Hi Friends; I will be shortly cancelling 2 U (business award) seats on the following flights, which includes some legs during peak/holiday times. Of course, I can't guarantee that these will go back to availability but if you are looking for anything around these dates let me know and I can message you when I'm about to contact the call centre to give you the best chance. Planning to do so at some stage this week.
2019
2/12 MNL-SYD QF20
6/12 HND-HKG CX649
6/12 HKG-PER CX143
2020
7/4 PER-SIN QF71
8/4 SIN-NRT JL712
11/4 NRT-SEA JL68
27/4 SFO-MEL QF50
Another datapoint for there being a QF error in recalculating tax/surcharge differences when making changes to award bookings that commence in Manlia:
This morning I booked a return ticket MNL to Japan; and booked the wrong date on the return ticket. I contacted QF via SMS wanting to change the date of the return leg by one day: Same carrier, flight number, class, everything except the date. I even contacted QF center within 1 hour of making the original booking - (meaning it's very unlikely there was a change in the official fee/surcharge rate between my original booking and the contact).
Yet QF wanted another PHP3000 (give or take AU$100) to change the date on the booking (they'd waive the change and assistance fee because it was within 24hrs of the original booking).
The SMS agent claimed they "calculated the taxes four times" yet every time the system wanted more payment.
So reinforcing my earlier experience (a few pages back) of trying to make changes to an existing booking that commenced in MNL: Something furry happens when the contact centre recalculates taxes. My suspicion is it shifts to an AU (or other) POS. If you want to start a booking in MNL to save on taxes; get it right the first time - changing your booking will increase your surcharge. For a return MNL to Japan this meant $100 - for my earlier complicated itinerary, it was hundreds more per passenger.
I am very dissatisfied with advice from Qantas that it will take 4-6 weeks to refund two itineraries I have just cancelled.
In one case it's 580k worth of points and around 1K AUD (but priced in Philippines peso).
I can't see any good reason for it to take so long, but all I get told is "that's the way it is".
Something to be aware of if you plan to book spare itineraries to allow for cancelling.
Update on the cancellations. One of the cancelled itineraries has had points credited but no refund to card (yet) - 12 days from request to cancel.
Finally at the end of this saga. Some learnings for anyone looking to book, change and/or cancel itineraries ex-MNL.
1. As mentioned - when changing an itinerary ex-MNL - and whether via SMS or phone - when it goes to be re-ticketed, the cost jumps significantly. My suspicion is the ticket is repriced to an AU or US point of sale (I was given the option of USD to pay the second set of fees).
2. If you eventually refund that ticket, it may not convert back to the original itinerary's currency. My original fees were 42980PHP (2pax) which converted to 1232.15AUD; the refund ended up being in USD and I lost about $5 in forex differences (could be worse).
3. Refunds are quoted at 4-6 weeks but in practice,
when working, seem to take two weeks. As mentioned above, one of the itineraries was cancelled on Nov 14, points and cancel fee hit me on 26th, and money was back on the card on Nov 28.
4. The story of the complex refund:
- requested the cancellation (while there was an outstanding flight change, so asked not to be charged a cancel fee) and was advised the refund would be in USD.
- two weeks after requesting the cancel, I was first refunded two amounts in USD that added up to about $900, 280k points, but charged 6k fee. So was still out the other 280k points and about $300
- I contacted at this point (SMS) and was told to wait another week. As expected, nothing happened
- I contacted after that week of waiting via the app this time, and an agent figured out the difference and advised it would be sorted. The other 280k points were credited quickly, and the outstanding dollars (in USD again) came through a few days later.
TL;DR: as mentioned earlier, booking multiple itineraries with the plan of cancelling some and modifying others ended up being a bit of a nightmare. There are pros and cons to booking ex-MNL, but I probably won't plan to start a redemption overseas again unless I plan on booking it all in one go,
online. I am not confident that any of the call centres are correctly pricing from an MNL POS and applying lower taxes.
Edit: the one thing I didn't do was try to contact directly via the Philippines phone number. Perhaps next time, if there is one.
I'll have to book the SYD-SCL tickets as soon as they come out I believe, so I'll only be booking the first 2 legs first up. So presumably I'll lose the tax savings when I call to add on the other legs.
