Qantas fix for partner award ticketing problems

[Mattg]

If you've been keeping an eye on AFF over the past few years, you may have heard some of the horror stories of partner Qantas award tickets being cancelled with no recourse. People would redeem Qantas points for a partner airline award (e.g. on Qatar Airways), and Qantas would then take forever to issue the ticket. By the time QF got around to issuing the ticket, the other airline had already cancelled the booking and the award inventory would no longer be there. This screwed lots of people over.

E.g. Qantas Cancellation Catastrophe | Australian Frequent Flyer
Qantas Error Strands Customer in Cuba

Well, it seems Qantas has finally found a solution. Ticketing still takes an unacceptably long time (and you should still call up and hassle them if you haven't received your ticket within a few days). But Qantas will now pull partner airline award seats from inventory and place them in a "shell" booking that makes it appear to the operating airline that the seat has been sold. It will remain there until the ticket is actually issued. The difference now is that the partner airline thinks the seat is sold from the time of making the reservation. So the flight won't auto-cancel after a certain amount of time.

Hopefully this puts an end to the problems people were having!

 

[Jacques Vert]

If you've been keeping an eye on AFF over the past few years, you may have heard some of the horror stories of partner Qantas award tickets being cancelled with no recourse. People would redeem Qantas points for a partner airline award (e.g. on Qatar Airways), and Qantas would then take forever to issue the ticket. By the time QF got around to issuing the ticket, the other airline had already cancelled the booking and the award inventory would no longer be there. This screwed lots of people over.

E.g. Qantas Cancellation Catastrophe | Australian Frequent Flyer
Qantas Error Strands Customer in Cuba

Well, it seems Qantas has finally found a solution. Ticketing still takes an unacceptably long time (and you should still call up and hassle them if you haven't received your ticket within a few days). But Qantas will now pull partner airline award seats from inventory and place them in a "shell" booking that makes it appear to the operating airline that the seat has been sold. It will remain there until the ticket is actually issued. The difference now is that the partner airline thinks the seat is sold from the time of making the reservation. So the flight won't auto-cancel after a certain amount of time.

Hopefully this puts an end to the problems people were having!

Hallelujah!

 

[RooFlyer]

I don't suppose this will bear on when partner Airlines like QR cancel award bookings when changes are made?

 

[madrooster]

But Qantas will now pull partner airline award seats from inventory and place them in a "shell" booking that makes it appear to the operating airline that the seat has been sold. It will remain there until the ticket is actually issued. The difference now is that the partner airline thinks the seat is sold from the time of making the reservation. So the flight won't auto-cancel after a certain amount of time.

Do you have any further info on what they are doing exactly? What you are saying does not make sense from a PNR and ticketing servicing point of view.

 

[Mattg]

I don't suppose this will bear on when partner Airlines like QR cancel award bookings when changes are made?

No idea - hopefully it will help but I wouldn't count on it!

Do you have any further info on what they are doing exactly? What you are saying does not make sense from a PNR and ticketing servicing point of view.

I don't have any further info, sorry. This is just how it was explained to me over the phone.

The key thing is that they "trick" the partner airline into thinking the flight has been ticketed, even when this is not yet the case. I'm also unsure how exactly that works, but at least it does seem to be working so far!

 

[madrooster]

The key thing is that they "trick" the partner airline into thinking the flight has been ticketed, even when this is not yet the case. I'm also unsure how exactly that works, but at least it does seem to be working so far!

Do you have any example PNRs that you could private message to me? The proof is always in the pudding.

 

[Mattg]

Do you have any example PNRs that you could private message to me? The proof is always in the pudding.

PM sent.

Edit: turns out madrooster wasn't able to access my PNR as it was created in QF's Frankfurt office. If anyone else has one they would like to send to madrooster, please feel free to do so.

 

[serfty]

What's required here? An unticketed award PNR?

 

[madrooster]

What's required here? An unticketed award PNR?

Unticketed or ticketed is fine.

 

[serfty]

Unticketed or ticketed is fine.

Sure ... Info sent ...

 

[RooFlyer]

Presumably needs to be one generated since the 'fix'?

 

[madrooster]

Presumably needs to be one generated since the 'fix'?

Yes

 

[Pleb Status]

I have been a 'witness' to the new partner award ticketing process and it probably breaks more things than it actually fixes.

I attempted to make an award booking a couple of weeks ago which included a couple of QSuite sectors on QR. Once I worked around the 'central database' error on the QF website and then the hours of waiting to speak to anyone competent at QF to make the booking, I noted to the CSR that as I had a few QR sectors on the booking that the ticket needed to be issued immediately.

A hour or so later I went to the QR website to select my seats and noted that an eticket number was showing for the booking. I thought this was a little odd as the points were still in my QFF account and no authorisations were pending on my credit card. I selected my seats and moved on.

A day later, an authorisation appeared on my credit card for the surcharges but the points were still in my QFF account. After a few more days, the authorisation changed to an actual purchase but the points were still in my QFF account. I had not received an itinerary or anything else from QF at this stage.

After about a week, nothing else had happened. So I tried to call to get an itinerary at least, as I could not email myself one from the QF website (an error message was generated). Not being able to even request a call back, I tried the chat and they stated the booking had been ticketed and I would get my itinerary within 24 hours. Obviously I received nothing.

After numerous other contacts and undelivered promises (all saying that the booking was ticketed and I would get my itinerary within 24 hours), it was 'discovered' that there was an error in deducting the points (no s#!t Sherlock!). After a few more days (and calls), the points were finally deducted from my account.

Later, as I was on the QR website due to a schedule change, I noted that the eticket number had changed significantly. I still had received nothing at all from QF and still could not email myself an itinerary. This was a new development however.

After a couple of more contacts with QF, I finally received an agent created itinerary (three weeks after booking) which has the new eticket numbers but no record of the taxes and surcharges paid etc. It is still unclear at this time if everything has been processed correctly as I am still awaiting my PDF eticket conformation which has been promised on more than ten occasions.

From this experience, it would appear that having a 'temporary' eticket number has fooled most QF CSR and the QF system into believing that everything is complete when it really is not. It is only the ones who actually look for the problem who will find it. I still cannot email myself an itinerary so there would still appear to be issues ahead.

 

[madrooster]

I have been a 'witness' to the new partner award ticketing process and it probably breaks more things than it actually fixes.

From this experience, it would appear that having a 'temporary' eticket number has fooled most QF CSR and the QF system into believing that everything is complete when it really is not. It is only the ones who actually look for the problem who will find it. I still cannot email myself an itinerary so there would still appear to be issues ahead.

You would be a prime candidate... if you don't mind me having a look, could you please send me the booking reference via private message.

 

[opusman]

Why don't they just ticket it when you book it?!

 

[Mattg]

I have been a 'witness' to the new partner award ticketing process and it probably breaks more things than it actually fixes.
...

From this experience, it would appear that having a 'temporary' eticket number has fooled most QF CSR and the QF system into believing that everything is complete when it really is not. It is only the ones who actually look for the problem who will find it. I still cannot email myself an itinerary so there would still appear to be issues ahead.

This is similar to my experience. I had to call three times before it was ticketed and it took several days after that before the points were deducted. I never did receive a PDF ticket, but did get an email from someone at the QF call centre with my itinerary and a ticket number on it.

I can only assume everything is OK with the ticket - everything is showing as "confirmed" and I have a ticket number, but I don't completely trust Qantas.

 

[Pleb Status]

This is similar to my experience. I had to call three times before it was ticketed and it took several days after that before the points were deducted. I never did receive a PDF ticket, but did get an email from someone at the QF call centre with my itinerary and a ticket number on it.

I can only assume everything is OK with the ticket - everything is showing as "confirmed" and I have a ticket number, but I don't completely trust Qantas.

On my last QF flight (which was 363 care free days ago), I ended up flying without a valid eticket and it took the next 8 weeks to get everything sorted out.

I was assured by QF prior to that flight everything was 'fine'....

 

[yld200]

Not sure if this applies, but happy to share my PNR if it's of any benefit.

I had an existing booking on QR (MEL>DOH>CWL) which I needed to change the second leg to DOH>MAN. I called QF yesterday who said that due to a married segment that they would need to contact QR to un-marry so they can update the booking. Was told they'd call me back when done. Yesterday evening the booking completely dropped off my QF profile so I spoke to another agent this morning who looked into it and mentioned that it had been done but had come off my profile because they had to book my MEL>DOH leg in D class, DOH>MAN was in U and that QR would manage the change from D>U on their end. He made sure the booking was visible on my profile again, which it is.

 

[yld200]

Not sure if this applies, but happy to share my PNR if it's of any benefit.

I had an existing booking on QR (MEL>DOH>CWL) which I needed to change the second leg to DOH>MAN. I called QF yesterday who said that due to a married segment that they would need to contact QR to un-marry so they can update the booking. Was told they'd call me back when done. Yesterday evening the booking completely dropped off my QF profile so I spoke to another agent this morning who looked into it and mentioned that it had been done but had come off my profile because they had to book my MEL>DOH leg in D class, DOH>MAN was in U and that QR would manage the change from D>U on their end. He made sure the booking was visible on my profile again, which it is.

Still no change from D>U on my MEL>DOH leg, it's still showing as D class confirmed. Still have 57 days until my flight but I thought that QR might have changed it by now

 

[Lynda2475]

Is this partner ticket issue only a problem when there are no QF metal flights on the PNR?

I did a classic reward last year: SYD-SIN-LHR on BA + LHR-PER-SYD on QF and the pdf ticket was issued within 2 hours of booking.