My Reward Booking has disappeared and I'm supposed to fly tomorrow morning

[NM]

As far as I'm aware they can't do that. Could be wrong though, never been game to try it.

They should be able to check bags through based on presentation on a valid connecting onward booking on the same airline. This is purely a "link" between two bookings and is not a merger of the two bookings into a single booking.

Still doesn't seem like a reason to cancel your booking. Visa issues are on the PAX, so QF wouldn't likely care if you had one to enter Japan or not.

This is not quite the full story. While it is true that visas are the passenger's responsibility, there is an obligation on the operating airline to ensure they only allow passengers with valid visas or exemptions for the destination country to board an international flight. If an airline carries a passenger who does not have the proper visa or exemption and that passenger is denied entry and deported, the airline is fined and also has fund the return journey (they may ask the passenger to reimburse the costs).

Note that it is not a requirement that the onward flight is on the same booking/itinerary. So presenting an onward flight booking that meets the requirement for transit exemption for a Visa would be perfectly acceptable to the airline for the purpose of allowing boarding the flight, as it would be for immigration officials at the transit country.

 

[gorodemon]

I'm currently on the phone with QF call centre again because I just found out from CheckMyTrip that my 2nd booking (53xx_x), which was going to connect me from NRT to YVR departing on 30 SEP, is still alive in their system!! The phone number which I called is 1300 659 116.

This is still alive as of now, even after I cancelled it last night using Manage My Booking function on QF website. The agent just informed me there's a glitch in their system and will try to cancel it and issue refund to me. I'the number. This is beyond pathetic that I can't trust Qantas website and have to rely on 3rd party system like CheckMyTrip. Jesus Christ on a bike, I am lost for words $!@#$^!$!$!##@!@#$%!!!

 

[gorodemon]

I'm sorry if I looked like inundating my own thread with own replies but QF call centre finally gave me an explanation why they cancelled my 1st booking (5Qxx_x).

"This is because you requested for one leg to be cancelled. In order to calculate the amount of refunds, we had to cancel the whole booking thus invalidating your original e-tickets. Once the refund amount had been calculated, we tried to re book your seats accordingly. Unfortunately, at the time, there were no availability of reward seats for booking with JAL and WestJets so we had to cancel the whole booking and issue a refund".

To me, it doesn't make sense at all because I had the correct booking since 01 Sept 2022 as issued by QF. They were able to remove my unwanted leg as per my instructions and issued the correct itinerary. Why did they cancel the whole thing a day before departure? Was the refund not processed correctly in the beginning and they tried to redo it yesterday?

 

[Virgin Bart]

Unfortunately that's their moronic way of doing it. Please don't misconstrue that as me defending them.

 

[drron]

This has totally convinced me not to book a partner award with QFF and switch my supermarket shopping to Coles.
Absolutely no excuse for your treatment by QF and to try and blame you is pathetic.

I hope that things get better with time and you can in the future take your child for an even better trip. Though probably on a better airline.

Our thoughts are with you.

 

[gorodemon]

Unfortunately that's their moronic way of doing it. Please don't misconstrue that as me defending them.

Yep, that's truly an idiotic method to amend existing bookings. Qantas proudly advertised their slogan on their website that customers could "Fly Flexible".

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/coronavirus/fly-flexible.html

However, if what they said was true, they failed to inform me of this pertinent details. Had I been advised of the consequence of amending my booking, I wouldn't have requested them to remove one leg. Is this not a case of misrepresentation under our consumer law?

 

[SeatBackForward]

This is yet another symptom of the QF staff cull. It isn't just about training staff to follow procedures, but about the experience in knowing how to resolve situations that aren't in the training manuals - this is experience that needs years to gain, but only seconds to lose when accountants draw lines across spreadsheets.

 

[Austman]

However, if what they said was true, they failed to inform me of this pertinent details.

When the amendments were made, were there new ticket numbers with each change? It seems very odd to me if new tickets were issued showing flights as confirmed as recently as 20th September. Some of the past issues with awards changes were due to no re-ticketing.

 

[Virgin Bart]

Check your points account activity (by date) too. Might give you a clue as to what happened.

 

[gorodemon]

When the amendments were made, were there new ticket numbers with each change? It seems very odd to me if new tickets were issued showing flights as confirmed as recently as 20th September. Some of the past issues with awards changes were due to no re-ticketing.

I just checked the e-ticket numbers on all of my itineraries, including the original one. They all have different e-ticket numbers. That means every time they issued a new itinerary, the system generated new e-tickets.

I don't know why they cancelled the booking at the last minute because it was already correct and I didn't make further request to amend it.

 

[JohnK]

So sorry to read this story.

This is now happening all too often.

 

[clifford]

I don't know why they cancelled the booking at the last minute because it was already correct and I didn't make further request to amend it.

I imagine it was just inexperienced contract employees at offshore call centres that were responsible for this.

Totally Qantas' responsibility for trying to hoodwink the public into thinking that call centre wait times have been fixed.

Very sad...

 

[kamchatsky]

To me. that makes Qantas points pretty worthless. It is stuff like this that simply cause undue grief to so many people this year, and I am sure AJ will be getting a big fat bonus.

I was thinking of signing up a QFF card for the bonus in next couple of weeks. But time and time again it is stuff like this, that meant I would end up signing up a VA or SQ point reward card instead.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Sorry to hear you are going through this ordeal. One thing you might want to do is to look at starting a whole new award booking. Find a flight that will get you to Canada with Qantas, and then call in a favour to the Qantas crew to rebook you on the SYD > YVR service as a classic award, having them force open seating if necessary. Tell them, look you screwed up my whole travel plans, you need to make it right by doing this.

Now they're just cancelling reservations on operating flights without notice the day before departure?

That is very worrisome indeed. Especially when you have things like hotels and other travel booked in reliance of Qantas honouring their end of the contract. As others have pointed perhaps you could take them to NCAT but seems like a lot of footwork to get QF to do the right thing here. Frankly, I think QF should give some supervisors at the call centres a god mode where they can make seats appear at will and fix these problems.

What's next? "Sorry, your flight's been cancelled," midflight and you're pushed out the back door.

Don't give them any ideas!

I'm sorry if I looked like inundating my own thread with own replies but QF call centre finally gave me an explanation why they cancelled my 1st booking (5Qxx_x).

"This is because you requested for one leg to be cancelled. In order to calculate the amount of refunds, we had to cancel the whole booking thus invalidating your original e-tickets. Once the refund amount had been calculated, we tried to re book your seats accordingly. Unfortunately, at the time, there were no availability of reward seats for booking with JAL and WestJets so we had to cancel the whole booking and issue a refund".

That makes zero sense. People change itineraries al the time and there is no need to cancel out the whole booking to recalculate YQ. I'd also go so far as to say that even if such a cancellation is required for recalculation many (including the OP) probably could care less about saving $2 on their itinerary by recalculating the YQ.

Yep, that's truly an idiotic method to amend existing bookings. Qantas proudly advertised their slogan on their website that customers could "Fly Flexible".

I'm sorry but that motto was spot on. Travellers on Qantas have to fly flexible since agents can upend or even cancel their booking at the last possible moment. Perhaps QF should sell travel insurance policies to protect travellers against these glitches?

To me. that makes Qantas points pretty worthless. It is stuff like this that simply cause undue grief to so many people this year, and I am sure AJ will be getting a big far bonus.

Qantas points aren't useless so long as you don't make a change to your itinerary. I've yet to have a single award booking with QF go awry thanks in part to largely not involving the call centre staff. I suspect too that it doesn't help that non-partner airlines like JAL that are outside of OneWorld were part of the booking. Had it be a Qantas partner like Qantas or JetStar this may not have happened (yeah I know JAL is part of OneWorld I'm just goofing on the fact that OneWorld's booking system is a cough show compared to StarNet).

-RooFlyer88

 

[love_the_life]

Sorry to hear you are going through this ordeal. One thing you might want to do is to look at starting a whole new award booking. Find a flight that will get you to Canada with Qantas, and then call in a favour to the Qantas crew to rebook you on the SYD > YVR service as a classic award, having them force open seating if necessary. Tell them, look you screwed up my whole travel plans, you need to make it right by doing this.
......


-RooFlyer88

Though no point in trying to force new award seats as the OP has cancelled all the land bookings and is not travelling at all.

 

[Austman]

"This is because you requested for one leg to be cancelled. In order to calculate the amount of refunds, we had to cancel the whole booking thus invalidating your original e-tickets. Once the refund amount had been calculated, we tried to re book your seats accordingly. Unfortunately, at the time, there were no availability of reward seats for booking with JAL and WestJets so we had to cancel the whole booking and issue a refund".

Considering you had new e-tickets issued, as recently as 20th September, with the flights all showing as "confirmed", this statement makes a mockery of the whole process.

 

[ferntree]

Reading through this thread is really depressing. The notion of using common sense in pursuit of good customer service just doesn't seem to exist any more at Qantas.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Reading through this thread is really depressing. The notion of using common sense in pursuit of good customer service just doesn't seem to exist any more at Qantas.

Common sense was scrapped at Qantas as Alan Joyce deemed it to be redundant!

 

[Scarlett]

If I read this correctly and it happened to me, I think I might have gone to the airport as scheduled and seen what could have been done. Not strictly irrops, but if you got the right person there and they could see the ridiculousness of the situation, they may have been able to make the first segment work.

There’s a whole lot of if after that point, but I’d hope already being overseas might spur QF into doing something right.

 

[ferntree]

...f you got the right person there and they could see the ridiculousness of the situation,...

Ah, you see, that's the problem. Check-in staff with long lines of passengers would find this well beyond their paygrade. Phone apps are the perfect cop-out for passing the buck right back to the punter ...