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

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

For Poombear, not an ideal solution, but if you have to, cancel the booking, and go with SQ this time round, if you really need to be up there in HKG.
Aud$15xx, roughly return.
Leaving Au 08/11, return 29/11, Aud$1050.
Then at least you can be up there, and have the points to use later, either to HKG again, or elsewhere.

 

[MJHoops]

First time poster, long time lurker...any advice appreciated!

Originally booked QF Classic Reward flights Syd-Mel ( QF Economy) and Mel-HK ( CX Business) for Nov and HK-Syd (CX Business). A few weeks ago Mel-HK was changed to be a day earlier, so I also changed Syd-Mel to match the date (no dramas as that is a QF flight).
Cathay will not ticket me on Mel-HK saying no available seats and so my entire booking has disappeared. Calling every day and been waiting weeks from QF who say they are waiting to hear from Cathay to reinstate/confirm the seats. Cathay won't assist me directly as it is a QF ticket.

Any way to escalate this? Anyone successfully changed from a partner airline to QF and got them to release reward seats? There's no other J reward booking flight available for months so can't just rebook myself...

Please see my thread here
It’s bad luck as CX automatically gave me a new flight. Getting QF to get me a new JL flight was horrendous but I go there after 4 weeks
Edit: fixed dead link

 

[Nitro6333]

I also changed Syd-Mel to match the date (no dramas as that is a QF flight).

Did you receive a new e-ticket showing the new itinerary when you changed the qf fligh?

 

[Poombear]

Welcome to AFF. I hope someone can help, but CX flights are still very hit and miss. QF don’t actually fly into HK themselves, so you will more likely have to look at one of the Asian airlines (?MH) and firstly fly to their hub. Do you still have to quarantine on arrival in Hong Kong?

Thanks for the welcome. I thought QF127 and QF128 are still operational routes, am I mistaken?
New quarantine rules in HK is 3 days in hotel followed by no high risk venues e.g hospitals for the following 4 days.

 

[Poombear]

Did you receive a new e-ticket showing the new itinerary when you changed the qf fligh?

Unfortunately not. CX gave me the new flight, and I could see those flight details under my booking as being processed , but the ticket never arrived. Then completely disappeared 24 hours later. I'd happily take QF flights if they were offered even though theyre 30k points more, but I don't think QF are willing to offer that at this stage...

I've been calling QF up repeatedly to follow up CX, but they said they're just waiting for a response by the end of the month. I think since we're flying in Nov they aren't treating it as high priority, but I expect that the longer it is unresolved the less chance of availability with either CX or QF.

 

[Nitro6333]

Unfortunately not. CX gave me the new flight, and I could see those flight details under my booking as being processed , but the ticket never arrived. Then completely disappeared 24 hours later. I'd happily take QF flights if they were offered even though theyre 30k points more, but I don't think QF are willing to offer that at this stage...

I've been calling QF up repeatedly to follow up CX, but they said they're just waiting for a response by the end of the month. I think since we're flying in Nov they aren't treating it as high priority, but I expect that the longer it is unresolved the less chance of availability with either CX or QF.

This issue is probably my no1 rule when dealing with QF and partner awards. Always ensure you get an updated e-ticket even if it’s only as minor as a time change you need an e-ticket reflecting the updates. This is particularly important if the partner airline is QR or CX they will remove the award if it’s not ticketed in a matter of hours in some cases but usually within 3 days. Your CX flight was removed because the booking wasn’t ticketed you’ll have to fight it out with cs. Just keep calling until you get someone remotely competent who is able to help don’t wait for them to fix it.

 

[Port Power]

Thanks for the welcome. I thought QF127 and QF128 are still operational routes, am I mistaken?
New quarantine rules in HK is 3 days in hotel followed by no high risk venues e.g hospitals for the following 4 days.

I must admit it is hard to keep up with flight routings, especially as I only know flights from Perth. Not to mention border requirements of different countries! Good luck.

 

[CaptainCurtis]

I have a (hopefully final) update. I spent 7 hours on the phone with the Cape Town team today, across 10 separate phone calls, trying to get my booking ticketed. They have charged me 3 times for the taxes/fees, and still did not have my booking ticketed.

Each time the phone went dead and my AMEX was charged without processing a refund for the prior charges, I fired off an email to [email protected] and [email protected] outlining the latest developments, highlighting the poor service delivery. There were probably about 8 emails I sent throughout the day.

Well, I just received (9PM) a phone call from a private number, a local representative from Qantas. The call started with "Stephanie Tully has requested I give you a call to resolve your booking issues". He apologised for the saga from today, asked about my desired itinerary and the amounts that had been charged to my card. He's currently working on the booking and the refund, and has promised a call-back this evening.

A good outcome, yes, but entirely unsatisfactory that I only get my issue sorted after 7 hours because I had the audacity to email the CCO directly. Apologies for my barrage of negativity today, but it's simply not good enough. I have outlayed thousands of dollars for non-refundable upfront payments on this trip as the booking is during a peak period (F1 weekend), I don't need the stress and uncertainty about whether I have a valid ticket.

I've said it before on this forum, and I'll say it again, while Qantas continues to treat its customers with sheer comtempt, I will have no shame in continuing to email their ELT directly, until their call centres are equipped to handle my queries within a satisfactory timeframe.

The final update...

Cameron, the gentleman mentioned above who called me on Wednesday July 27th at the request of Tully, managed to get my MH flights re-added to my booking and had the booking re-ticketed. By this point, my credit card had been charged 4 times, with a further charge pending. Cameron promised to resolve this the following day. By end of day Thursday, I had not received the promised response, so with my ticket in hand, I decided to initiate chargebacks on my AMEX.

On Thursday July 28th, I received a call from Customer Care. I didn't catch the woman's name, but based on accent, I suspect she was from the Fiji call center. I don't know if this call was a follow-up to Cameron's, a follow-up prompted by Tully, or a follow-up from one of my many emails to the Customer Care team. This agent apologised profusely for the significant inconvenience I had experienced (MH flights removed 4 times due to QF failure to ticket, multiple charges on my credit card and poor customer experience to resolve these issues). She raised the topic of compensation. I have no interest in a few token QFF points, so I boldly said that if they cared about remediating the situation, they could release a direct SIN-SYD flight on QF to prevent me needing to fly SIN-KUL-MNL-SYD on the way home. The agent said this should be possible, and promised a call-back by end of day on Friday.

Well Friday came and went, with no update from Qantas. At this point, I had reached the end of my tether, having spent ~20 hours on the phone to Qantas. I am somewhat ashamed at what I did next, but my experience proves it was the only way for a lowly Silver to be worthy of some semblance of customer service from Qantas. I typed up a detailed email, and sent it off to Tully. However, this time I didn't send it once and wait a week for her to action it. I sent it 20 times. I sent it 20 times the next day, and each day thereafter until I received a call from Nicole in the Hobart call center.

Nicole couldn't explain why I hadn't received a call-back as promised from the Fiji call center. She took information on my preferences for a direct flight, promising to call back the next day. Well, you guessed it, I never heard back. Now one thing I want to make clear is that Qantas were the one's who initially raised the topic of compensation. I did not expect a revenue fare to be released, but they were the ones who said it should be possible. On this basis, I provided them with a window of 5 days in which I was happy to fly, as well as agreeing to fly indirect via BNE/MEL/PER if necessary.

After not hearing back from Nicole, the emails to Tully resumed on Thursday August 11th. I am somewhat ashamed to admit, that I sent a total of 300 emails to her. They were sent in batches of 30, at various times throughout the day, so that she could not do a mass, once-off deletion. At 10PM that night, I received a call from Allison, one of the managers of the Hobart call center. Again, she confirmed the call had come at the request of Tully. She re-confirmed my preferences, and promised a call back the following day at 10AM. To Allison's credit, she followed through on this. The phone call started with "We have good news" - they were able to release a revenue fare on QF82 for me, and re-ticketed my booking accordingly while I was on the phone. There was no refund of points offered (I believe SIN-KUL-MNL-SYD on MH would be more points than SIN-SYD on QF), but at this point, I couldn't care.

The takeaway? The Hobart call center are the only team capable of resolving these sorts of issues. Qantas treats its non-Platinum frequent flyers with sheer contempt by not allowing them to access a competent, well-trained call center. Platinum flyers are not the only ones who experience complex problems. I strongly believe that my issues only got resolved because I had the audacity to email Tully ~500 times over a 2-3 week period. There is no way I would have had my booking resolved, let alone had a revenue fare released, without the noise I created for Tully. As I said above, I am ashamed in myself for pestering someone like this, but I am equally ashamed in Qantas that it was necessary in the first place.

I have had quite a few people PM for her email - it is [email protected].

 

[Daver6]

The final update...

Cameron, the gentleman mentioned above who called me on Wednesday July 27th at the request of Tully, managed to get my MH flights re-added to my booking and had the booking re-ticketed. By this point, my credit card had been charged 4 times, with a further charge pending. Cameron promised to resolve this the following day. By end of day Thursday, I had not received the promised response, so with my ticket in hand, I decided to initiate chargebacks on my AMEX.

On Thursday July 28th, I received a call from Customer Care. I didn't catch the woman's name, but based on accent, I suspect she was from the Fiji call center. I don't know if this call was a follow-up to Cameron's, a follow-up prompted by Tully, or a follow-up from one of my many emails to the Customer Care team. This agent apologised profusely for the significant inconvenience I had experienced (MH flights removed 4 times due to QF failure to ticket, multiple charges on my credit card and poor customer experience to resolve these issues). She raised the topic of compensation. I have no interest in a few token QFF points, so I boldly said that if they cared about remediating the situation, they could release a direct SIN-SYD flight on QF to prevent me needing to fly SIN-KUL-MNL-SYD on the way home. The agent said this should be possible, and promised a call-back by end of day on Friday.

Well Friday came and went, with no update from Qantas. At this point, I had reached the end of my tether, having spent ~20 hours on the phone to Qantas. I am somewhat ashamed at what I did next, but my experience proves it was the only way for a lowly Silver to be worthy of some semblance of customer service from Qantas. I typed up a detailed email, and sent it off to Tully. However, this time I didn't send it once and wait a week for her to action it. I sent it 20 times. I sent it 20 times the next day, and each day thereafter until I received a call from Nicole in the Hobart call center.

Nicole couldn't explain why I hadn't received a call-back as promised from the Fiji call center. She took information on my preferences for a direct flight, promising to call back the next day. Well, you guessed it, I never heard back. Now one thing I want to make clear is that Qantas were the one's who initially raised the topic of compensation. I did not expect a revenue fare to be released, but they were the ones who said it should be possible. On this basis, I provided them with a window of 5 days in which I was happy to fly, as well as agreeing to fly indirect via BNE/MEL/PER if necessary.

After not hearing back from Nicole, the emails to Tully resumed on Thursday August 11th. I am somewhat ashamed to admit, that I sent a total of 300 emails to her. They were sent in batches of 30, at various times throughout the day, so that she could not do a mass, once-off deletion. At 10PM that night, I received a call from Allison, one of the managers of the Hobart call center. Again, she confirmed the call had come at the request of Tully. She re-confirmed my preferences, and promised a call back the following day at 10AM. To Allison's credit, she followed through on this. The phone call started with "We have good news" - they were able to release a revenue fare on QF82 for me, and re-ticketed my booking accordingly while I was on the phone. There was no refund of points offered (I believe SIN-KUL-MNL-SYD on MH would be more points than SIN-SYD on QF), but at this point, I couldn't care.

The takeaway? The Hobart call center are the only team capable of resolving these sorts of issues. Qantas treats its non-Platinum frequent flyers with sheer contempt by not allowing them to access a competent, well-trained call center. Platinum flyers are not the only ones who experience complex problems. I strongly believe that my issues only got resolved because I had the audacity to email Tully ~500 times over a 2-3 week period. There is no way I would have had my booking resolved, let alone had a revenue fare released, without the noise I created for Tully. As I said above, I am ashamed in myself for pestering someone like this, but I am equally ashamed in Qantas that it was necessary in the first place.

I have had quite a few people PM for her email - it is [email protected].

I believe the only people who should be ashamed in this scenario are QF and certainly not you.

 

[RooFlyer]

I believe the only people who should be ashamed in this scenario are QF and certainly not you.

And the Qantas apologists who would call this as MH’s fault

 

[brown891]

Travel bookings are not for the faint hearted right now.

Qantas call centres answer the phone quickly but that’s where the competency ends.

I booked a Westjet classic reward for a domestic Canadian flight. WS have a ticketing time line of 24 hours so QF of course didn’t ticket it in time and the sectors dropped out.

Three phone calls including one as a result of a drop out, I am no further in progressing the booking. Each agent has a completely different story as to why the booking is broken, and wants to take completely different actions to resolve the issue.

The first agent didn’t understand anything so after an hour waiting for a supervisor I just hung up. The second agent reinstated the booking (win) which wasn’t a challenge as there was award availability. They then dropped out. The third call is still ongoing but they want to refund and reclaim my points (?) and I’ve told them that they must not charge my credit card again.

All of this is to work around a problem with a VA redemption on Air Canada where the two airlines are arguing - AC did a schedule change and reaccommodated us but VA can’t sort out the ticket so I am now flying AC three times between Toronto and Saskatoon on two different dates (where did the other date come from?) none of which are ticketed. VA app shows me having a stopover in Toronto after I’ve arrived in Saskatoon.
This makes low cost carriers with a simple business model seem very attractive…

Have literally had this issue today and yesterday. Didn’t know about WestJets ticketing time. Currently on hold with QF trying to ascertain what I can do about this given that the airfares I’m after are nearing $300CAD+ while classic reward is plentiful

 

[clifford]

Well, it seems that RJ were just experimenting with how to do an actual schedule change, because I received a doozy this morning.

My flight from BKK to AMM has been changed to the same time the previous day, which means that I would misconnect in BKK (arriving SQ) and have to spend 24+ hours in AMM (I certainly didn't want to do that).

Well, after doing a little more investigation, I find that my original flight is still flying with the same aircraft type (checked seat map) at exactly the same time, so it would appear that RJ were undertaking some form of skulduggery, shunting me off to a less desirable flight the previous day. There was no "schedule change" at all. So I won't be booking a flight with RJ again anytime soon.

However, I'm quite glad that I didn't attempt to call Qantas to try and sort it out (other than requesting cancellation of the booking), because who knows where that would've ended up

My little holiday in Cyprus was screwed up, but I rebooked for Nice, and have saved well over 100,000 FF points at a net cost of just over $1,000. So not too unhappy. But wait.... what will be the next curve ball coming at me with this trip?

 

[Mr H]

Well, after doing a little more investigation, I find that my original flight is still flying with the same aircraft type (checked seat map) at exactly the same time, so it would appear that RJ were undertaking some form of skulduggery, shunting me off to a less desirable flight the previous day. There was no "schedule change" at all. So I won't be booking a flight with RJ again anytime soon.

However, I'm quite glad that I didn't attempt to call Qantas to try and sort it out (other than requesting cancellation of the booking), because who knows where that would've ended up

My little holiday in Cyprus was screwed up, but I rebooked for Nice, and have saved well over 100,000 FF points at a net cost of just over $1,000. So not too unhappy. But wait.... what will be the next curve ball coming at me with this trip?

Please check that your flight is still ticketed. I recommend CMT to do this.

 

[clifford]

Please check that your flight is still ticketed. I recommend CMT to do this.

After all the faffing around, I've cancelled it and rebooked elsewhere.

 

[i0sam0i]

I had a somewhat interesting experience a few days ago with the call centre. Spent nearly 2 hrs on and off hold to sort out a flight credit (family booking) from early covid days. I've been flying virgin for work and pleasure due to the fare differences, so wanted to use the entire flight credit for myself to go to Perth. I wasnt aware of the credit rules about it being a credit against the passenger so ended up not booking the perth flights. Part of the issue/time was due to my daughter no longer being under 2 years old. End of the call - Original booking was split and I was issued with 2x new one (1 for me, 1 for partner and daughter).
I call back 15mins later to book for our family, call gets answered after 30mins however it seems that it was by error as there was generally chit chat and no one talking to me.
Hang up, call back, get another rep, sort out the flight for the family but the rep hangs up on me before completing the call.
So I call back (past midnight by this stage. While on hold I thought I would check the booking in the qantas app and website. It appears that I have the family rebooked flight and a Perth return flight showing there. My partner and daughter have the family rebooked flight and a rescheduled original booking return flight for later this year. *edit I hung up before getting to a rep.
After all of this, do I actually have a booking or more than 1 booking? Or do I need to call Qantas back and go through the pain again?

 

[Quickstatus]

do I actually have a booking or more than 1 booking

Whatever the bookings that have appears in the app, you still need the e-tickets - they are in pdf format.
They should be sent via email

Bookings are defined by a 6 characters or a booking reference. Such as ABC123 or 123ABC or 1A2B3C etc etc.
The number of bookings you have are determined by the number of unique booking references

Trivia: there are 36⁶ possible booking reference combination = 2,176,782,336 = 2.1 billion possible combinations.
Im sure they have been reused numeros times

 

[i0sam0i]

Whatever the bookings that have appears in the app, you still need the e-tickets - they are in pdf format.
They should be sent via email

Bookings are defined by a 6 characters or a booking reference. Such as ABC123 or 123ABC or 1A2B3C etc etc.
The number of bookings you have are determined by the number of unique booking references

Trivia: there are 36⁶ possible booking reference combination = 2,176,782,336 = 2.1 billion possible combinations.
Im sure they have been reused numeros times

Yeah so I have 2x booking references but no e-ticket. Guess it means another call to get the e-ticket?
But likely that qantas have stuffed up with all the new sectors added?

 

[DC3]

After all of this, do I actually have a booking or more than 1 booking? Or do I need to call Qantas back and go through the pain again?

I don’t rely on what’s showing in MMB.

What I need is the e-ticket. That’s all that really matters to me.

 

[Quickstatus]

likely that qantas have stuffed up with all the new sectors added

Why do you say that?

They gave you new bookings. If the itineraries are acceptable to you then all you need are the e-tickets.
Generally the e-tickets take a while to appear. However as your bookings are domestic and all with QF, I would not worry too much until closer to departure. If you want them earlier you will need to call the airline.

Its a different story with international bookings involving partner airlines where QF is the marketing airline. Then you need the e-ticket ASAP.

 

[yaziyo]

I thought I'd add my (fairly positive) experience calling Qantas with a rewards itinerary that hadn't automatically ticketed.

I booked a classic rewards flight with 4 legs across MH and AY. No email confirmation with eticket arrived but they charged my card and points, and flights were all showing as "confirmed" on the QF website as well as MH and AY websites. I was able to choose seats through the RJ website and flights appeared as "Confirmed" everywhere, including on CMT (but again with no ticket number). Although I'd read stories on here about people's flights disappearing without the etickets, I figured I'd wait and see as this was just a backup booking for a rewards JAL flight to Europe that I'm expecting will get cancelled.

Eventually, the charge disappeared from my card but flights all still looked the same (all legs still there and all showing confirmed). I called Qantas once I noticed that the charge on my card had disappeared.

I couldn't tell where the agent on the other side was from as she had a neutral accent (and unlikely to be in Australia as I'm a bronze who called the normal 131313 number) but after getting my booking reference, she identified that the tickets hadn't been issued and said she'd put in a request to the team to fix it - in the meantime she shot through a text email showing the itinerary. I clarified with her that they wouldn't try and charge the points again and she said they wouldn't. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about, and so I took her word for it. I figured if the flights were going to drop off, they already would have by now as the 24h window folks talk about on here was already passed.

Total call length including hold time was 27 minutes.

That was Thursday. Monday morning I see the email and PDF in my inbox with the 081 ticket numbers, so the request she put through was obviously sorted out.

Yes, ideally a customer shouldn't have to call up for something as simple as getting their ticket issued but I was very happy with the QF call centre who was able to identify the problem and get it resolved.