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

 

[RichardMEL]

argh was there nothing offered via the app?

they keep going on about automation and enabling customers via the app.. and some things like flow forward seem mixed but in the heat of battle seems like Ukraine vs the Russian army - you fight and fight for weeks but probably by the end are cough*ked in the end.

sigh

 

[RooFlyer]

Is there no priority for Platinum any more?

See post 1250

 

[Daver6]

Is there no priority for Platinum any more? Also called the Platinum number and got the 1-2 hour wait time. It used to only be a few minutes ... Does it mean if you're Red the wait time is 2-3 hours?

I was wondering the same thing to. I think the main difference being WP is you're generally routed to the AU call centre.

 

[ChrisMars]

My guess is that there are a few additional isssues of long waiting time for WP since a week or so, and hopefuly things should get back to normal. Not the first time.

It sucks to be gold or less thought, and I will switch to VA and drain my QF points as soon as I drop gold. Hopefully not before March 2024 if I can fly all my upcoming bookings.

 

[Daver6]

My guess is that there are a few additional isssues of long waiting time for WP since a week or so, and hopefuly things should get back to normal. Not the first time.

It sucks to be gold or less thought, and I will switch to VA and drain my QF points as soon as I drop gold. Hopefully not before March 2024 if I can fly all my upcoming bookings.

It's been going on for more than a month for WPs. I'd suggest this is by design otherwise it would be fixed by now.

 

[astrosly]

It's been going on for more than a month for WPs. I'd suggest this is by design otherwise it would be fixed by now.

As a WP the last time the call has been picked up in less than 20mins was at the end of last month. Since then, I have routinely experienced 30-60+ mins. Sometimes I request call back which never arrives.

This morning I tried 4 times to call Qantas between 8.30am and 12pm. Each call ended with either straight to survey at just over the 1h mark, being picked up at about 1h-1h20mins but there was no sound and I hung up after a few mins, and the one callback (arriving at about 1h 10mins) which I answered had no one on the other end so hung up again. This was following up on 2x calls yesterday evening which the second got picked up at 1h44m (I hung up on the first at 1h15m as I couldn't hold on longer).

All this is in response to 3x flight cancellations for my SYD to MEL flight this evening over the last 12 hours. At lunch time I drove to Armidale airport to get it sorted out.

 

[ChrisMars]

It's been going on for more than a month for WPs. I'd suggest this is by design otherwise it would be fixed by now.

Ah yea, my bad. Reading the chat history, looks bad for longer than I thought.

Time flies

 

[LinaLee]

Good to know it's just not me that's been on hold today for for the last 1.5 hours and no callback facility in the second time I tried after the first callback dropped off

Finally spoke to Helena who managed to track down my missing 24k refund. Hopefully it'll be back in account shortly. The things you do for 24k....

 

[astrosly]

Good to know it's just not me that's been on hold today for for the last 1.5 hours and no callback facility in the second time I tried after the first callback dropped off

Finally spoke to Helena who managed to track down my missing 24k refund. Hopefully it'll be back in account shortly. The things you do for 24k....

It has got really bad and their optimistic scheduling-then-cancel operations coupled with removal of airport service and to defer to poor technology implementation I would say is causing a great loss of reputation to Qantas.

Not having a go at you and just venting my frustration but if they know who I am because I enter my QFF# and have access to my bookings with my PIN then it shouldn't be too hard to queue based on both status AND need as travelling in the next 24 hours. The fact that I am queued after people booking points tickets many months in advance or other less urgent requests are being dealt with sooner than my irrops cancellations should not be happening.

They don't have the tech in place to deal with such immediate problems, regardless of what their hold messages say. And they don't have the customer services in place to address it either; by removing the service agents at airports just makes the problem worse and passengers have to join the queue behind less urgent requests. The fellow at ARM airport immediately understood the problem and sorted it out by taking the flight under another ticket, checking me in and issuing me a BP within mins. This should not have been the resolution.

 

[LinaLee]

It has got really bad and their optimistic scheduling-then-cancel operations coupled with removal of airport service and to defer to poor technology implementation I would say is causing a great loss of reputation to Qantas.

Not having a go at you and just venting my frustration but if they know who I am because I enter my QFF# and have access to my bookings with my PIN then it shouldn't be too hard to queue based on both status AND need as travelling in the next 24 hours. The fact that I am queued after people booking points tickets many months in advance or other less urgent requests are being dealt with sooner than my irrops cancellations should not be happening.

They don't have the tech in place to deal with such immediate problems, regardless of what their hold messages say. And they don't have the customer services in place to address it either; by removing the service agents at airports just makes the problem worse and passengers have to join the queue behind less urgent requests. The fellow at ARM airport immediately understood the problem and sorted it out by taking the flight under another ticket, checking me in and issuing me a BP within mins. This should not have been the resolution.

I get where you're coming but there's the us that have been patiently waiting for a refund will need to chase for the missing points or nothing happens...and get in the way of those that have a flight the next day if the issue is understaffed call centre.

 

[redwoodw]

1300 025 390 seems to be routed through to the normal 131313 queue since yesterday arvo when they had the broken callback system.

New number is 1300 025 396. Wait time at 5pm this afternoon was ~50mins-1hr, and connected to a lovely rep at Hobart

 

[Kaiser]

It's a total disgrace to be honest. Today I called bang on opening time and was immediately told the wait time was 30mins-1hr.
I waited 3.5hrs before being cut off. Two more attempts later in the day I lasted another 3hrs each, before giving up. No callback was offered.
This is a problem that predates Covid but now it's even worse.
If their IT system wasn't so archaic and I could actually book tickets for the itinerary I need and I wouldn't have to call.

What else can we do apart from contacting the airline customer advocate? This needs some media attention..

 

[Zanzara]

It's a total disgrace to be honest. Today I called bang on opening time and was immediately told the wait time was 30mins-1hr.
I waited 3.5hrs before being cut off. Two more attempts later in the day I lasted another 3hrs each, before giving up. No callback was offered.
This is a problem that predates Covid but now it's even worse.
If their IT system wasn't so archaic and I could actually book tickets for the itinerary I need and I wouldn't have to call.

What else can we do apart from contacting the airline customer advocate? This needs some media attention..

Not sure it will get media attention from travel journalists. They are generally silenced and look away, wary of QF free flights/famils and upgrades disappearing.

 

[encryptededdy]

With regards to these numbers coming and going, I had a poke around the ACMA register for SmartNumbers (this includes 1300) numbers. You can access it here. After a bit of digging, here's what I came accross.

If we search up the old numbers such as 1300 659 115 or 1300 659 134, we can see these were originally allocated to Telstra (Qantas' old phone operator) and now belong to AAPT Limited (which is TPG, who now handle phone services for Qantas). These numbers were allocated back in 1995, so I assume Qantas has owned these numbers for a while.


However, things begin to get interesting if we look up one of the newer numbers, such as 1300 024 715. These were allocated directly to TPG (AAPT Limited), and were allocated very recently (4th of February).

It would be logical to think that Qantas might have asked TPG to get a new block of 1300 numbers ready for these priority phone lines at the same time, and indeed this is the case. We can use the ACMA website to look up 1300 numbers allocated to AAPT Limited on the 04/02/2022...


Hey, these look familiar! 1300 024 715 and 1300 025 390 are former numbers, and 1300 025 396 is the new (just activated) priority number, as mentioned above by redwoodw.

New number is 1300 025 396. Wait time at 5pm this afternoon was ~50mins-1hr, and connected to a lovely rep at Hobart

I've called the other 3 numbers and can confirm they all route to Qantas (but are not priority, since they ask for FF#)

Therefore I'm going to make an educated guess that if 1300 025 396 stops being a priority number, that the next number will be 1300 026 698, 1300 026 704, or 1300 020 873

 

[dylarr]

With regards to these numbers coming and going, I had a poke around the ACMA register for SmartNumbers

Nice work! Some incredible sleuthing.

The question is - just how many 1300 numbers are Qantas prepared to lease instead of actually staffing their call centres properly?

 

[redwoodw]

With regards to these numbers coming and going, I had a poke around the ACMA register for SmartNumbers (this includes 1300) numbers. You can access it here. After a bit of digging, here's what I came accross.

If we search up the old numbers such as 1300 659 115 or 1300 659 134, we can see these were originally allocated to Telstra (Qantas' old phone operator) and now belong to AAPT Limited (which is TPG, who now handle phone services for Qantas). These numbers were allocated back in 1995, so I assume Qantas has owned these numbers for a while.

View attachment 273478
However, things begin to get interesting if we look up one of the newer numbers, such as 1300 024 715. These were allocated directly to TPG (AAPT Limited), and were allocated very recently (4th of February).
View attachment 273479
It would be logical to think that Qantas might have asked TPG to get a new block of 1300 numbers ready for these priority phone lines at the same time, and indeed this is the case. We can use the ACMA website to look up 1300 numbers allocated to AAPT Limited on the 04/02/2022...

View attachment 273480
Hey, these look familiar! 1300 024 715 and 1300 025 390 are former numbers, and 1300 025 396 is the new (just activated) priority number, as mentioned above by redwoodw.

I've called the other 3 numbers and can confirm they all route to Qantas (but are not priority, since they ask for FF#)

Therefore I'm going to make an educated guess that if 1300 025 396 stops being a priority number, that the next number will be 1300 026 698, 1300 026 704, or 1300 020 873

That's exactly how I found the 1300 025 396 number. Hopefully peeps at QF won't spend time playing games with us just to make this harder

 

[encryptededdy]

That's exactly how I found the 1300 025 396 number

Very nice. I had a look late last year into this, but back then all the numbers were allocated to Telstra in the 90s so I didn't get anywhere.

Hopefully peeps at QF won't spend time playing games with us just to make this harder

We'll never know, but honestly absolute shame if they actually do make this harder just to *checks notes* make sure customers can't get prompt service for their issues.

At least if they make it harder, I hope they do so by actually implementing some good prioritization systems, such as actually checking your phone number for a linked booking and prioritizing you if your booking has a pending or recent automatic change/cancellation, or if the booking is not ticketed or in the next 24 hours.

 

[gidxg03]

Called 1300 025 396 late last night. Waited 1.5 hours before I gave up. Tried again this morning and got through at 10am after about an hour wait. Even though I said I'd called into the airport and was given the number she would not help me. Told me this was a priority line for those travelling in the next 24 hours. Hung up and called back. Still in the queue and waiting for just over an hour for call to be answered.

 

[levelnine]

Even though I said I'd called into the airport and was given the number she would not help me.

Was only a matter of time before this happened. I'm sure QF call centre staff have been given their orders — do not assist people who call the priority line unless they are flying immediately.

 

[TheInsider]

Was only a matter of time before this happened. I'm sure QF call centre staff have been given their orders — do not assist people who call the priority line unless they are flying immediately.

No, just another rogue agent.