Lost all trust in Qantas

[_flyer]

I have had similar experiences with Qantas, they are an absolute joke. I try and avoid them where possible.

 

[ferntree]

I've given up on ever getting the cash refunds I'm due from 2020. Never mind. By flying Virgin instead whenever possible I've saved more money on the swings than I lost on the roundabouts.

 

[Guvner]

I'm still chasing fees and taxes charged on a cancelled flight from 5 months ago. On the other hand they have refunded the (quite substantial) points twice. Not sure who is winning this one right now. An extra ~576k points for me vs $1250. ? I assume one day it will be sorted out..

 

[Angela05]

My ticketing saga with Qantas continues. 20 days and no resolution.

Today I received an email response to the escalation/complaint I made with Qantas Customer Care. Either it is a bot or the agent handling it has no access (or doesn’t know how to access) Qantas booking, payment and customer communication history. The email says ‘We cannot verify your information. If you have a problem dispute it with your bank’. Complaint considered closed by Qantas.

 

[stm1sydney]

You've secured QFLTG. Time to move on and stop contributing to AJ's bonus.

 

[ZenFlyer]

The email says ‘We cannot verify your information. If you have a problem dispute it with your bank’. Complaint considered closed by Qantas.

Sorry if I missed this upthread, but have you, in fact, raised it with your bank? I ask because I've been having a similar, although much smaller scale problem with Qantas over extra legroom seats that were purchased over two months ago. After multiple rounds of calling and Tweeting them, just today I finally initiated a formal dispute with my credit card company, and to my amazement the credit card company refunded the disputed fees within five minutes. Granted these were small charges (40 AUD) and their email warned that depending on what further investigation reveals they may have to re-bill me for the charges, but it was a great feeling to put this problem in someone else's lap for a while. Let Amex try fighting Qantas for a while instead of me I wish you the best of luck in getting help with your issues

 

[Melburnian1]

This PA has been in since last year and asks not only to treat crew with respect but also fellow passengers. It was pretty awful onboard at one point especially when masks were required.

Cabin crew receive complaints, some reasonable, some silly and some unreasonable (which from staff members' point of view may be labelled 'abuse', although many passengers may believe it's simply being 'assertive') but on no other international airline (and I've flown in excess of 25) have I ever heard anything remotely similar to this.

(However, I've not flown European low cost airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair that allegedly have a lot of bad behaviour on board, especially from Pommy soccer fans).

That QF management inflicts this sort of announcement on passengers says a lot about the company's mentality. It's defensive about its declining reputation, instead of taking on board the negative feedback and saying to itself 'hmmm, yes we are failing on X so let's endeavour to do better by steps such as Y).

I also don't want to be lectured about some stupid 'welcome to country'. Yet again, this sort of political correctness features on QFi. In contrast, Middle Eastern airlines such as EK EY GF QR and WY to name some serve alcohol even though many who work for it might have a religious objection to those beverages. In my experience they don't have a welcome video that tells me off for wanting a beer or vino at lunch or dinner time.

Maybe if the company concentrated on the metrics that many Asian and Middle Eastern airlines do, given they are almost all 'safe' - punctuality, minimising cancellations, service pre and most importantly on the flight and treating passengers as though they're the ones indirectly paying staff members salaries and wages, not the other way around - QF would be able to gradually recover its crashed reputation.

But no need to fly Qantas or Jetstar given other airlines are superior on almost every metric, bar safety where it's most often a draw.

 

[Vic]

Sorry if I missed this upthread, but have you, in fact, raised it with your bank? I ask because I've been having a similar, although much smaller scale problem with Qantas over extra legroom seats that were purchased over two months ago. After multiple rounds of calling and Tweeting them, just today I finally initiated a formal dispute with my credit card company, and to my amazement the credit card company refunded the disputed fees within five minutes. Granted these were small charges (40 AUD) and their email warned that depending on what further investigation reveals they may have to re-bill me for the charges, but it was a great feeling to put this problem in someone else's lap for a while. Let Amex try fighting Qantas for a while instead of me I wish you the best of luck in getting help with your issues

The way I read it, Qantas has completely cancelled a flight. I think perhaps a return flight to Australia while the OP is currently travelling in Europe. The reason given doesn't entirely make sense. I'm not sure if that's because of the stress of trying to deal with this issue while travelling.
But telling someone to dispute the charge in this situation is utterly useless, arrogant and lacks any consideration of the problems Qantas' actions have caused.
Great you got the seat selection fees back, I'm not sure it's the same as what the OP has experienced.

Today I received an automated email from Qantas telling me I have duplicate bookings, that Qantas want to cancel, and to call a number, which doesn’t work from Europe, but does connect to an Australian service centre. The response is my payment is there, my booking is there but first I was told the flight has been cancelled (it hasn’t) and then told my seats have been cancelled and there are no seats available on the flight (or any flight that gets my kids back home in time for school).

Found this Qantas customer complaints under investigation as ACCC says airline not ‘realistic’ about flights it could serve and this ACCC monitoring airlines over price gouging concerns and whilst a complaint to ACCC won’t help my individual situation, it might help future customers.

A helpful forum member has pointed out that the EU has stronger consumer protection laws and as my flights originate in the EU this is also a potential course of action.

Any other thoughts as to how I get this resolved? I can’t believe this is what it takes…..

Will keep you updated.

 

[Melburnian1]

Poor quality phone lines to services centres, too much background noise wherever the call centre agents are, placed on hold by agents for hours, and multiple hang ups. Each time need to explain the issue again as ‘for privacy reasons call centre agents can’t see the history‘. At the end the agents don’t seem to understand the issue and don’t resolve it.

Angela05, is it possible some of the agents in Fiji and South Africa are working from home rather than in a call centre?

That may explain the frequent drop outs, if it's not a case of them deciding unilaterally to terminate a call.

 

[ZenFlyer]

The way I read it, Qantas has completely cancelled a flight. I think perhaps a return flight to Australia while the OP is currently travelling in Europe. The reason given doesn't entirely make sense. I'm not sure if that's because of the stress of trying to deal with this issue while travelling.
But telling someone to dispute the charge in this situation is utterly useless, arrogant and lacks any consideration of the problems Qantas' actions have caused.
Great you got the seat selection fees back, I'm not sure it's the same as what the OP has experienced.

Whoa, those are some pretty harsh accustations. I didn't in any way suggest this was the OP's fault, or try to excuse Qantas. I merely asked the question whether she had tried to file a dispute with the bank, only because she might get quicker relief that way. I don't see how that is "arrogant" and am not sure why you are taking such offense.

 

[Vic]

Whoa, those are some pretty harsh accustations. I didn't in any way suggest this was the OP's fault, or try to excuse Qantas. I merely asked the question whether she had tried to file a dispute with the bank, only because she might get quicker relief that way. I don't see how that is "arrogant" and am not sure why you are taking such offense.

I said NOTHING about you. I certainly did not think you blamed the OP. I did not take offense.
Qantas told them to dispute the charge - which is exactly what you quoted in your post.

I'm saying Qantas is arrogant, All those things are about Qantas.

 

[Katie]

Cabin crew receive complaints, some reasonable, some silly and some unreasonable (which from staff members' point of view may be labelled 'abuse', although many passengers may believe it's simply being 'assertive') but on no other international airline (and I've flown in excess of 25) have I ever heard anything remotely similar to this.

A comment about respecting staff and fellow travellers (e.g. for their choice to wear face masks, or not) is also in the AA and AS safety videos/spoken safety spiels I've experienced in the past year.
I've not heard a spoken diatribe telling off passengers, though.

 

[TheInsider]

I also don't want to be lectured about some stupid 'welcome to country'. Yet again, this sort of political correctness features on QFi. In contrast, Middle Eastern airlines such as EK EY GF QR and WY to name some serve alcohol even though many who work for it might have a religious objection to those beverages. In my experience they don't have a welcome video that tells me off for wanting a beer or vino at lunch or dinner time.

Nothing to do with political correctness at all.
In contrast, some middle eastern airlines play a prayer to all passengers.

 

[milehighclub]

Cabin crew receive complaints, some reasonable, some silly and some unreasonable (which from staff members' point of view may be labelled 'abuse', although many passengers may believe it's simply being 'assertive') but on no other international airline (and I've flown in excess of 25) have I ever heard anything remotely similar to this.

What, you don't agree with a Qantas policy? Groundbreaking.

How dare you assume that we take it as abuse, vs being assertive - the reality is abuse IS up. And crew are smart enough to know the difference between a complaint, because of a failure within the airline and 100% pure and simple abuse.

But pointless even trying to have a proper debate. We know you absolutely hate QF and every single thing they do. You would never EVER agree with anything.

 

[Guvner]

Some good vibes in this thread today.

 

[mannej]

Cabin crew receive complaints, some reasonable, some silly and some unreasonable (which from staff members' point of view may be labelled 'abuse', although many passengers may believe it's simply being 'assertive') but on no other international airline (and I've flown in excess of 25) have I ever heard anything remotely similar to this.

(However, I've not flown European low cost airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair that allegedly have a lot of bad behaviour on board, especially from Pommy soccer fans).

That QF management inflicts this sort of announcement on passengers says a lot about the company's mentality. It's defensive about its declining reputation, instead of taking on board the negative feedback and saying to itself 'hmmm, yes we are failing on X so let's endeavour to do better by steps such as Y).

I also don't want to be lectured about some stupid 'welcome to country'. Yet again, this sort of political correctness features on QFi. In contrast, Middle Eastern airlines such as EK EY GF QR and WY to name some serve alcohol even though many who work for it might have a religious objection to those beverages. In my experience they don't have a welcome video that tells me off for wanting a beer or vino at lunch or dinner time.

Maybe if the company concentrated on the metrics that many Asian and Middle Eastern airlines do, given they are almost all 'safe' - punctuality, minimising cancellations, service pre and most importantly on the flight and treating passengers as though they're the ones indirectly paying staff members salaries and wages, not the other way around - QF would be able to gradually recover its crashed reputation.

But no need to fly Qantas or Jetstar given other airlines are superior on almost every metric, bar safety where it's most often a draw.

I don’t know about you, but signage asking people to “be kind” or treat people with respect is everywhere. Not sure QF are alone in this, but each to their own

 

[whughes3]

I don’t know about you, but signage asking people to “be kind” or treat people with respect is everywhere. Not sure QF are alone in this, but each to their own

Agreed...there are even TV commercials about it.

 

[RichardMEL]

I don’t know about you, but signage asking people to “be kind” or treat people with respect is everywhere. Not sure QF are alone in this, but each to their own

Agee.

it's an shameful indication of the state of many Western societies (not just Australia) that these even NEED to be a thing. Yet, they need to be a thing because some people simply can't.

 

[UP4014]

Nothing to do with political correctness at all.
In contrast, some middle eastern airlines play a prayer to all passengers.

I work with an indigenous bloke, he reckons the QF announcement isn't needed. Some 'mobs' would use it but many do not. While I don't care either way it has become cringe worthy.

 

[Melburnian1]

Agee.

it's an shameful indication of the state of many Western societies (not just Australia) that these even NEED to be a thing. Yet, they need to be a thing because some people simply can't.

Huge amounts of signage or ad nauseum verbal warnings will make little or any difference, a bit like CCTV cameras don't stop crimes: they merely record them.