FlyingScotsman
Junior Member
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2009
- Posts
- 26
Good morning fellow QF travellers,
I'm going public about a severe mishandling by Qantas after initially giving them a month to resolve. (Mod's - please shift to another forum if appropriate)
My story begins with an invitation to attend a conference in Bangkok. The organiser arranged the CHC-SYD-BKK return booking via a travel agency. Flights were all on QF operated metal in Y, with the inbound flights fully flexible. Travel dates were dep Tue 04FEB, ret Fri 07FEB. I flew to BKK on the 04FEB as scheduled.
On Thu 06FEB I called Qantas at 13:06 BKK time to request a change to my return flight from 07FEB to 06FEB as my wife was not well. Despite the tickets being booked through a travel agency, the QF agent took pity on me and confirmed I could change to dep 18:00 BKK time on Thu 06FEB for INR980 (NZD20.40), which I accepted. My Visa was charged at 13:37 BKK time and I was advised an updated e-ticket would be issued and emailed to me. My QF app already showed the new flights. (Note this is ~4 hours prior to the new departure time.)
I arrived at BKK airport at 15:00 BKK time on 06FEB. The new e-ticket was still not issued, so check-in staff at the Qantas counter called ticketing. I was asked to show the card I used to make the change. I handed the card to the staff member who was on the phone and speaking in Thai. He ended the call, passed my card back, informed me all was ok and e-tickets were issued. I was handed boarding passes and flew to SYD.
On arrival to SYD, I discovered to my horror that my Visa card had been charged AUD1900 by Qantas at 15:12 BKK time on 06FEB - this was the same time I was checked in at BKK airport.
Confused, I checked my email and saw a new booking had been issued by Qantas' SYD office. There were also duplicate bookings for exactly the same flight in my Qantas app - i.e. I was booked on the same flight twice, but under two active bookings. It seems that rather than issue the updated e-ticket for the original booking, an entirely new booking was created. The upshot being I 'missed' the flights on my original booking and used the new booking that had been generated without my knowledge.
Long story short: I was deceived into purchasing a new e-ticket by QF check-in staff at BKK and my Visa was charged without my knowledge or consent.
Qantas is telling me I need to go back to the travel agent and that I can't get a refund because I already travelled on the new booking (which, as stated above, I didn't know had been created until I landed in SYD). Qantas also advised me the new booking was made directly on its website (the updated e-ticket came via [email protected] in a format which I have never seen when booking via Qantas' consumer-facing website) - with the implication seemingly being that I booked the tickets myself instead of the actual fact that the QF check-in team went ahead and purchased the flights using my card. I have screenshots and files to support all of the above, but Qantas is taking no responsibility for what is ultimately theft.
If anyone has advice for how I should approach this, I'd be incredibly grateful.
I'm going public about a severe mishandling by Qantas after initially giving them a month to resolve. (Mod's - please shift to another forum if appropriate)
My story begins with an invitation to attend a conference in Bangkok. The organiser arranged the CHC-SYD-BKK return booking via a travel agency. Flights were all on QF operated metal in Y, with the inbound flights fully flexible. Travel dates were dep Tue 04FEB, ret Fri 07FEB. I flew to BKK on the 04FEB as scheduled.
On Thu 06FEB I called Qantas at 13:06 BKK time to request a change to my return flight from 07FEB to 06FEB as my wife was not well. Despite the tickets being booked through a travel agency, the QF agent took pity on me and confirmed I could change to dep 18:00 BKK time on Thu 06FEB for INR980 (NZD20.40), which I accepted. My Visa was charged at 13:37 BKK time and I was advised an updated e-ticket would be issued and emailed to me. My QF app already showed the new flights. (Note this is ~4 hours prior to the new departure time.)
I arrived at BKK airport at 15:00 BKK time on 06FEB. The new e-ticket was still not issued, so check-in staff at the Qantas counter called ticketing. I was asked to show the card I used to make the change. I handed the card to the staff member who was on the phone and speaking in Thai. He ended the call, passed my card back, informed me all was ok and e-tickets were issued. I was handed boarding passes and flew to SYD.
On arrival to SYD, I discovered to my horror that my Visa card had been charged AUD1900 by Qantas at 15:12 BKK time on 06FEB - this was the same time I was checked in at BKK airport.
Confused, I checked my email and saw a new booking had been issued by Qantas' SYD office. There were also duplicate bookings for exactly the same flight in my Qantas app - i.e. I was booked on the same flight twice, but under two active bookings. It seems that rather than issue the updated e-ticket for the original booking, an entirely new booking was created. The upshot being I 'missed' the flights on my original booking and used the new booking that had been generated without my knowledge.
Long story short: I was deceived into purchasing a new e-ticket by QF check-in staff at BKK and my Visa was charged without my knowledge or consent.
Qantas is telling me I need to go back to the travel agent and that I can't get a refund because I already travelled on the new booking (which, as stated above, I didn't know had been created until I landed in SYD). Qantas also advised me the new booking was made directly on its website (the updated e-ticket came via [email protected] in a format which I have never seen when booking via Qantas' consumer-facing website) - with the implication seemingly being that I booked the tickets myself instead of the actual fact that the QF check-in team went ahead and purchased the flights using my card. I have screenshots and files to support all of the above, but Qantas is taking no responsibility for what is ultimately theft.
If anyone has advice for how I should approach this, I'd be incredibly grateful.
