Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

My understanding (from unofficial sources) is that there is a pool of priority phone numbers that airport staff give to passengers which rotates every few weeks.

I will attempt to publish the currently active number(s) in this post:

1300 304 318
1300 659 161
1300 025 396
1300 659 116

1300 024 715
1300 025 390
1300 659 115
1300 659 134
1300 659 502

 

[MARTINE]

And within two business days of me speaking to the TIO after I'd contacted it in writing, the telecommunications provider rang me and resolved the issue, offering about 10 per cent above what I'd asked for.

The subsectors are different but it's fairly rare to get that from an airline, even if one used that (domestic) Airline "Customer" Advocate that from all reports seems like a window-dressing exercise.

The inclusion of ‘customer’ is a typo when the wirk experience kid wrote it up…Airline Advocate

 

[CMA222]

Alan Joyce on the various TV breakfast programs today sprouting about "the future" and his new toys. He was asked about call centre delays and investments in call centre staff by Michael Rowland on ABC2. Joyce seemed a little taken aback for his sales hype about the new toys to be interrupted by a question about call centre delays. Joyce acknowledged there has been a problem but them basically blamed it on the Customers again saying at least 60% of calls are from people who could have obtained the information they wanted or carried out the actions they wanted by using the QF website !! He said by June there will be extra staff but as new international ports such as Japan reopen for flights he expects another spike in calls. A PR exercise in corporate BS.

 

[AstroBBoy]

Seems like the short cut phone numbers are no longer short cuts. They were getting picked up within a few minutes (even with bronze) a few weeks back, now I am (supposedly) progressing in the queue with no end in sight.

1300 025 396
1300 659 116

 

[jpp42]

Seems like the short cut phone numbers are no longer short cuts. They were getting picked up within a few minutes (even with bronze) a few weeks back, now I am (supposedly) progressing in the queue with no end in sight.

Yes, they change them every few weeks. Someone who goes to the airport and gets told the new number will need to message the administrators for this post to be updated.

 

[djkelly69]

Has anyone without status been able to speak to Hobart to Auckland in the last few weeks? I suspect they no longer can.

Wife has gold, called maybe 7-8 times last week at various times using a range of numbers from here plus the gold and plat numbers, all calls when eventually answered went to SA call centre (who we promptly hung up on).

 

[RichardMEL]

Just as an aside had to call Amex Travel to change a booking(made with travel credit) for QF flight that I couldn't take and wanted to move (their Manage Booking is worthless, and chat never gave me a chat window so had no opton but to call). Quoted under an hour wait and got through in about 50 minutes. Pleasant agent helped with the change no problem.

Point being well... there are wait times there too! Now I just hope I can take the moved flight

 

[Ade]

If you don’t have status, you will never get local call centre anymore.

In my experience, in recent times (1-2 months), I have never got a local (AU/NZ) based CC. Always end up with Fiji or South Africa. QF WP here ...

However, calling early morning AU time, once, in March, got me a local AU based CC

 

[JohnM]

No complaints at all from me this morning.

Phoned on the standard 131211 WP line at 0900h WST regarding some dom booking changes.

Advised wait time was <30 mins and asked if I wanted a callback, which I accepted.

20 mins later a call came back from a SYD number and the very helpful Australian agent had me sorted promptly.

First rate.

 

[AstroBBoy]

Day of week	Tuesday 3rd May
Time of call	9:49am AEST
Number used	1300 659 116
Status	Bronze
Hold time	1 hour 14 minutes (no hold time stated)
Call Centre (if known)	Off shore
Matter resolved	Not confident
Details	Notified yesterday via email that my reward booking HND-SYD in July is cancelled. Part of a bigger European trip, and before calling I ran through a million scenarios trying to get me home. Decided to just cancel the whole leg home and I'll book/pay for it on Emirates as no suitable reward seats are now available this close to the dates. Rang to ask how much cash and points I will be refunded. Took another 38 minutes on hold to figure out those numbers. I confirmed to remove the leg home. I will supposedly get an email confirmation in 24-72 hours. The money and points could take months!??! I'm not confident any of it was done correctly. There has now been over 15x changes to this booking I made by Qantas and partners.

 

[ramboflyer]

Just as an aside had to call Amex Travel to change a booking(made with travel credit) for QF flight that I couldn't take and wanted to move (their Manage Booking is worthless, and chat never gave me a chat window so had no opton but to call). Quoted under an hour wait and got through in about 50 minutes. Pleasant agent helped with the change no problem.

Point being well... there are wait times there too! Now I just hope I can take the moved flight

I called Amex Travel today twice. First time I got answered in about 5 minutes and the second about 20 minutes so happy with that. Staff were obviously overseas but seemed quite competent although I only wanted to change flight times that Qantas had changed on me. Problem is I booked the wife using Amex flight credit and myself on same flights using QF reward points. Mistakenly thought I could change my flights online but (a) error messages when trying to change booking and (b) I thought I could cancel return journey only but only option is cancel entire booking. When I looked to see if I could re book same flights suitable reward seats all gone. I've now been on hold with Qantas for 50 minutes and counting. I dislike Qantas even more than ever especially after recent speedy phone contact with Virgin on other bookings.

 

[Port Power]

In my experience, in recent times (1-2 months), I have never got a local (AU/NZ) based CC. Always end up with Fiji or South Africa. QF WP here ...

However, calling early morning AU time, once, in March, got me a local AU based CC

Asking once again, what time zone is “AU time”? Auckland?

 

[Ade]

Asking once again, what time zone is “AU time”? Auckland?

Any Australian time zone .. I’m based out of CBR …

My experience is if I call before 9 am Australian time, local to where I’m based, I get to speak to an agent based in Australia.

 

[Port Power]

Any Australian time zone .. I’m based out of CBR …

My experience is if I call before 9 am Australian time, local to where I’m based, I get to speak to an agent based in Australia.

Which could make it midday if calling from the west coast in summer, so doesn’t really equate. I’ll admit the value of getting up and calling at 6:00am if really important though.

 

[Ade]

Day of week	Thursday May 5
Time of call	1:12 PM AEST
Number used	13 12 11
Status	Platinum
Hold time	7 mins (total call duration : 11 mins)
Call Centre (if known)	AU based
Matter resolved	Yes (To be fair the matter resolved itself, but the agent on the phone was pleasant & helpful)
Details	I was to be flying out of CBR today on QF1508 at 1825, but around 1:10 PM got a text message & a notification on QF app that my flight is cancelled. There was no message about re-booking me on a different service. So I rang up the CC and the agent was looking through the booking. She said that I should be re-booked momentarily and during the call, I got a message that I have been re-booked on QF1450 departing 1755. I'm happy with being on an earlier flight, but the only thing is, I had 4A on the previous flight and there was no one next to me ... but now I'm seated on 17B, with no option to change seats. MMB shows "Individual seat selection isn't available for this flight. Select a seat preference"

 

[AstroBBoy]

Day of week	Friday 6th of May
Time of call	7:11 AM AEST
Number used	1300 659 116
Status	Bronze
Hold time	2 mins (and I only have bronze status!)
Call Centre (if known)	Unknown
Matter resolved	No
Details	Had to call back today as my old flights were still showing 3 days later on site so assume last person didn't do their job properly. Picked up straight away, put me on hold to check... after 29mins on hold it hung up. ugh.

so call back...

Day of week	Friday 6th of May
Time of call	7:41 AM AEST
Number used	1300 659 116
Status	Bronze
Hold time	2 mins (again, quick pickup)
Call Centre (if known)	Unknown
Matter resolved	Who knows
Details	Put me on hold for 20mins to speak to the previous staff member to see what they did. After some confusion I thought they had cancelled the wrong leg of my flight which scared the hell out of me. But I checked online and the correct flights are now gone. Still waiting on re-ticketed existing flights. And a refund which will supposedly take up to 8 weeks!?

 

[Stevo.1702]

Wait times certainly seem to have improved, but I think the issue has now been kicked down the road to the ability of the agent to handle the problem.

I'm chasing up a downgrade that occurred in July last year. Finally received a written response from Qantas to call their Customer Care Team on 13 13 13 ()

Call - agents are reluctant to transfer me to Customer Care. When they do it drops out.

Call again, different agent transfers me to "Customer Care" - someone from Qantas Business Rewards answers??!! (this chap is even less helpful - HUCA).

Call Customer Care on their 1300 number. The automated machine says "thanks for calling customer care". The call is answered by a reservations agent who can't do anything takes details and says they will call back.

Is this the evidence that "Qantas Customer Care" is actually an oxymoron and doesn't figuratively or literally exist?

 

[Anna]

Day of week	Thursday May 5
Time of call	9AM AEST
Number used	13 12 11
Status	Platinum
Hold time	20 mins (total call duration : 40 mins. Recorded message said wait time would be 15 mins).
Call Centre	Cape Town
Matter resolved	Yes, although the CSA at one point said she wasn't going to be able to resolve it
Details	Checked flights, found what I wanted. Went to log in to use a credit voucher to book the flights. Discovered a 'booking' somehow already set up in my name for the preferred flights. No way to change the booking reference to the credit voucher reference. Could no longer replicate the same flight results when using the credit voucher, so had to call. (Sigh). The CSA managed to transfer the fake booking to my credit voucher, but did at one point volunteer incorrect info that the voucher would not be eligible to book those flights (BS - they were the exact same fare category as the cancelled flight that had resulted in the voucher). Anyway all's well that ends well, she made it work and the eticket arrived shortly afterwards even though she said it would take 24-48 hours.

 

[RooFlyer]

No complaints at all from me this morning.

Phoned on the standard 131211 WP line at 0900h WST regarding some dom booking changes.

Advised wait time was <30 mins and asked if I wanted a callback, which I accepted.

20 mins later a call came back from a SYD number and the very helpful Australian agent had me sorted promptly.

First rate.

Whoa there, young fella. “First rate” was when your Plat call was answered straight away, by Hobart.

You’ve fallen into the trap of accepting the ‘new (we’ll get around to it sometime) normal’.

 

[jaseb]

Day of week	Saturday
Time of call	11AM AEST
Number used	13 13 13
Status	Bronze
Hold time	15 mins
Call Centre	Cape Town
Matter resolved	TBC
Details	Phoned to add an additional rewards journey to an existing booking. Agent was very helpful. He waited for ~15 mins to get through to the department to assist with calculating and charging the points but there was a long wait. He said he would phone me back once he got through. I'll report back.

 

[dylarr]

Day of week	Saturday
Time of call	11AM AEST
Number used	13 13 13
Status	Bronze
Hold time	15 mins
Call Centre	Cape Town
Matter resolved	TBC
Details	Phoned to add an additional rewards journey to an existing booking. Agent was very helpful. He waited for ~15 mins to get through to the department to assist with calculating and charging the points but there was a long wait. He said he would phone me back once he got through. I'll report back.

I don’t understand why the Cape Town agents can’t do this themselves, calculating points and taxes seems like a pretty essential part of the role. Hobart and Auckland based agents can do this in seconds without seeking help. I had this exact same request last week and was connected to Cape Town and the same thing happened - not surprisingly the agent didn’t call back either resulting in me having to call again (which I documented in this thread a few pages ago).