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

[Tmcsyd]

I made a booking for Sydney - London (via Tokyo on Japan Airlines) in business class, finally saved enough points for this. I called Qantas after I made the booking to change dates, the operator could not see availability from her end so I got her to look at the Qantas website and my booking directly and she said she was not able to change it. However in this process when she was in my booking she inadvertently cancelled it - I noticed this when I received an email saying my booking was in the process of being refunded - alarmed I called Qantas and they said they would escalate to their manager.



When I followed up on this I was constantly put on hold and hung up on or told there was nothing they could do. I know you are able to request classic reward business seats be made from revenue so I requested they do this. I finally got through to one gentleman who helped me with this but unfortunately he put the booking request in the wrong name!



Calling back Qantas they said they were unable to help, one lady tried to charge me $3k to fix it in and put it in my name with no guarantee the booking would be in business class! When I explained this was all because my booking was cancelled they said they couldn’t do anything to help. I have spent many many hours on the phone to them to be literally abused, one lady yelled at me and told me that I’m lying and they can’t make up seats and it’s not their responsibility now that the refund points have gone back through. I have also tried to contact qantas on email and all forms of social media and have gotten no where. If anyone can help? I don’t know what else to do! This has been so stressful and upsetting

 

[ChrisMars]

This really sucks. Unless you manage to speak to someone reasonable, its going to be a pain. Roughly when is your trip, and are you prepared to fly on qf metal instead? If this happened to me, I ll keep calling until I hit horbart (WP), or find a way to reach horbart (try to get transfered, no idea if its work). I ll ask to get on QF1/9 instead, as this is under Qantas control to release a seat due to their f....up. No matter how rude is the staff, make sure to stay cool, hold your ground, ask for escalation calmly. Good luck, sounds like you will need some.

Question, did the initial booking got ticketed (did you got the flight via tokyo pdf?)

 

[Tmcsyd]

This really sucks. Unless you manage to speak to someone reasonable, its going to be a pain. Roughly when is your trip, and are you prepared to fly on qf metal instead? If this happened to me, I ll keep calling until I hit horbart (WP), or find a way to reach horbart (try to get transfered, no idea if its work). I ll ask to get on QF1/9 instead, as this is under Qantas control to release a seat due to their f....up. No matter how rude is the staff, make sure to stay cool, hold your ground, ask for escalation calmly. Good luck, sounds like you will need some.

Question, did the initial booking got ticketed (did you got the flight via tokyo pdf?)

Yeah I’m more than happy to fly Qantas, I offered this to them they kept palming me off saying the booking has been refunded nothing they can do. I’ve called probably 30 times now. My booking is late august

Yep the initial booking was ticketed

 

[goldenhorn]

I made a booking for Sydney - London (via Tokyo on Japan Airlines) in business class, finally saved enough points for this. I called Qantas after I made the booking to change dates, the operator could not see availability from her end so I got her to look at the Qantas website and my booking directly and she said she was not able to change it. However in this process when she was in my booking she inadvertently cancelled it - I noticed this when I received an email saying my booking was in the process of being refunded - alarmed I called Qantas and they said they would escalate to their manager.



When I followed up on this I was constantly put on hold and hung up on or told there was nothing they could do. I know you are able to request classic reward business seats be made from revenue so I requested they do this. I finally got through to one gentleman who helped me with this but unfortunately he put the booking request in the wrong name!



Calling back Qantas they said they were unable to help, one lady tried to charge me $3k to fix it in and put it in my name with no guarantee the booking would be in business class! When I explained this was all because my booking was cancelled they said they couldn’t do anything to help. I have spent many many hours on the phone to them to be literally abused, one lady yelled at me and told me that I’m lying and they can’t make up seats and it’s not their responsibility now that the refund points have gone back through. I have also tried to contact qantas on email and all forms of social media and have gotten no where. If anyone can help? I don’t know what else to do! This has been so stressful and upsetting

I'm crying for you. I flew JL SIN-HND in J just before the pandemic hit in 2020. It was such a great flight - I love JL!

Hold your ground, be firm and persistent. It may be about getting the right person who can actually be proactive and help you.

 

[UP4014]

That's a real pain the neck.

 

[jeza]

Whilst I'd definitely keep trying to get QF to do something to rectify I wouldn't be expecting they will. If you have the points back I'd be trying to rebook alternative flights yourself so you at least have something to fallback on.

When were the flights?

 

[AIRwin]

Try social media?

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF @Tmcsyd - sorry it has to be under these circumstances.

Unfortunately, this is happening to a lot of people at the moment, especially when they use QFF points to redeem flights on other carriers. The call centre you will usually get -Sth Africa - is simply incompetent (poorly trained). Fiji is better. The best call centres - Hobart & NZ - usually only handle high status passengers.

Only advice is to keep trying - and visit this thread: Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

and see the times and numbers available to call. its a long thread! So maybe look at only the past month or so. PS HUCA means 'hang up and call again' - its no use persevering with many of them who simply don't know what's what.

When calling, just keep calm, say what's happened (maybe write yourself a script beforehand) and press your case.

 

[ChrisMars]

Ah yea one more thing, if you feel like the agent you talk won t help you, dont insist. HUACA immediatly, saving your time and energy, you will need both.
Good stuff you got the initial itinery ticketed, this can help.

 

[TomVexille]

Sounds like a similar occurrence to this other thread: Rewards seats changed from QR to QF without approval and from J to Y

They did eventually get somewhat of a resolution.

Completely unacceptable from QF. Good luck getting it sorted.

 

[Tmcsyd]

I'm crying for you. I flew JL SIN-HND in J just before the pandemic hit in 2020. It was such a great flight - I love JL!

Hold your ground, be firm and persistent. It may be about getting the right person who can actually be proactive and help you.

Yeah I was so excited to fly JL!! Never flown them before

Post automatically merged: Jun 23, 2022

Whilst I'd definitely keep trying to get QF to do something to rectify I wouldn't be expecting they will. If you have the points back I'd be trying to rebook alternative flights yourself so you at least have something to fallback on.

When were the flights?

Yeah I have been trying but no availability I got the JL flights at the start of the year and even then availability was scarce. Flight was / needs to be mid august

Post automatically merged: Jun 23, 2022

Try social media?

I’ve tried twitter, Facebook, instagram and TikTok lol

 

[Tmcsyd]

Welcome to AFF @Tmcsyd - sorry it has to be under these circumstances.

Unfortunately, this is happening to a lot of people at the moment, especially when they use QFF points to redeem flights on other carriers. The call centre you will usually get -Sth Africa - is simply incompetent (poorly trained). Fiji is better. The best call centres - Hobart & NZ - usually only handle high status passengers.

Only advice is to keep trying - and visit this thread: Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

and see the times and numbers available to call. its a long thread! So maybe look at only the past month or so. PS HUCA means 'hang up and call again' - its no use persevering with many of them who simply don't know what's what.

When calling, just keep calm, say what's happened (maybe write yourself a script beforehand) and press your case.

Omg the incompetence is outrageous!! The worst I got was when someone told me classic rewards don’t exist and it was 1.3million points and that was the only points option! I miss the days of always reaching a helpful call centre attendant

Post automatically merged: Jun 23, 2022

Ah yea one more thing, if you feel like the agent you talk won t help you, dont insist. HUACA immediatly, saving your time and energy, you will need both.
Good stuff you got the initial itinery ticketed, this can help.

Thanks Chris, I’ve been doing the HUACA recently with shorter wait times but when you’re waiting 4 hours to talk to someone and they don’t know mud from water it really is infuriating ! I also had a recent issue when I went to Hawaii they cancelled Qantas flights home but didn’t cancel my booking so they left me stranded!

 

[Tmcsyd]

Sounds like a similar occurrence to this other thread: Rewards seats changed from QR to QF without approval and from J to Y

They did eventually get somewhat of a resolution.

Completely unacceptable from QF. Good luck getting it sorted.

Thank you. I had a read through of that and tried Stephanie and Olivia but nothing

 

[kamchatsky]

Given that you are already persistent (as you have called up 30 times), I don’t think keep calling is going to work. You probably need to complain via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc and make a big deal of it in the public. Whilst this should not be the proper way to deal with issues like this but I think you don’t have any other option.

Edit: I see you have already done that …… maybe A Current Affair is the next path ….

 

[ChrisMars]

I think on a couple of threads, it was mentioned that writting directly to a specific exec (the one that say to do so on tv) yieded some good results for infuriarting situation like this one. Which exec was it, someone remember? Worth a shot?
Edit: Oops this was suggested above, sorry for not reading

 

[VPS]

Don't give up and good luck - let us know how you get on

 

[clifford]

I made a booking for Sydney - London (via Tokyo on Japan Airlines) in business class, finally saved enough points for this. I called Qantas after I made the booking to change dates, the operator could not see availability from her end so I got her to look at the Qantas website and my booking directly and she said she was not able to change it. However in this process when she was in my booking she inadvertently cancelled it - I noticed this when I received an email saying my booking was in the process of being refunded - alarmed I called Qantas and they said they would escalate to their manager.



When I followed up on this I was constantly put on hold and hung up on or told there was nothing they could do. I know you are able to request classic reward business seats be made from revenue so I requested they do this. I finally got through to one gentleman who helped me with this but unfortunately he put the booking request in the wrong name!



Calling back Qantas they said they were unable to help, one lady tried to charge me $3k to fix it in and put it in my name with no guarantee the booking would be in business class! When I explained this was all because my booking was cancelled they said they couldn’t do anything to help. I have spent many many hours on the phone to them to be literally abused, one lady yelled at me and told me that I’m lying and they can’t make up seats and it’s not their responsibility now that the refund points have gone back through. I have also tried to contact qantas on email and all forms of social media and have gotten no where. If anyone can help? I don’t know what else to do! This has been so stressful and upsetting

Sounds like Cape Town.

Just hang up if you get them. And keep doing so if you keep getting them, until you get somewhere else. It'll save you time, bucks and your sanity.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I believe all calls are recorded. Perhaps asking them to pull the tape so they can listen to the conversation.

The agent may have through you were wanting to fix it by creating award seats on JAL. Something qantas can’t do. But they should have offered to create award seats on Qantas aircraft for you.

 

[Lynda2475]

one lady yelled at me and told me that I’m lying

Pretty sure ive spoken with that rude agent, she wouldnt even let me finish my request before yelling at me. SOme people have no business being in customer facing roles.

 

[Scr77]

Search for Stephanie Tully @Qantas.com email address. There are various reports on AFF with success.