Is booking rewards flights always this difficult?

[gus3232]

First time poster and yep, having a whinge. Have spent the best part today trying to book rewards flights to get to the USA in November and nothing but errors.

Showing that seats are available but when you go to book, nothing but the good old 15012 - 421 error over and over.

App chat - useless. SMS chat - equally as bad. After being on hold for 40+ minutes, whilst trying to help, the poor COS lady tells me there are no seats available, despite the website showing they are. The incompetence of the booking system and website as a hold is a disgrace for an international company. This really is so disappointing.

Apologies for the rant, seething a little at the moment.

 

[juddles]

gus3232, I love Qantas.

But as for their website/booking system. I despise it. Some people expect to get reward seats on a specific date, etc that shows great expectations. You are suffering system glitches that reveal the amateur faults that are omnipresent in QF. Your opening post/rant is valid in my view - welcome to posting

 

[The man with no name]

If it were easy everyone would do it.

 

[JohnM]

Did you try different browsers/reboot your device?

 

[Deleted member]

First time poster and yep, having a whinge. Have spent the best part today trying to book rewards flights to get to the USA in November and nothing but errors.

Showing that seats are available but when you go to book, nothing but the good old 15012 - 421 error over and over.

App chat - useless. SMS chat - equally as bad. After being on hold for 40+ minutes, whilst trying to help, the poor COS lady tells me there are no seats available, despite the website showing they are. The incompetence of the booking system and website as a hold is a disgrace for an international company. This really is so disappointing.

Apologies for the rant, seething a little at the moment.

Welcome to the dysfunctional world of the Qantas website.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

It begs the question, "Who looks after the website during school holidays?"

 

[Dr Ralph]

Qantas award booking difficult? Ha ha ha!

It is quirky and does have limitations. But once you learn the system booking award flights shouldn't be too difficult, albeit time consuming.

 

[ALH]

It begs the question, "Who looks after the website during school holidays?"

Sad, but seemingly true!

 

[rock86]

First time poster and yep, having a whinge. Have spent the best part today trying to book rewards flights to get to the USA in November and nothing but errors.

Showing that seats are available but when you go to book, nothing but the good old 15012 - 421 error over and over.

App chat - useless. SMS chat - equally as bad. After being on hold for 40+ minutes, whilst trying to help, the poor COS lady tells me there are no seats available, despite the website showing they are. The incompetence of the booking system and website as a hold is a disgrace for an international company. This really is so disappointing.

Apologies for the rant, seething a little at the moment.

Most likely phantom award availability, as poor as the QF site can be, this isn't a QF specific issue as the vast majority of airline reward booking systems can have this problem.

 

[gus3232]

The website as a whole is easy to use. The problem is that the information on there is completely bogus. I genuinely feel bad for the support crew who have to answer to angry, frustrated clowns like myself who get bent out of shape when unable to book a flight that is saying "available" right in front of you.

 

[puzzigully]

I agree!

Been trying for weeks to redeem points on a family Vacation....

Managed to get 2 seats Mel-SFO and return LAX-MEL in business BUT I need three!

No amount of discussion regarding:
Been QFF for 20+ years
Over 1 million FF points
Lifetime SC 30,000+
Platinum continually for last 16+ years

Seems to budge them

Tried pulling at heart strings:
Ads with Qantas bringing families together etc, but don't do it in real life etc

The operator was very sympathetic, but NO GO.

Asked her to escalate with her supervisor, but he/she said no too.

Told to buy a ticket $11,000!
or
Told to travel in lesser class

don't they get we all wish to travel together?

Apparently only if the super cheap fare is available in that class, will they relaase FF seats - I can see plenty of seats available, but they refuse to release one more seat


Any advice how I can succeeded in getting my third seat?

 

[nlagalle]

Any advice how I can succeeded in getting my third seat?

These days it’s basically if computer says no then that’s it. Years ago they would forward the request to yield management and they could release a seat but that stopped a while back. I don’t like your chances

 

[Kangol]

These days it’s basically if computer says no then that’s it. Years ago they would forward the request to yield management and they could release a seat but that stopped a while back. I don’t like your chances

That was/is only for WP, when the computer did not give an instant response.
As a WP, if the computer said no, the response was "it doesn't mean it will be no in the future" and "you are welcome to try again now or at another time".
The manual request (after a "no" response) is for P1 only.

 

[gus3232]

And here we are SIX days later and the same flights are showing up via a search on the website and they are "unavailable" apparently. Absolute amateur hour. Billion dollar company, $3.50 website. Lift your game Qantas.

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

I've always suspected that the frustrations in getting all the way through the international reward seat booking process, the phantom availability, the time consuming nature and the Kafka-esque loop of support teams unable to assist are intentional, designed to ultimately make the user give up trying and either:

- redeem the points for any Any Seat Award; or
- pay for the ticket

Both of which generate higher profit for QF.

 

[Zanzara]

Frankly, you're lucky you even found 2 seats - especially if it's on QF. Often they just release the 1 or none.

 

[Julesmac]

If the geniuses on this site who are expert in redeeming seats are themselves bamboozled then there's no hope for the rest of us! Tell mne, any result from a rant on Facebook?

 

[Zanzara]

If the geniuses on this site who are expert in redeeming seats are themselves bamboozled then there's no hope for the rest of us! Tell mne, any result from a rant on Facebook?

The answer is generally not Qantas. I genuinely feel sorry for those that get sucked in to all the advertising and false promises, rack up millions in points balances and then struggle to get more than 1 seat in anything other than Y using classic points on QF

 

[JennyMG]

Don't you think it's a bit rich of Qantas to post award seats on other partner airlines on their website, expecting them to be released and taken, but 'hoard' their own seats for paying pax? I wonder what % of Qantas's seats are award compared to other airlines.

 

[nlagalle]

Don't you think it's a bit rich of Qantas to post award seats on other partner airlines on their website, expecting them to be released and taken, but 'hoard' their own seats for paying pax? I wonder what % of Qantas's seats are award compared to other airlines.

All airlines “hoard” seats for paying pax. There is only a handful of seats released for awards on each flight.