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

 

[yld200]

I've been lucky the last 2 times I've used the priority number in the mornings Melb time. Call has gone straight through with useful agents on the other line. My booking had changed recently and the automated message said something like 'thanks for calling us in regards to recent changes to your booking'. Not sure if this also set a priority on my call

 

[Jacques Vert]

One easy way to reduce the number of calls would be to reactivate the old Multi-City tool. You know the one where you could enter as many search lines as you wanted? A couple of years ago QF enhanced the tool so you can only enter 6 search lines; any more and you get an error.

Why? Probably because someone in QF IT or Loyalty misunderstood the 5 stopover rule thinking that you only need to search for a maximum of six fights. So now, when booking a Classic or Oneworld Award that is even slightly complex, you have to ring the call centre. Even if you get through to HBA and are answered by a competent agent, the booking will take at least 20 minutes and often an hour, sometime 2 or 3 hours.

Previously we could have done it ourselves, at home, and in less time. After all, we have probably already identified all the flights, we just need to lock it in and pay the taxes. Now we have to tie up an agent for long periods of time while others wait, and wait, and wait.

 

[jase05]

If people think it’s bad now just wait until the OW upgrade option comes online in a few months!

 

[Daver6]

Poor bloke. Deplorable. But, unfortunately, it is just a repeat of many AFF posters here. Will AJ or any executive staff ever really make changes? Don’t get on it!

Can we bookmark this thread to be brought back in 2 years’ time? Anyone want to bet there will have been any significant change?

I doubt it will need to be bookmarked. I'm sure this thread will be right at the top of active threads still.

 

[Guvner]

If people think it’s bad now just wait until the OW upgrade option comes online in a few months!

That "initiative" has got debacle written all over it.

 

[RichardMEL]

That "initiative" has got debacle written all over it.

While OT to this thread I'll just say this. This "feature" has been mooted for a long time, and yes reasonably recently announced as being "coming soon"

I fully expect it to be about as useful in reality as the Star Alliance wide upgrade scheme, which on most carriers requires more or less full fare/flex tickets (ie in Y or B class on most airlines) to use (or J C maybe D for an upgrade to F on airlines that offer it) so the options are somewhat limited. There are exceptions but that has always been my general understanding. One of thoe "perks" that sound great on paper and marketing, but the reality is not nearly as useful for the vast majority of players. Others mileage may vary on that one though.

So I fully suspect if/when this comes in apart from all the usual expected IT snafus that WILL happen that the requirements to use will probably be quite onerous. Still we wait to see.

 

[Port Power]

This morning I rang 131211 to book an award flight with KLM and was offered call back in 30 minutes. I was called back 32 mins later by Kirsten (Australian) and the booking was completed in reasonable time without any hold time. She was wonderful! She had never heard of the destination, and was also unaware that we could book classic reward seats on KLM, so was delighted to do this for the first time. She was cheery and very efficient, and the booking was completed quite quickly. Unfortunately there was no reward seat on the outbound flight so we only did the return. The E-ticket arrived immediately.

I then tried to book the KLM one-way on line. (Note: one way was 25% dearer than when on a return booking.) During the booking there was a problem. A PNR was generated for me to quote when I telephoned KLM in Sydney. After the usual press this and that, and an announcement that they are experiencing longer than normal wait times, my call was answered in less than one minute! A very nice lady competently completed the booking payment for me and the E-ticket arrived before I had hung up.

This QF call was great. KLM must have many fewer calls via their Sydney number, even if it routes to a Philippine call centre, but their service certainly puts the usual QF off-shore centres to shame.

 

[cinder]

A lovely lady called Fiona rang me today to sort out my issues. Ringing the 1300 number got it escalated to her. She resolved all my issues (pending the refund on my credit cards for the over charging). Very relieved. Now to not book any more Qantas flights for a long long time ...

 

[ozgod]

So....long story short, try the priority numbers listed, I had a less than 10 min wait time and my queries were answered straight away. I rang in the morning. One staff member did get shirty with me as he asked who gave me the number and I said, my refund is a priority it shouldn't matter where I got the number. I've lodged 2 x complaints and waited the 8 weeks timefame and still no update and response from Qantas. They are now my last resort airline. Horrible experience.

These staff members who are customer facing have some nerve to get shirty with customers. What other company requires customers to have to resort to finding alternative means of communicating with them because the first thing you hear when you call their normal number is "please don't call us"? They don't answer the phone, they don't respond on Twitter or email, so what are customers to do but try to find help on the internet? Disgraceful.

Unfortunately you still have to be nice to them because they may hang up on you and waste your opportunity to speak to an actual person, no matter how rude they may be. Thankfully nobody got shirty with me on where I got the priority number that @Scr77 gave me that's now pinned on this thread otherwise I might have lost it. And I try to be nice to customer service staff no matter how long I've waited, because it's (usually) not their fault their company's service infrastructure sucks - unless they are rude and make me feel like I'm inconveniencing them by calling.

Thankfully the guy I got after my 2nd call of the day using @Scr77 number was actually very helpful and it was obvious he cared enough to make the effort, and he promised to call me back if the call dropped out (it didn't). This was in contrast to the first guy who answered the phone which had gone to the 13 13 13 number where I waited 2 hours, ended up with someone who didn't even bother to introduce themselves and then put me on hold where I was disconnected after 20 mins >.<

 

[Zanzara]

I'm in the same boat. I've been following up since mid Dec because I lodged my refund request on 15 Oct. The delay for my refund is BPay and was told that once Qantas process the credit, it can take up to 4 weeks for BPay to refund. In addition, Qantas only submit BPay refunds once a week on a Wednesday. OMG, I was only trying to save on card fees when I paid for my flight and the PoLi pay method doesn't use my bank.

So....long story short, try the priority numbers listed, I had a less than 10 min wait time and my queries were answered straight away. I rang in the morning. One staff member did get shirty with me as he asked who gave me the number and I said, my refund is a priority it shouldn't matter where I got the number. I've lodged 2 x complaints and waited the 8 weeks timefame and still no update and response from Qantas. They are now my last resort airline. Horrible experience.

The issue is QF want to make it difficult for you to get a refund. They won’t admit it of course.

 

[TheInsider]

The issue is QF want to make it difficult for you to get a refund. They won’t admit it of course.

No, it's not this big conspiracy that all their staff are in on. It's all manual adjustments. cough systems.

 

[sudoer]

No, it's not this big conspiracy that all their staff are in on. It's all manual adjustments. cough systems.

Yet when we call to cancel a booking we are advised processing will take 8-12 weeks, but the moment a requested refund hits the 8 week mark we can call again and always have the refund processed immediately (points back same day, money back on CC in 2-3 days)

Why is this immediate refund not possible during the first call but is possible two months later? I would love to hear any explanation for this which doesn't involve a directive from Qantas management.

 

[TheInsider]

Yet when we call to cancel a booking we are advised processing will take 8-12 weeks, but the moment a requested refund hits the 8 week mark we can call again and always have the refund processed immediately (points back same day, money back on CC in 2-3 days)

Why is this immediate refund not possible during the first call but is possible two months later? I would love to hear any explanation for this which doesn't involve a directive from Qantas management.

because it then gets sent to another priority queue for more manual intervention by another onshore (qantas) team.

 

[Captain Halliday]

because it then gets sent to another priority queue for more manual intervention by another onshore (qantas) team.

So why not do the manual intervention first time, every time and cut the bs?

 

[TheInsider]

So why not do the manual intervention first time, every time and cut the bs?

Because then that would end up being 10s of thousands in that queue making it redundant.
And cause, well Qantas.

All I'm saying is, it's not a conspiracy. That's just complete nonsense.

 

[yld200]

Priority number has been working well for me. Had an agent today tell me that if a customer is on hold for more than 3 minutes then the call will drop. To avoid this they need to keep ‘refreshing’ the call. Pretty frustrating. Today I had two calls drop while on hold with agents that we’re trying to get my tickets issued. No calls back either.

Still no tickets issued

 

[1022]

I think it’s been mentioned up thread by one or more other posters, but it beggars belief that JQ’s Manila call centre in my experience is prompt, has short wait times and able to fix issues fairly effectively.

Call centres are big business in the Philippines which I imagine means high standards are easier to maintain - if they don’t, they lose the contract. Why doesn’t QF quit while they’re behind with South Africa, spin up in Manila and implement some voice recognition and status based AI to triage calls to send simple things (point to point bookings, day/time changes, etc) to Manila and then send to Hobart or Auckland anything to do with changing classic awards, flights involving codeshares, multi city itineraries? They should increase the size of the Hobart and Auckland teams, obviously, but that’s not going to happen when they can pay peanuts overseas. At least pay peanuts to a proper agency with proper standards and training and polite staff - which has usually been my experience when calling Filipino call centres belonging to a variety of companies, including QF’s smaller Orange offspring.

 

[TheInsider]

I think it’s been mentioned up thread by one or more other posters, but it beggars belief that JQ’s Manila call centre in my experience is prompt, has short wait times and able to fix issues fairly effectively.

Comes down to different reservation systems - JQ don't issue 'tickets' and the process is simply click and book for them,
Amadeus which is used by QF and a lot of other airlines isn't simple, it's quite complex. Same as Sabre.

If you wanted to learn native Amadeus entries then here some are:

https://www.aesupport.net/agentresources/files/SellingPlatform/AmadeusQuickReferenceGuide.pdf

 

[bam71]

https://www.aesupport.net/agentresources/files/SellingPlatform/AmadeusQuickReferenceGuide.pdf

Ah - that takes me back

 

[MooTime]

I think it’s been mentioned up thread by one or more other posters, but it beggars belief that JQ’s Manila call centre in my experience is prompt, has short wait times and able to fix issues fairly effectively.

Call centres are big business in the Philippines which I imagine means high standards are easier to maintain - if they don’t, they lose the contract. Why doesn’t QF quit while they’re behind with South Africa, spin up in Manila and implement some voice recognition and status based AI to triage calls to send simple things (point to point bookings, day/time changes, etc) to Manila and then send to Hobart or Auckland anything to do with changing classic awards, flights involving codeshares, multi city itineraries? They should increase the size of the Hobart and Auckland teams, obviously, but that’s not going to happen when they can pay peanuts overseas. At least pay peanuts to a proper agency with proper standards and training and polite staff - which has usually been my experience when calling Filipino call centres belonging to a variety of companies, including QF’s smaller Orange offspring.

That's a whole lotta common sense you just posted.
But we're dealing with QF here. That kinda stuff goes out the window.