Made any travel mistakes lately?

[djkelly69]

is the ability to cancel for free within the first 24 hours of booking

*Subject to their T&Cs, most notably departing from Aus and not flying within the next 30 days.

 

[Brissy1]

...not flying within the next 30 days.

reducing to 7 days to/from/within USA, as applies to direct booking with all airlines. Thanks only to the USA's superior consumer protection. I believe.

 

[TerenceM]

I appreciate not everyone is happy to do it (due to refund times etc) but one of the benefits of booking directly through Qantas is the ability to cancel for free within the first 24 hours of booking.

My mistake was thinking this applies to any fare type booked throught the Qantas website. I had a return ticket that was for more than 30 days out and I cancelled online within 24 hours. Several weeks go by and I receive a refund for 183.96 on a 1411.86 fare.

I fill in the complaint form asking why I only received the taxes back when I met all the terms and conditions and received this back.


I check the website and clearly says you don't have to call the contact center for the 'Cancel Any Reason' policy.



I send them a screenshot of this and I receive the exact same response back.

I call Qantas customer service and the first few people I talk to weren't able to give an explanation until I was passed onto someone more experieced. She explained that the cancel for any reason policy waives the cancellation fee and as I didn't buy a flex fare, my fare had no cancellation fee to waive in the first place as it wasn't refundable.

 

[Kerrodt]

My mistake was thinking this applies to any fare type booked throught the Qantas website. I had a return ticket that was for more than 30 days out and I cancelled online within 24 hours. Several weeks go by and I receive a refund for 183.96 on a 1411.86 fare.

I fill in the complaint form asking why I only received the taxes back when I met all the terms and conditions and received this back.

View attachment 324569
I check the website and clearly says you don't have to call the contact center for the 'Cancel Any Reason' policy.

View attachment 324571

I send them a screenshot of this and I receive the exact same response back.

I call Qantas customer service and the first few people I talk to weren't able to give an explanation until I was passed onto someone more experieced. She explained that the cancel for any reason policy waives the cancellation fee and as I didn't buy a flex fare, my fare had no cancellation fee to waive in the first place as it wasn't refundable.

That is totally absurd. I would report this nonsense to the consumer watchdogs in your state, and tell Qantas that you are doing it. They are clearly not honouring what they say on their website.

 

[dairyfloss]

My mistake was thinking this applies to any fare type booked throught the Qantas website. I had a return ticket that was for more than 30 days out and I cancelled online within 24 hours. Several weeks go by and I receive a refund for 183.96 on a 1411.86 fare.

I fill in the complaint form asking why I only received the taxes back when I met all the terms and conditions and received this back.

View attachment 324569
I check the website and clearly says you don't have to call the contact center for the 'Cancel Any Reason' policy.

View attachment 324571

I send them a screenshot of this and I receive the exact same response back.

I call Qantas customer service and the first few people I talk to weren't able to give an explanation until I was passed onto someone more experieced. She explained that the cancel for any reason policy waives the cancellation fee and as I didn't buy a flex fare, my fare had no cancellation fee to waive in the first place as it wasn't refundable.

Provided it is one of these:


and NOT one of these (below), then you have been misinformed, and should escalate. Note that fare type doesn't come into it at all:


Cheers,
Matt.

 

[justinbrett]

The caveat on “waive cancellation fee” points to

Important information​

Disclaimer: * You must be a Qantas Frequent Flyer to earn and use Qantas Points. A joining fee may apply. Membership and points are subject to the Qantas Frequent Flyer program terms and conditions.

This is absolutely wrong. Nothing on there says you need a refundable fare.

I’d call and say you are going to do a credit card charge back and see what they say.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

As much as it irks me to side with QF on a customer service type of issue… perhaps they’re right on this one.

The offer is to waive cancellation fees, not to make a non-refundable ticket refundable.

Consider these three scenarios:
1. If you buy a refundable ticket (which may have a cancellation fee attached), then if you meet the other eligibility requirements (24 hrs, etc) you can cancel and get all your money back, without incurring a cancellation fee.
2. If you buy a refundable ticket (which may have a cancellation fee attached), but you don’t meet the other eligibility requirements (24 hrs, etc) you can cancel and get all your money back, minus the cancellation fee.
3. If you buy a non-refundable ticket, then it’s non-refundable (like it says on the box).

 

[dairyfloss]

As much as it irks me to side with QF on a customer service type of issue… perhaps they’re right on this one.

The offer is to waive cancellation fees, not to make a non-refundable ticket refundable.

Consider these three scenarios:
1. If you buy a refundable ticket (which may have a cancellation fee attached), then if you meet the other eligibility requirements (24 hrs, etc) you can cancel and get all your money back, without incurring a cancellation fee.
2. If you buy a refundable ticket (which may have a cancellation fee attached), but you don’t meet the other eligibility requirements (24 hrs, etc) you can cancel and get all your money back, minus the cancellation fee.
3. If you buy a non-refundable ticket, then it’s non-refundable (like it says on the box).

It does refer to the cancellation fee being waived, in the top section of the page, but in the details it is quite clear that if you cancel within 24 hours from making the booking, and provided you've met the conditions [I pasted in my post above], then QF says they will "refund the value of your flights and any eligible ancillary products back to your original form of payment". This is regardless of the fare type, which is not even mentioned in their conditions.

More here: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/manage-booking/cancel-for-any-reason.html

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[djkelly69]

The offer is to waive cancellation fees, not to make a non-refundable ticket refundable.

Can't say I agree with that interpretation.

IMHO, an ordinary person (having read the Qantas page) would interpret the policy as being that if you meet the conditions and cancel within 24 hours for any reason, they will waive the cancelation fee and 'refund the value of your flights' in full.

 

[encryptededdy]

I'm reasonably confident that I've cancelled and refunded a red e-deal (normally non-refundable) with this policy before. Can't pull up any evidence since they don't really send you any confirmation of a refund though.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I agree with you that they’ve mangled the wording of the eligibility section, introducing some ambiguity.
But…
The headline offer is to “waive the cancellation fee”, not to “waive the cancellation fee and convert a non-refundable ticket to refundable”.

 

[justinbrett]

I agree with you that they’ve mangled the wording of the eligibility section, introducing some ambiguity.
But…
The headline offer is to “waive the cancellation fee”, not to “waive the cancellation fee and convert a non-refundable ticket to refundable”.

No, the headline offer is “cancel for any reason”

 

[dylarr]

I call Qantas customer service and the first few people I talk to weren't able to give an explanation until I was passed onto someone more experieced. She explained that the cancel for any reason policy waives the cancellation fee and as I didn't buy a flex fare, my fare had no cancellation fee to waive in the first place as it wasn't refundable.

What a disastrous chain of interactions. Keep fighting this one as it's cough the agents don't know or understand this policy.

I agree with you that they’ve mangled the wording of the eligibility section, introducing some ambiguity.
But…
The headline offer is to “waive the cancellation fee”, not to “waive the cancellation fee and convert a non-refundable ticket to refundable”.

As long as you meet the criteria (the main one being the flights need to be 30 days out or more, to/from Australia, booked on qantas.com), non-refundable tickets are refunded under this policy. The cancel for any reason page spells this out pretty clearly further down the page.

I've used this policy multiple times on sale and Red e-Deal fares that are non-refundable and the full amount including the card payment fee has been refunded.

 

[dylarr]

I'm reasonably confident that I've cancelled and refunded a red e-deal (normally non-refundable) with this policy before. Can't pull up any evidence since they don't really send you any confirmation of a refund though.

That's strange. I got this last time I used cancel for any reason. It came though within an hour of cancelling the booking:

 

[Flashback]

Leaving Amman yesterday (to head for the land King Hussein Bridge land border crossing back to Israel via Palestine), I opted to use Uber rather than try and negotiate with the local/yellow taxi. Left later than planned (wasn't in a rush) so got surge pricing. All good. Wanted to use the remainder of my cash....... made the booking, and forgot to change from card to cash. Won't let you do it once the ride has been accepted which is annoying. Cancelled, booked again and this time surge pricing went from 1.3 to 1.4. Doh.

It gets better - we get about half way and the Uber driver says he's not licensed/authorised to do drop offs there (not sure why Uber offers the drop off point then.......), so pulls over in the middle of nowhere. Oops. This could go bad....... fortunately he was actually quite friendly, he helped us book another car (funnily enough it was not a local/yellow taxi!) and the overall price with the split journey actually ended up being 2 JOD cheaper than the standard fare, and 6-7 JOD than what the Uber was going to cost us. All's well that ends well

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I've used this policy multiple times on sale and Red e-Deal fares that are non-refundable and the full amount including the card payment fee has been refunded.

Looks like I’ve got it cough about then…

 

[Flashback]

Looks like I’ve got it cough about then…

BA has the same, can cancel for no reason on any fare type. I use it quite a bit.

 

[Flyfrequently]

My mistake was thinking this applies to any fare type booked throught the Qantas website. I had a return ticket that was for more than 30 days out and I cancelled online within 24 hours. Several weeks go by and I receive a refund for 183.96 on a 1411.86 fare.

I fill in the complaint form asking why I only received the taxes back when I met all the terms and conditions and received this back.

View attachment 324569
I check the website and clearly says you don't have to call the contact center for the 'Cancel Any Reason' policy.

View attachment 324571

I send them a screenshot of this and I receive the exact same response back.

I call Qantas customer service and the first few people I talk to weren't able to give an explanation until I was passed onto someone more experieced. She explained that the cancel for any reason policy waives the cancellation fee and as I didn't buy a flex fare, my fare had no cancellation fee to waive in the first place as it wasn't refundable.

Having read all the very informative comments in this thread @TerenceM, I would encourage you to keep going with this.
Perhaps it is time to escalate via email to Executive high up ? CFO?
Only thing I could see in conditions would be if you paid by Bpay or if e-ticket had not been issued ?
Good luck and let us know how you go - so frustrating and stressful

 

[Brissy1]

Leaving Amman yesterday (to head for the land King Hussein Bridge land border crossing back to Israel via Palestine), I opted to use Uber rather than try and negotiate with the local/yellow taxi. Left later than planned (wasn't in a rush) so got surge pricing. All good. Wanted to use the remainder of my cash....... made the booking, and forgot to change from card to cash. Won't let you do it once the ride has been accepted which is annoying. Cancelled, booked again and this time surge pricing went from 1.3 to 1.4. Doh.

It gets better - we get about half way and the Uber driver says he's not licensed/authorised to do drop offs there (not sure why Uber offers the drop off point then.......), so pulls over in the middle of nowhere. Oops. This could go bad....... fortunately he was actually quite friendly, he helped us book another car (funnily enough it was not a local/yellow taxi!) and the overall price with the split journey actually ended up being 2 JOD cheaper than the standard fare, and 6-7 JOD than what the Uber was going to cost us. All's well that ends well

So am I understanding this correctly... you catch an uber within a surge area, you stop at a point outside the surge area then catch another uber to complete the trip at non-surge rates. Very impressive

 

[Flashback]

So am I understanding this correctly... you catch an uber within a surge area, you stop at a point outside the surge area then catch another uber to complete the trip at non-surge rates. Very impressive

More or less, but that wasn't the intended action of course! We'd rather have just had a single driver all the way without all the stress of being left in the middle of nowhere