How to fix Qantas classic reward after partner airline schedule change

[MJHoops]

Since 14 June 2022 I have been trying to get Qantas to ticket me on alternative flights due to a schedule change by Japan Airlines. Today, 8 July 2022, I got my e-ticket. I am still waiting on my wife’s (we booked separately as she was a chance to cancel her booking).

This was a classic reward flight in business, flying out Cathay and back with JL from MEL to JFK

I am QF bronze

I want to try to summarise the points I think I learned. I was plainly lied to (or at least, was innocently misled) by overseas agents in the outsourced call centres as to what the process was to fix this. I received no notification from QF or JL regarding the cancelation - I saw it myself when on the JL manage booking website

0. Get the agent names and locations of who you talk to. You can do this nicely. Make a written record on paper or digital.

1. You need to tell the agent to use Amadeus to book specific alternative flights - I did this by finding an alternative on JL on the same day, so we could fly JFK-NRT-MEL instead of JFK-HND-SYD-MEL

2. The agent seemed to use Amadeus to request the new flights and inputting the reason as a schedule change

3. I then got an e-ticket, which I assume (but cannot say for sure) was issued after I finally hit an agent in Manila

4. I also complained by email to [email protected] and [email protected] - I don’t know if it helped. To date I have no reply. I figured it can’t hurt to do this, the gist of mine was I tried several times and I can’t sort this out through the call centre so you need to help me get it done now

5. Checkmytrip.com is a great way to see what’s on Amadeus. There is a difference between what shows here (or on manage my booking on Qantas website) and what is ticketed. If on the mobile site, you click on an individual flight sector/segment on CMT and it will show you if that has a ticket number or not.

6. You can also request an eticket that is sent automatically and instantly via the Finnair website Here

7. As to calling, the two times I think I made progress I just called 131313. I think I got ordinary reservations agents then, I’m not sure. It was slower to call this number, perhaps 30-60mins wait

8. Calling the 1300 659 116 and other numbers on the Qantas call wait time thread is faster. I got Fiji about 8 times and cape town 4. It was incredibly frustrating and I was told various things I now believe to be wrong such as:
A. Specific flights did not need to be requested as JL would select these
B. JL would call me once a reinstatement request had been put in (this language of reinstatement is probably not apposite to this situation as a ticketed seat on a cancelled flight could by definition not be reinstated, alternative flights were being booked)
C. The request for new flights would be sent to JL or Oneworld by email. I believe it is done through the amadeus booking system but cannot verify this

9. Booking classic rewards is great when it works. Cathay pushed through a schedule change on these bookings too, and while I had to call the QF call centre to accept it (the accept button online was greyed out!) - that was simple and the new ticket issued straight away. The partner airline booking with JL when it went wrong was an absolute disaster with several hours invested (and ongoing) trying to retrieve the situation plus the constant reminder our trip was not yet fixed was worrying for me, and every call got me frustrated.

10. When calling the call centre insist they make a note of what they have done for you. They probably won’t. But might help save you explain the situation several times as I had to do. They kept telling me they had no notes as to what my problem was or what had been done by other agents

11. The agents (at least within the one call
Centre, being CPT for me) can contact each other but only via email. One of them put me on hold while waiting for a colleague to reply by email, which apparently she did

Thank you to all those posters on the forum who added information that assisted me to get this far

Now to get my wife’s ticket issued… I still have 19 days before we leave Aus and 26 days before the subject flight home…

 

[yaziyo]

Thanks for sharing the info. Out of interest, were the flights you were moved onto showing as sold out of business rewards seats?

 

[Matt_01]

You need to tell the agent to use Amadeus to book specific alternative flights - I did this by finding an alternative on JL on the same day, so we could fly JFK-NRT-MEL instead of JFK-HND-SYD-MEL

Is your JFK-NRT direct or via a connection in the US. Over the years when I have flown JL direct to/from JFK to has been through HND.

 

[Nitro6333]

Great info thanks for sharing

 

[MJHoops]

Is your JFK-NRT direct or via a connection in the US. Over the years when I have flown JL direct to/from JFK to has been through HND.

Direct on JL8005. There is also a JL5 that goes direct to HND (we were on that to get to the HND-SYD that is no longer daily)

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2022

Thanks for sharing the info. Out of interest, were the flights you were moved onto showing as sold out of business rewards seats?

Yes. I didn’t check expert flyer but I couldn’t see any reward seats of ANY kind on ANY airline on the Qantas website to get me JFK-MEL

 

[MJHoops]

Today’s update 9 July. Called 131313 at 7:01am and rings straight away to Fiji. Cathy says there is a remark (reject?) on my wife’s booking and she has to talk to someone before she can touch the booking. She says the “points need to be logged in” (points were deducted from my account back on Oct 2021, she says this is a different step) and now that she has done this it will go into the ticket queue for ticketing

Tried to stay on hold while ticketed but she said no, it will go to the “awards team” and they will ticket it within 24 hours. She made remarks of what she had done

The email pings will set me off again today madly checking if it’s a eticket!

 

[MJHoops]

Sunday 10 July. 131313 at 7:01am. No ring. Speak to Joseph in Fiji
He seems to be typing in a chat function or waiting for “the support team”
I ask if it is ticketing in MNL but he says it is the ticketing team in South Africa (!)
Then puts me on hold to talk to “the relevant team” for 15 mins or so
He comes back to say they will try to issue the ticket now, just hold
Comes again and says it’s in a manual queue and he will call me back today. I confirm my number and confirm he promises he will call me today whether the ticket issues or not

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Perhaps we need a new thread to keep score on Promises Kept Vs Not Kept…

 

[MJHoops]

Perhaps we need a new thread to keep score on Promises Kept Vs Not Kept…

Joseph still has several hours until 11:59pm and the day is done. But I won’t be betting on a call. I almost asked him when the call back was promised “Do you swear by almighty god to do so?”

 

[MJHoops]

Sadly Joseph left work for the day without calling me back. He broke his promise to me. Should’ve made him take the oath.

At 5:50pm spoke to Frances in Fiji. Vented a bit about being let down and trying since 14 June, and yet an agent in Manila got a ticket issued on 8 July in 20 mins on the other booking ref. This ticket was said yesterday to be 24 hours, now it’s said to be 48 hours and no doubt when I call tomorrow it will be “some do take more than 48 hours”.

Put on hold for a long time while agent tries in some unspecified manner to get it ticketed. At 90min mark of the call she returns and says they have “fixed one part of the booking” now we just need to talk to the ticketing department

Hold please. The Cisco hold music has me in a trance.

At 110mins - we have a winner! Frances got it issued and emailed to me. I congratulated and thanked her

 

[Nitro6333]

I thought I’d add my recent experience on a recent change made by CX to our OWA.
Overnight received the notification of the changes made by CX saying the SFO-HKG leg of our SFO-HKG-SYD had a time change and thought it would make our connection quite tight so I decided to make the call.
Was able to reach HBA cs as a bronze. After going through the formalities was informed the HKG-SYD leg had also been canceled and no replacement offered. After discussing our options we put in a request for original route on the next day and unfortunately as the agent was completing the request the line dropped.
I left it for a while to see if I’d get a call back but unfortunately no. After checking mmb I could see the request had been completed and was now showing ”waitlisted“. Decided to call back to check on how having no e-ticket could potentially affect the rest of our flights maybe dropping off the booking (something I was originally going to ask before the call dropped)
Was able to reach HBA again and asked about the e-ticket and security of remaining flight. Was told to sit tight the request would most likely be approved as our flights were canceled by CX in the first instance and we had until the end of the week to get the new e-ticket (apparently they can see how long until flights will drop off a booking )
After an hour I received a new e-ticket with the updated flights but the updated flights didn’t have confirmed. Will give an update as this progresses.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I thought I’d add my recent experience on a recent change made by CX to our OWA.
Overnight received the notification of the changes made by CX saying the SFO-HKG leg of our SFO-HKG-SYD had a time change and thought it would make our connection quite tight so I decided to make the call.
Was able to reach HBA cs as a bronze. After going through the formalities was informed the HKG-SYD leg had also been canceled and no replacement offered. After discussing our options we put in a request for original route on the next day and unfortunately as the agent was completing the request the line dropped.
I left it for a while to see if I’d get a call back but unfortunately no. After checking mmb I could see the request had been completed and was now showing ”waitlisted“. Decided to call back to check on how having no e-ticket could potentially affect the rest of our flights maybe dropping off the booking (something I was originally going to ask before the call dropped)
Was able to reach HBA again and asked about the e-ticket and security of remaining flight. Was told to sit tight the request would most likely be approved as our flights were canceled by CX in the first instance and we had until the end of the week to get the new e-ticket (apparently they can see how long until flights will drop off a booking )
After an hour I received a new e-ticket with the updated flights but the updated flights didn’t have confirmed. Will give an update as this progresses.

Can you please elaborate a bit on how, as a lowlife Bronze, you were able to get answered in Hobart on two consecutive calls?????

 

[Nitro6333]

Can you please elaborate a bit on how, as a lowlife Bronze, you were able to get answered in Hobart on two consecutive calls?????

Just a lot of research this isn’t my first rodeo

 

[MJHoops]

Just a lot of research this isn’t my first rodeo

Can you please share how exactly?

 

[RooFlyer]

After an hour I received a new e-ticket with the updated flights but the updated flights didn’t have confirmed. Will give an update as this progresses.

Sounds like a ( potentially) good outcome but I'm curious about the e-ticket without 'confirmed' . Is it a normal Qantas e-ticket with the word 'unconfirmed' on it, or is it like an Amadeus computer printout showing flight details and unconfirmed?

 

[Nitro6333]

Can you please share how exactly?

I’d rather not say tbh but it’s not rocket science and I’m no brain surgeon!

 

[DAC1]

From looking at your past posts, the only tip you’ve had is to find the latest 1300 number.

While you’re not going to tell us what your trick is, can you at least tell us whether it was a case of finding the latest 1300 number or was it something else?

 

[Nitro6333]

Sounds like a ( potentially) good outcome but I'm curious about the e-ticket without 'confirmed' . Is it a normal Qantas e-ticket with the word 'unconfirmed' on it, or is it like an Amadeus computer printout showing flight details and unconfirmed?

Yeah I’ve never received one that hasn’t had the “confirmed” on it either the column is just blank and Mmb has waitlisted.Can confirm it was the standard e-ticket email with the attached pdf.

Post automatically merged: Jul 12, 2022

From looking at your past posts, the only tip you’ve had is to find the latest 1300 number.

While you’re not going to tell us what your trick is, can you at least tell us whether it was a case of finding the latest 1300 number or was it something else?

Yeah it’s a 1300 number

 

[Nitro6333]

Update: have now received the new e-ticket with the requested flights showing as confirmed. This process took a little under a week and e-ticket came through without having to contact cs.
As a side note I had 2 other OWA bookings that cx had canceled flights on and called to request alternate flights and the changes were made and confirmed with new e-tickets issued in under 12 hrs.

 

[flapper]

Can you please elaborate a bit on how, as a lowlife Bronze, you were able to get answered in Hobart on two consecutive calls?????

There is a 1300 number that goes straight to the premium call centre in HBA. I did have that number but it changes very regularly so don't have it now. I keep trying in vain all the QF 1300 numbers I come across but no luck lately.