Monumental Stuff up by Qantas

[ozbeachbabe]

Is that completely true? I could have sworn QF would only let you select Window/aisle preference if the booking wasn’t ticketed?

That was my assumption too although quite likely to be a carrier specific thing. I had a booking thru a TA which had a 5 min schedule change to it which I couldn't acknowlege by MMB - I had to contact the TA. Fortunately the TA acknowledged the time change and it was only then I could select the seats.

Just as an aside flight centre were refusing to give someone an eticket printout saying that they didn't need it. Needless to say I insisited that the person keep pushing the issue and eventually they got it. That person won't be going back there!!

The TA is probably one who frequently says "one hour is fine" for minimum connecting time in SYD from dom to int.

Terrible experience but I am left wondering if the OP "actually" knew what was going on but was hoping to get something for nothing. Sometimes it "looks" as if you have scored a freebie and you want to believe it, but at the last moment, whatever looked like a freebie, vanishes.

I certainly didn't get that impression from the OP. I believe there were several different award or commercial tickets issued around the same time as the IB one which may have initially lead to some confusion ie they didn't notice the absence of a credit card charge for the IB taxes.

Last year I made a paid J booking to the USA. I also consulted a travel agent to quote on the same itinerary. The travel agent was more expensive than the online Qantas companion special. Lo and behold an few weeks later, a "second" booking appeared in my FF account. Identical itinerary, identical flights, different booking reference. I could even assign seats to the phantom booking on both the QF and AA sectors. I did, for a moment, consider cancelling the paid seats and getting a refund but thought better of it, even though the itinerary showed "confirmed" in the flight status.

The morning of departure, both bookings were still there, so thought that I might get two boarding passes and give one to someone who a FA deemed deserved it. Arrived at BNE for check-in got a boarding pass for the paid booking then gave the Booking Reference for the second. "Sorry", I was told, "I can't see that booking reference in the system".

Had I have relied on the fact that the "phantom" booking looked real (except than no e-ticket had ever been issued or money taken from any source that I had) I would have been in an identical situation. Check, check, and recheck and if in doubt call the Arline if even the slightest detail it out of order. It is EXTREMELY rare for an airline to make a mistake.

Had you cancelled your ticketed companion booking direct with QF and relied on the unticketed TA booking you would have been referred back to your TA to pay for the booking as you cannot be checked in without a ticket. Even if you had two ticketed bookings the airline will only check you in on one of them so you wouldn't have been able to hold two boarding passes in your name for the same
flight. Furthermore I doubt the FA would be complicit in handing out the boarding pass to a worthy recipient as you suggest.

 

[opusman]

QF will let you select seats as soon as the booking is made afaik.

 

[JohnM]

I've had this drama with Qantas before in regards to Qatar bookings. I've had to push and push and push to get the ticket issued ASAP and the staff seemingly have no idea about the issues with ticketing delays on QR bookings. In this day and age, it's not really acceptable for a booking to not ticket at the time of purchase. This would mean the operator would have picked up on their error at the time of the ticket sale.

Dealing with Qantas customer service is a nightmare. I really don't envy you right now!

I have experienced the exact opposite making a phone booking at QF that includes QR or EK flights. The agent was at pains to tell me that if confirmation and e-ticket didn't arrive very soon, to call back as the links to those are known to be problematic and apparent bookings can fall way unless confirmed. I said that I was already aware of the flakiness and would be watching like a hawk (which I would have done in any event until I had the e-ticket on a piece of paper in front of me).

On each occasion, it may have helped that I was speaking with an agent in Aus/NZ.

 

[Le Clair]

QF will let you select seats as soon as the booking is made afaik.

Actually, I was surprised today when looking for a fare breakdown (to determine the price of a comfort seat), I was offered seat selection during the booking process before I made payment.

 

[big_RED]

I feel my friend is about to have the same thing happen to him.

He booked a busines class award seat NYC to SYD via the Qantas online suppprt webchat in April but he still hasn't seen any taxes charged to his credit card. He did receive the email confirmation with his booking reference number etc and has decided to just see what happens when he gets to NYC airport as he thinks he'll get a free flight! I'll find out in a few weeks.

 

[JohnK]

I made a UA booking for TG flights for wife and I on separate bookings last October. I originally had the outbound on 04 June but an hour or so later changed to 24 June.

Yesterday I received a reminder from Microsoft Outlook Calendar (which I don't use but do use Outlook/Hotmail) that flight to Bangkok is today. Where do they get that information as the booking is for 24 June. Very strange things happen with some of these bookings.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

1. No QFF points were deducted for the flight. This had to be a red flag that something was wrong! I check my balance each month to ensure points deducted and given are as they should particularly if I have booked an award flight.
2. No credit card payment was made. This had to be a red flag that something was wrong!
3. An e-ticket was not issued. Without a ticket you cannot travel. This had to be a red flag that something was wrong.

This is a case of a naive passenger not understanding what was going on. Three red flags and it is Qantas' fault? No this was clearly the passenger fault.

Would you travel to Cuba without a return ticket?

I think this is the issue. If the passenger had paid for the ticket they could have relied on the subsequent schedule change email (on the basis that it is possible for QF to take payment but ticketing still fail, for example with QR tickets). But without any payment, the subsequent email is almost meaningless.

 

[opusman]

Where do they get that information as the booking is for 24 June. Very strange things happen with some of these bookings

It read your email and extracted the date from the initial booking confirmation and made a calendar entry from it. Presumably it isn't smart enough to see the second email and update the calendar entry automatically.

 

[JohnK]

It read your email and extracted the date from the initial booking confirmation and made a calendar entry from it. Presumably it isn't smart enough to see the second email and update the calendar entry automatically.

But it only does that for some bookings? Very strange.

 

[Jack_OC]

Actually, I was surprised today when looking for a fare breakdown (to determine the price of a comfort seat), I was offered seat selection during the booking process before I made payment.

This is the normal process now when booking QF international flights - you can select seats during the booking process, before you even enter your personal details if you like. This has also been the standard process for a long time when booking with various other airlines (e.g. VA, SQ). This underlines the point that being able to select seats is not an indication that you have a confirmed booking.

On a somewhat related note, the QF website generally also creates a PNR and holds flights if you go to the final stage of the booking process but don't complete it (i.e. don't pay), and indeed it sends you an automated email about it. You can then view this "booking" in MMB, but it will auto cancel at midnight (and disappear from MMB), if you don't go back in and complete payment. To make matters worse, if you use TripIt and have it set to automatically scan your emails, it may pick one of these emails up as a new booking and show it as a new trip in your account, but the flight will not disappear from TripIt even if you don't complete the booking.

 

[sjk]

I made two EK award bookings via QFF over the weekend.

The first could be done online with no problem. The initial screen after payment was accepted gave me the PNR but said something along the lines of "This is not a ticket, your ticket will be arriving by email soon", and it did.

The second errored out at payment, so I called. The agent told me the error was because I'd used multi-city for flights with less than 24 hours between them, and "You're not supposed to do that, but I'll make a one-time exception." A colleague has also told me that they're trying to "crack down" on multi-city bookings, whatever that might mean.

Points have been deducted, but I haven't received an email of any kind. For some reason, the PNR doesn't work on the "standard" version of CheckMyTrip, but does on the "classic" one. I've also been able to book a limo via the Emirates site (which required the PNR that I got from the "classic" CMT).

Asking for my itinerary or a tax invoice via the QF website also throws up an error.

Not the most user-friendly of experiences. Strikes me as not all that easy to get definitive confirmation via the QF website alone.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The second errored out at payment, so I called. The agent told me the error was because I'd used multi-city for flights with less than 24 hours between them, and "You're not supposed to do that, but I'll make a one-time exception." A colleague has also told me that they're trying to "crack down" on multi-city bookings, whatever that might mean.

Really??? If that's the case we're limited to what QF shows, and that's almost nothing!

 

[HockeyMonkey]

I had a similar situation on a QFF award booking MLE -> CMB -> MEL although in this case it had ticketed.

There was a scheduling change which pushed the CMB -> MEL departure from just before midnight to just after midnight.

Somehow the last sector disappeared from my booking in Y but remained intact on Mrs HockeyMonkey’s booking in J.

Fortunately I checked a couple of weeks before traveling and called them to correct. Somehow they fixed it by adding a sector in a non award category which disappeared a second time after a few more days. Took a second call to get permanently fixed.

Funny additional story where on arrival at MLE airport, the checkin desk tried to tell us our flight had been canceled causing some level of panic before following up with an oops they mixed up the day of the connecting flight which was a little after midnight.

 

[timster]

Yes, Qantas xx_xed up monumentally.
No, they will not compensate the OP in any meaningful way (and what they do offer may actually make the OP feel worse).
The only satisfaction is never to do business with Qantas again. It will have zero effect on Qantas, but at least the OP will not be reminded of their horrible experience every time they step on a QF plane.

 

[sjk]

Really??? If that's the case we're limited to what QF shows, and that's almost nothing!

The only reason I found what the agent said to be interesting was because it touched on something I'd heard elsewhere. Although she did sound reasonably cluey, so it's possible there's some sort of memo that she was on top of.

Just called my friend, and she said that there have been some cost issues with EK charging QFF for two separate legs even with <24h transits (whether due to married segment logic or whatever), which gets very costly for F redemptions. So in the case of what I just booked, QFF would get billed for HND-DXB and DXB-LCA separately rather than for (presumably much cheaper) HND-LCA.

So the working theory is that QFF are currently in the process of trying to adjust their multi-city engine, which may also explain some of the problems I've been reading about in other threads.

Not that I necessarily think it will happen, but a multi-city engine that only allows stopovers of at least a day will offer very little compared to multiple one-ways other than in the few cases where significant 'tax' savings can be made.

 

[Archipelago]

Sympathise with the OP. The email saying there was a change of flight time was the clincher for me.

Anyway - various posts about middle names and such.

Try having a surname which is two words. ie XX YYYYYYY
Yes there is a space in there. And I don't have a middle name.
So many times at the airport I have to try and sort out:
- My surname is two "words"
- The first part of my surname is not my middle name

So far so good. But a PITA

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The only reason I found what the agent said to be interesting was because it touched on something I'd heard elsewhere. Although she did sound reasonably cluey, so it's possible there's some sort of memo that she was on top of.

Just called my friend, and she said that there have been some cost issues with EK charging QFF for two separate legs even with <24h transits (whether due to married segment logic or whatever), which gets very costly for F redemptions. So in the case of what I just booked, QFF would get billed for HND-DXB and DXB-LCA separately rather than for (presumably much cheaper) HND-LCA.

So the working theory is that QFF are currently in the process of trying to adjust their multi-city engine, which may also explain some of the problems I've been reading about in other threads.

Not that I necessarily think it will happen, but a multi-city engine that only allows stopovers of at least a day will offer very little compared to multiple one-ways other than in the few cases where significant 'tax' savings can be made.

If they are going to do this I think they're going to have to fundamentally rewrite their FF terms and conditions. At the moment all the wording around what constitutes a 'trip' (or 'journey' or whatever they call it) refers to transits less than 24 hours. And that flows through to the award charts based on zones. All of that wording would need to change.

I hope, perhaps, the agent was confused with the recent problems with the IT glitch where the QF tool was charging sector fares rather than the through fare, a problem which has now been fixed.

 

[Jack_OC]

Yes, Qantas xx_xed up monumentally.
No, they will not compensate the OP in any meaningful way (and what they do offer may actually make the OP feel worse).
The only satisfaction is never to do business with Qantas again. It will have zero effect on Qantas, but at least the OP will not be reminded of their horrible experience every time they step on a QF plane.

And they will have a much more limited ability to book award flights in the future (especially to/from "exotic" destinations), a limited ability to enjoy status benefits overseas, and fewer choices when booking any kind of flights to/from or within Australia (in fact in some cases, no options whatsoever).

As you correctly point out, this course of action would have zero impact on Qantas, but it would undoubtedly make life difficult for the OP. Furthermore, it will not stop them from being reminded of this horrible experience, but rather the exact opposite, since they would be allowing this experience to influence their travel plans for evermore. And sooner or later they will find that the same kind of problems (and worse) happen with other airlines too. All things considered, I think this course of action could safely be described as cutting off your nose to spite your face.

In my view, the OP should follow up and request compensation if she genuinely thinks an objective person would agree that she has a case, or forget about it if not. If she does genuinely believe she has a case (and can produce the confirmation email etc), go to the ACA if necessary, but then just accept the decision (whatever it is), learn from the experience, and move on. I say this as someone who has had grievances against a few different airlines (including QF).

 

[sjk]

If they are going to do this I think they're going to have to fundamentally rewrite their FF terms and conditions.

No argument from me there. It may end up being as simple as having them tighten up what shows on the multi-city engine, improving the error messages, and removing operator discretion when such errors are encountered.

 

[timster]

And they will have a much more limited ability to book award flights in the future (especially to/from "exotic" destinations), a limited ability to enjoy status benefits overseas, and fewer choices when booking any kind of flights to/from or within Australia (in fact in some cases, no options whatsoever).
....

I humbly disagree that there is a greater downside to breaking the QF shackles here. But it depends on how wedded the OP is to chasing points, award flights, upgrades, etc. And how profoundly disgusted she is with QF. For me, I was not heavily into the former (but still 'hooked'), and extremely fed up with QF. With that mindset, a change of alliance to Star (and a single-alliance mindset rather than single-airline mindset), plus a BFOD mentality, made me a much happier flyer. And mostly my international flight options are vastly increased compared to the contracted QF network. The feeling that I was being ripped off / suckered / addicted every time I stepped on a (QF) plane was gone. I do sometimes fly domestically with QF if it suits me, but that would cease if VA joined Star.