independently? I'm going to need a bigger phone plan with the amount of minutes I'm spending onto Qantas each month!

I cancelled a J award for two people to Canada a few months ago online when it was evident that the legs booked on CX had no hope of being operated. Taxes/carrier charges came back after around a month I think. No points had been returned at 6 weeks so I emailed [email protected] with the PNR, names, dates and destination asking for an expedited points refund (lol 6 weeks = "expedited"...) because I wanted to make another booking and needed the points (true!!). They replied within a day to check one more detail and I think had points back within another day or so. So a couple of emails and a 2 day wait was better than a few hours on hold to speak to Cape Town with associated limited chance of success. My understanding is that the ff team are Manila based and seem a bit more on the ball for routine matters.