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

 

[Anna]

For balance, this week I also had a dreadful experience on the phone to Commonwealth Bank trying to activate card travel insurance (yes I know you're supposed to be able to do it online but it wouldn't work) - multiple attempts, up to 2 hours on hold and then the call just dropped out. God knows what will happen if I have to make a claim. And had to wait far too long on the phone to Telstra and speak to 2 people who denied I was having a problem before I finally got the wonderful Aust-based Joseph who knew what he was talking about, was helpful, and solved my problem - shame it took an hour to get to that point.

Whoever dreamed up centralised call centres has inflicted a great plague upon humanity, curse them.

 

[Michaael]

The Cape Town agents don't deserve to be fed. They are poorly trained and from my experiences mostly don't understand the request being made / how to fulfill the request.

Why they have off shored to, of all places, cape town....

 

[ANstar]

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.

Good luck with the refund - I'm still waiting on one from a cancelled award booking in November last year... Every time I call I get told to wait another 8 weeks or it is being processed check in 5 days.

 

[AstroBBoy]

Are you waiting on both points and cash back?

Good luck with the refund - I'm still waiting on one from a cancelled award booking in November last year... Every time I call I get told to wait another 8 weeks or it is being processed check in 5 days.

Damn!
Are you waiting on both points and cash back?

 

[Michaael]

Good luck with the refund - I'm still waiting on one from a cancelled award booking in November last year... Every time I call I get told to wait another 8 weeks or it is being processed check in 5 days.

Thats rubbish service from them.

All my domestic refunds have been really quick recently, within the week I get the money and within 48hrs I get the points

 

[ANstar]

Are you waiting on both points and cash back?

Damn!
Are you waiting on both points and cash back?

No - I asked for the points straight away so got those refunded. I then got a refund in JAN for one of the 2 tickets on the PNR. I have been chasing for the other ticket since JAN. As I mentioned I get the standard oh you still need to wait another 8 weeks to oh it has been approved and will be refunded in 5 days. It's beyond frustrating they have no escalation process.

 

[RAM]

Why they have off shored to, of all places, cape town....

$$$

Lowest price offered wins Q's business it seems. Price not quality wins the day.

 

[Michaael]

$$$

Lowest price offered wins Q's business it seems. Price not quality wins the day.

premium price. budget service.

 

[clifford]

Thats rubbish service from them.

All my domestic refunds have been really quick recently, within the week I get the money and within 48hrs I get the points

I guess none of them had any schedule changes. Different story if they have in my experience.

 

[jaseb]

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).

You called it. I waited ~7 hours. No call back. No flights added to PNR. No points deducted. Phoned back. Agent could see no record of call from earlier in the day nor any "outstanding" flights to be added. I politely asked to remain on the call whilst she arranged the points and taxes to be deducted. New flight now shows in MMB, points dropped from account, just waiting on ticket number to show up. Will give it 24 hours before I phone back (again)
edit: ticket numbers for the other flights on the same booking have dropped now. i'll give it a few hours and phone back if they don't show up soon. they are J reward flights we really do not want to lose

 

[Scr77]

Yep, South African agents will lie to your face. “I’ll call you back shortly”, “I need to send an email to department x“, “you’ll receive an email to confirm” or “that department is closed you’ll need to call back”. I’ve had enough of Qantas call centres and Neil Perry’s coughpy food. Qantas is a joke and I‘m booking with other airlines where possible.

 

[Steamrollersam]

Not sure who’s answering this morning (not AU or NZ) but my call (Plat) about changes to an existing intl booking was answered within two rings at 8:02am with an unsatisfactory outcome so I HUACA’d at 8:26am and got the same guy after five rings so hung up.

 

[sudoer]

Day of week	Sun 8 May
Time of call	1:10pm AEST
Number used	13 12 11
Status	Platinum
Hold time	15 minutes - exactly as quoted
Call Centre (if known)	Cape Town
Matter resolved
Details	Called to request 2 x I>U seats coming back from Europe next April. Had to talk him through the process of Platinum seat requests but he seemed confident in being able to get this submitted. 30 minutes later the request leg is showing.. ..I will give it another 30 minutes in case he's still trying to work it out.. then call again...

 

[sudoer]

I will give it another 30 minutes in case he's still trying to work it out.. then call again...

Called again, got a HBA agent in under 15 minutes who had a giggle at what the CPT agent had done with the booking, fixed it up, request was approved.

 

[encryptededdy]

Day of week	Monday 9th May
Time of call	2:00pm AEST
Number used	1300 659 116 (the flight change number)
Status	Silver QC
Hold time	1 hour (no hold time stated)
Call Centre (if known)	Probably Fiji
Matter resolved	Hopefully, but not much confidence
Details	Revenue ticket departing on Friday (in 4 days) still hasn't ticketed. Called to ask why. Agent stated at some point the booking got messed up by Qantas changing my flights 3 times over the past month. They said they'd fix it, and would send it off to ticketing. I asked for it to ticket immediately given my travel was in less than 4 days, but agent declined and said she must put it in the queue. It hasn't ticketed yet but I'll give it 24 hours and probably have to call up again if it doesn't ticket.

 

[DC3]

Yep, South African agents will lie to your face. “I’ll call you back shortly”…

We’ll, it succeeded in getting you off of the line.

 

[dylarr]

We’ll, it succeeded in getting you off of the line.

If you are Platinum or above, it's actually a blessing in disguise (if you get a HBA/AKL agent when you call back).

Seriously though, it's so pathetic that this happens. When this happened to me last I called back and got a wonderful AKL agent. She was very aware of the practice, apologised and told me they were taking details of calls where this had happened so they could feed it back and get it actioned.

 

[sudoer]

Seriously though, it's so pathetic that this happens. When this happened to me last I called back and got a wonderful AKL agent. She was very aware of the practice, apologised and told me they were taking details of calls where this had happened so they could feed it back and get it actioned.

I've also had multiple agents apologise for or acknowledge issues with the offshore reservations agents not correctly actioning requests.

 

[aikman]

The how to videos are live

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/support/how-to-videos.html

Its using youtube, but the video are "unlisted" meaning not visible by going directly to Qantas youtube channel.

Comments are currently turned on. How long before its swithed off? Bets are open

I just noticed that two new how to videos have come out.

To be fair I learned something new with the 'Where can I go?' video. I tried it but it is so clunky I don't think I'll use it again.

 

[Deleted member 26544]

Day of week	Tuesday 10 May
Time of call	05:50 AEST
Number used	13 13 13
Status	Bronze
Hold time	Less than 1 minute
Call Centre (if known)	Fiji (?)
Matter resolved	Not yet
Details	Called to change the date and flight number for the last sector in a 4 sector award booking. Agent could see the flight I wanted and has added it to the reservation but couldn’t calculate if there would be a difference in points. Is waiting to call an AU based team at/after 07:00 AEST and has promised to call me back once she has spoken to the team. Given all I have read here, I don’t have much hope.