I also had a frustrating experience recently. I narrowly missed my Qantas luggage check in time and had to call to see whether I could change to a later flight (the check in staff weren’t able to do this for me as it was a rewards booking, but encouraged me to call and have me a priority number to call on). After a 20 minute wait, I got through and was told that no I couldn’t change it (disappointing, but not unfair) and that in any case there were no alternative flights available. This wasn’t true, as TripIt showed a few options with available seats. I mentioned this to the call centre operator and after asking walking him through the details of the exact flights available, he was able to confirm it and offered to book it for me. I agreed, but it took another 20 minutes on hold for him to do it. In the first 5 minutes, I had looked the flights up on the public Qantas booking site and could have booked it myself, but I didn’t want to be rude by hanging up. Meanwhile, the check in staff (though not busy) had not notified the flight staff that I hadn’t made it, so I had the indignity of having my name called out over the PA for failure to board. The call centre operator eventually made the booking, and Qantas charged me a $45 phone booking fee for the privilege of walking the operator through it and waiting on hold. Not the best experience.
