Qantas cancelled my Business Class classic reward and tried to charge me $3000 to reinstate!

[ozmel]

Sorry to hear just PMd you

Hi @Tmcsyd , really nice to hear positive outcome in your case. Woke up this morning to the same horrific issue reported. Called Qff on Friday, had a really nice lady helping with changes, confirming all changes as requested but the itinerary sent later has sectors removed! Can I please have the email address PM'ed as well to see if I can get some help? Many Thanks!

 

[davidhes]

So sorry you’ve gone through the same hell I went through. I prayed that after everything I went through Qantas would fix things so it never happened to another customer. It is truly mind boggling that this continues to happen.

 

[exceladdict]

I've just read the article and haven't been through this full thread, but just wanted to add an experience pre-covid:

• Had 2pax ticketed on a complex international oneworld reward itinerary in J - something like MNL-NRT/HND-KIX/HND-HKG-PER/PER-SIN-KUL-NRT-SEA/SFO-MEL-PER (if i recall correctly)
• Ticketed properly
• Called to add SEA-PHX-SFO or something similar in the middle - whatever it was it was within the mileage limit and availability confirmed
• Call was about midnight PER time and pretty sure I was chatting to Auckland
• Call centre said it would triple the cost of the surcharge (my suspicion being the taxes were being recalculated with AU as the POS instead of Philippines - no correspondence was entered into)
• I said okay then, don't make the changes
• They said well I've lost all your old seats in making the changes
• Fortunately they were able to restore the booking on the phone

I was not convinced at the time that the system allowed the operator to make changes without cancelling the other ticket. Perhaps, indeed, to make the seats available for a new ticket, the previous seats have to be cancelled/released.

 

[p--and--t]

Experiences vary and greatly depends on the operator and circumstances.

A longish story, below if you have the time to read.

I booked online a few months ago 2 x 9 sector multi-airline 318K classic reward tickets.

A week or so ago I got an email saying MH cancelled one of my flights and rebooked me on an earlier flight that left only me five minutes to connect from one international flight to another.

I called QF (BTW I am only Bronze), the call was answered in less than 15 minutes by someone with a Filipino accent. I asked for the problem to be remedied by moving me to a later flight as the connection was impossible. Initially the operator tried to leave the new MH flight in place and get me to change the two sectors before it (QF sectors) and make me leave AU a day earlier.

I refused and requested they rebook the MH sector to a later flight. They advised they couldn't because there wasn't any reward seats on the next (and last MH flight of the day). I stood my ground and said MH cancelled my flight they need to release seats on the later flight, its their problem not mine. I was put on hold and around 10-15mins later the operator came back, the matter had been escalated and two seats had been released on the new MH flight and my new itinerary was confirmed. I checked online in MMB to confirm the itinerary was still there and had been appropriately updated.

The operator advised that there is a new internal process where the whole itinerary has to be revisited in the ticketing section and the points recalculated manually so my updated ticket may not arrive in email for 48hours. This seemed like a bit of a story as the points don't change for the same itinerary and are capped at 318K anyway.

48hrs went by and no e-ticket so I called QF again. Once again answered in around 10 mins and the operator had a distinct South African twang.

I explained that I was awaiting my re-issued e-ticket and more than 48hours had passed. He told me the same story about the whole itinerary having the be recalculated by the ticketing section and they were behind and I needed to be patient. I stood my ground and said no, I want to know where its at, please escalate. I was put on hold and waited a good 15mins on music. I was about to HUACA when he returned and apologised for the delay and could he call me back. Panic set in, but he sounded genuine and assured me he would call back as soon as he had the issue sorted.

20mins later, he called back on my mobile. He had called the ticketing section, escalated, got them to retrieve the booking and push it through the "new process". He asked me to check my email and he would wait on the line until the email arrived. A few seconds later the new e-ticket arrived and I double checked it while he waited on the phone.

While I had to stand my ground (politely but stubbornly), I was answered both times relatively quickly, I had staff who politely did what I wanted and followed through. I didn't lose my booking and got the exact flight I was after.

I guess the experience may have been different if I didn't know what I wanted, hadn't checked schedules before the call, got different operators, and hadn't stood my ground.

YMMV

 

[qfp]

I almost had a similar experience of cancelled award flights:
I had a multi-city award flight for 2 people booked which utilised multiple airlines. Malaysia Airlines cancelled a flight and changed to a flight nearly 10 hours later which threw out another connecting leg.
I phoned to enquire about earlier flight options that same day and right away the Qantas Call Centre staff said something along the lines of "well I am happy to cancel that flight at no charge and refund your points".
I very slowly and deliberately said "I do NOT want to cancel the flight, I am just enquiring about other options". Once again the staff member mentioned something about cancelling the flight and I said even more slowly and deliberately: "I DO NOT WANT TO CANCEL THE FLIGHT - Can you please repeat that back so I can be sure you understood". The staff member then said something along the lines of "Once we cancel that flight we can put you on a new one" and I once again repeated: "I DO NOT WANT TO CANCEL THE FLIGHT". I then tried to exit the call and ensure the woman didn't even even try to look up anything for me. Based on the accent, it sounded like the South African call centre. The woman I spoke too seemed to be fixated on cancelling my booking despite me not initially asking about that and despite my many statements to the contrary after she mentioned it.
Follow-up investigation with another call (this time I was lucky enough to get onto the Aussie call centre) revealed there were no alternate flights that day or the day prior, and if my flight had been cancelled I may well have been stuck half-way through my multi-city itinerary, since the Malaysia Airlines flight I was moved to was already overbooked.

 

[bazzam]

Just had the South African call centre cancel my business classic reward to. Had a sector by another carrier reschedule which would have mean we missed our flight from HK back to Sydney (the rescheduled flight landed after the connection would have already left). Called to ask them to reschedule the connecting flight which was done, but they cancelled the sector with the other airline. Spent 8 hours so far and they are doing an investigating. Fiji is blaming the South African call centre but no one can fix this!

They are doing an investigation now but I'm not confident I'll hear anything back... Any suggestions on who else to contact?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Just had the South African call centre cancel my business classic reward to. Had a sector by another carrier reschedule which would have mean we missed our flight from HK back to Sydney (the rescheduled flight landed after the connection would have already left). Called to ask them to reschedule the connecting flight which was done, but they cancelled the sector with the other airline. Spent 8 hours so far and they are doing an investigating. Fiji is blaming the South African call centre but no one can fix this!

They are doing an investigation now but I'm not confident I'll hear anything back... Any suggestions on who else to contact?

I feel your pain.
If your status is lower than Platinum, then you have close to zero chance of getting through to a call centre in Hobart or Aukland (where the probability of whoever answers your call being able to rectify your issues is very high, but not 100%).
If your status is lower than Platinum, then you will almost certainly be routed to South Africa, Fiji or Manilla.
IME, if you get answered in South Africa or Fiji, then the odds of the answering agent being able to rectify your issues are low, but not zero (but obviously that depends on its level of complexity).
I can't comment on Manilla from first hand experience, but from my observation, the general vibe of comments on this forum seem to favour Manilla over the other two offshore alternatives.

For my recent issue (quite complex), I tried a couple of avenues:
1. Kept calling Qantas, hitting an offshore agent, trying for resolution, failing...
2. A Platinum member rang through for me (it took over an hour, and 10 consecutive tries to get to Hobart...), and Hobart was kind enough to take on my case - This method will not always work, and, as others have suggested, will probably be shut down if the practise becomes too widespread.
3. I emailed the Steph Tully email address. No response received within about 72 hr, but I then let them know that Hobart had taken it on. Email address is [email protected] , with title Group Chief Customer Officer...

So far, that's about all I can suggest.
Best of luck in your quest.
It shouldn't be this hard...
J

 

[glennp]

Back in February Manila downgraded my first class booking to economy then hung-up. Fiji and Cape Town were both completely useless. Cape Town denied my booking was in first and claimed they were unable to receive emails, so I couldn't email my first class tickets to prove they were incompetent. I cancelled and rebooked in business but Qantas have continued to ignore me ever since. No point calling them, just cancel and start again (with a different airline if possible).

 

[bazzam]

Yeah I had that already saying our business class flights were in economy. Only by showing the call centre person how many points were deducted did he seem to accept these even though he said the computer isn't wrong and says economy.

I'll try the above but the problem is there are no rewards tickets let as we're travelling in school holidays. If they can't sort it out I'll have to pay for new tickets and it definitely won't be with Qantas.

Thanks for the suggestion to email [email protected], I'll try that if I don't have any luck in the next call.

 

[Gazmo]

Qantas call centre almost cancelled my reward ticket to the UK. The staff there are untrained and unsupervised. As a result I had a 12 hour wait in Sydney as the connecting flight from Canberra could not be changed. This is despite Qantas delaying the departure time of QF1. Writing to Customer Complaints is hopeless as they don’t acknowledge or reply to your correspondence. So for me, Qantas have lost a loyal 40 year customer. Alan Joyce has destroyed the airline with his poor leadership. The Board needs to replace him so that new leadership can rebuild it.

 

[ozmel]

So sorry you’ve gone through the same hell I went through. I prayed that after everything I went through Qantas would fix things so it never happened to another customer. It is truly mind boggling that this continues to happen.

So here is the really mind boggling part while on call with Qantas yesterday. The agent said that they could see the sectors that I was claiming to have disappeared. I requested them to email the itinerary which they promptly sent. And here is the mind boggling part.
The itinerary was exactly the same as I had seen while logged into my account but the agent kept claiming that they could see the sectors on the itinerary they just sent whereas I could not see them! Moreover, the itinerary sent was from [email protected] not and not from [email protected] as has always been the case before. And that's not the end of it. There were 4 emails sent with same exact itinerary and an outlook attachment! Something is very wrong here and I don't think this has only to do with inexperienced agents. I hope someone from Qantas is reading this

 

[justinbrett]

Moreover, the itinerary sent was from [email protected] not and not from [email protected] as has always been the case before.

I’ve had plenty of emails over the years from that address including when dealing with the HBA call centre, so that in itself isn’t anything to be concerned about.

 

[Mr H]

So here is the really mind boggling part while on call with Qantas yesterday. The agent said that they could see the sectors that I was claiming to have disappeared. I requested them to email the itinerary which they promptly sent. And here is the mind boggling part.
The itinerary was exactly the same as I had seen while logged into my account but the agent kept claiming that they could see the sectors on the itinerary they just sent whereas I could not see them! Moreover, the itinerary sent was from [email protected] not and not from [email protected] as has always been the case before. And that's not the end of it. There were 4 emails sent with same exact itinerary and an outlook attachment! Something is very wrong here and I don't think this has only to do with inexperienced agents. I hope someone from Qantas is reading this

What matters is whether you have every sector with an associated ticket number. These emails are often unticketed and may be for out of date reservations. Use Check My Trip for a real time statement of where your ticket is at.

 

[Ktan89]

Why am I not surprised reading this article.. Currently on the phone to get my OWA booking fixed and have spent a total of 6 hours today.

1st call was 3hours with Zoe in Suva who was trying to help but she wasn't trained and had to go back and forth with her "support team" but in the end the support team was useless.
Called again, got to a lady in Cape Town and after telling her my situation, she hangs up.
I managed to get through to Auckland afterwards (got excited) but she was useless.. couldn't even search for JL availability at 360 days out, saying she can only see flights up until 1st of June hmmm...

Now I am on the phone again waiting to get answered.

My situation:
-I changed my existing OWA departing December 2022, pushing it back to depart June 2023. This was done last week, the consultant amended the booking with new flights and promised it will be ticketed
-I did few calls throughout the week but couldn't get a consultant to issue the new ticket on the spot while I waiting on hold. They always got an "error" and said they will call me back but it was empty promises
-Yesterday, I wanted to add one more flight to my PNR and the consultant said it was not possible because they need to issue me a ticket first. She promised that she got it sorted out and a ticket will be issued straight way. She said all the flights were ticketed, just waiting on the last flight to be confirmed which was weird and I thought she didn't know what she was doing so I was happy to end the call. She was adamant that she can't add more flights until the original request was completed. I wanted to let her go and try get another consultant so we hung up. BIG MISTAKE. 30mins later I received my new e-ticket... Happy Days!!! but not really..
- With the new e-ticket issued came an extra charge of $1,611.38 but this is totally wrong. Qantas just made me pay them more money when it should have been a refund of $1,171.90 - see the screenshot below. They did not inform me of the new charge and was automatically charged to the credit card on file.
- I called today to get it resolved but no one can help me. They are asking me to speak to customer service to get a refund since they are in reservations. I tried to explain to them that I am not cancelling this PNR and will need to make another change today. I don't understand why they can't get reservations to amend it manually with my new flights included. They were able to manually charge me so they should be able to manually recalculate and charge the correct amount.

I am stuck in limbo now, I can't add more flights because they can't recalculate the old fare and instead will continue on from $1,611.38. This is ridiculous from Qantas because now I will probably miss booking the flights I need.

Here are screenshots of my E-Tickets.
Existing E-Ticket



New E-Ticket which was issued yesterday:

 

[Ktan89]

Got hanged up on 2 more times. Last one said she's reading the notes, then hangs up.
I wonder if the notes tell them to hang up on me

 

[bazzam]

After being told by multiple contact centre staff they will call be back no one has. After following up again I've been told they are sending a request through to the Oneworld team to try reissue the original ticket. Even though they cancelled the ticket due to error there seems no attempt at all to accept any responsibility. They said the reissue is not guaranteed. Told to wait 72 hours, so far nothing has chaned in my reservation. I've no spent about 18 hours waiting and speaking to Qantas over the last 4 days. What a waste of time.

 

[ozmel]

What matters is whether you have every sector with an associated ticket number. These emails are often unticketed and may be for out of date reservations. Use Check My Trip for a real time statement of where your ticket is at.

Thank you @Mr H . Those details are same as what I was viewing in Qantas app i.e. one sector missing but the agent kept insisting that the sector existed.

 

[ozmel]

I’ve had plenty of emails over the years from that address including when dealing with the HBA call centre, so that in itself isn’t anything to be concerned about.

Agreed. The weird part is agent insisting the sector exist but it did not even in the email they said had the sector with confirmed booking

 

[Mr H]

My situation:
-I changed my existing OWA departing December 2022, pushing it back to depart June 2023.

Just thinking aloud... Wouldn't it be easier to cancel the entire original OWA and set up a new one online? I presume none of the original flights are needing to be retained given your June departure...

 

[Ktan89]

Just thinking aloud... Wouldn't it be easier to cancel the entire original OWA and set up a new one online? I presume none of the original flights are needing to be retained given your June departure...

It would be.... but this OWA pnr is on the old 280k points system.

I also think there will be issues getting the correct refund back because of many changes to this booking. The Qantas system seems coughpy, they can't seem to see all the taxes changes on their system. It disappears after changes, being replaced by new amounts OR it just disappears after a few months.