Qantas Promises to Fix Ongoing Reward Flight Ticketing Failures

[adenda]

Thanks for the tip - I hadn't thought of Twitter because I don't really use it. I tried FB messenger but wasn't getting a response after the request for my booking ref

It can take several hours to get a response but in my experience once you do - in other words you've got someone's attention - responses can be quite quick ie. almost like a regular chat session. Best thing is the Twitter team are very competent - to the point that I am convinced they are part of the Hobart team

 

[Flyfrequently]

Made 2 calls last night but could only get through to Suva. They were very helpful but confirmed that they couldn't see the notes. They did email Hobart whilst on the phone but after 30 minutes of waiting received no response.

This morning I've checked my booking on the Qatar site and it's now listed as confirmed! I can even select my seat. I haven't received my ticket yet but I've been advised that Hobart opens at 8am

 

[dvt]

All sorted. Ticket issued yesterday. I asked them not to charge the change fee and they agreed. Unfortunately my selected seat is gone, but I'm just happy to be able to fly tomorrow.

 

[VeeVeeTop]

My update is... No update. They were quite responsive on Twitter (few min to half an hour between responses) but they've been silent since noon. "We'll look into it further an get back to you" followed by no response when I pointed out that the missing flights are still showing on the booking tool or asked for an SLA on when they'll be able to provide an update.

 

[adenda]

My update is... No update. They were quite responsive on Twitter (few min to half an hour between responses) but they've been silent since noon. "We'll look into it further an get back to you" followed by no response when I pointed out that the missing flights are still showing on the booking tool or asked for an SLA on when they'll be able to provide an update.

That’s consistent with my experience- they will come back to you eventually although posting “Any update?” after a few hours sometimes prompts a quicker response

 

[PaulyB]

I was just wondering - do they work at night or just during office hours? I had just been thinking about you and really crossing my fingers and I can't imagine the stress. This really seems like a particularly ugly matter - one issue compounding another...

 

[VeeVeeTop]

That’s consistent with my experience- they will come back to you eventually although posting “Any update?” after a few hours sometimes prompts a quicker response

Thanks, good to know. I've been ghosted so many times by the contact centre that I'm distrusting of 'we'll get back to you'. But I also know fixing stuff takes time, just being kept in the loop would be nice

Appreciate the tips and validation!

 

[adenda]

I was just wondering - do they work at night or just during office hours? I had just been thinking about you and really crossing my fingers and I can't imagine the stress. This really seems like a particularly ugly matter - one issue compounding another...

They seem to operate around the clock although obviously the staff change shift. They always end each message
with their initials and I found that overnight the agent would change based on their initials.

 

[VeeVeeTop]

Any ideas on how to escalate it up the chain? Twitter have gone radio silent, I called the contact centre and we had a back and forth about if "I was sure I wanted to cancel my booking for 18/3/23." One that was booked in error when they tried to fix my third booking on tht day (and was like India to Japan, so no chance I was ever gonna use it ). They're also telling me they 'have' to charge me 6000pts to cancel my booking.

I can see alternate flights I could apply to the new booking (frustrating but doable), but the refund of points and cash will take at least a week, at which point things will have no doubt changed again.

I just wanna get this sorted and ticketed

 

[adenda]

If it was me I'd persist a bit longer with Twitter.
I've been in similar situations of sweating over whether I'd ever get a resolution and - as previously mentioned - they have so far (eventually) come through.
Alternatively give the call centre another go. As others have reported, I have on a few occasions actually had some competent and helpful assistance from them - Suva in particular. But if you start to detect any signs that the agent is out of their depth I'd bail out immediately - HUACA is the golden rule.

 

[Mr H]

Alternatively give the call centre another go. As others have reported, I have on a few occasions actually had some competent and helpful assistance from them - Suva in particular. But if you start to detect any signs that the agent is out of their depth I'd bail out immediately - HUACA is the golden rule.

My experience is that Cape Town has a greater chance of giving you a good agent than Suva. I would also caution against bailing out too quickly. The agents who have ultimately helped me have all sounded quite vague/hesitant to begin with. I really think you can't usually tell whether an agent will solve your issue until deep into the call or, sometimes, after the call has been completed. If you hang up too quickly you may miss the agent who could have helped. I try to begin every call with the attitude that this agent is the one who can solve the issue and I will work with them as much as I can to help them do it.

 

[SYD]

My experience is that Cape Town has a greater chance of giving you a good agent than Suva. I would also caution against bailing out too quickly. The agents who have ultimately helped me have all sounded quite vague/hesitant to begin with. I really think you can't usually tell whether an agent will solve your issue until deep into the call or, sometimes, after the call has been completed. If you hang up too quickly you may miss the agent who could have helped. I try to begin every call with the attitude that this agent is the one who can solve the issue and I will work with them as much as I can to help them do it.

Yes, depending on what you need, it’s reasonable to at least wait until you get a “No”, or “That’s not possible” etc etc before politely saying thank you and goodbye. Rather than just an abrupt HUCA (noting that your FF details have gone through on that call - don’t want to get a reputation for HUCA - if such stats exist…? ).

If I was trying to change an existing ticketed booking and didn’t get through to Hobart or AKL, I might fake some static and crackle before HUCA….

 

[masterpabu]

Wanted to add on top of HUACA I've found calling the 1300 number far more effective, had to call them twice on Tuesday for separate issues and both agents were able to sort it out without any pushback, and I actually got my updated e-tickets after each call!

 

[VeniVidiVici]

Question on this topic. I have an upcoming rewards trip - ADL-MEL-DOH-CDG and then EDI-DOH-MEL-ADL in a couple of weeks.

As some might remember a QF change in the order of minutes combined with their casual re-ticketing practices meant the whole QR portion of the trip got cancelled. I managed to get this reinstated and re-ticketed after some back and forth however it was quite stressful.

Last night I received the dreaded message that one of the flights had changed. It turns out it is a change to the MEL-DOH leg and a change by QR to leave 5 mins later. Everything is still in the app and looks ok but just wondering whether this will need to be re-ticketed again?

Last time the change was on a QF leg, this time on QR and I only found out when I checked my QF app for another reason and noticed all my bookings gone.

 

[VeeVeeTop]

Wouldn't hurt to contact them. I got told with a CX booking that had been changed (and conflicted with the connecting flight) but I needed to 'accept' the change before it would be confirmed and would then be reticketed.

 

[djkelly69]

I was able to accept a minor QR flight time change through their app or website, so might be worth checking there if you haven't already? The booking was through QF and they said I had to call but was o/s at the time so went the QR route.

 

[VeniVidiVici]

Accepted the change so will give it a couple of hours to see if a ticket comes through

 

[adenda]

My experience is that Cape Town has a greater chance of giving you a good agent than Suva. I would also caution against bailing out too quickly. The agents who have ultimately helped me have all sounded quite vague/hesitant to begin with. I really think you can't usually tell whether an agent will solve your issue until deep into the call or, sometimes, after the call has been completed. If you hang up too quickly you may miss the agent who could have helped. I try to begin every call with the attitude that this agent is the one who can solve the issue and I will work with them as much as I can to help them do it.

I haven't encountered Cape Town anywhere near as often as Suva so can't really comment on them. Regarding bailing out early, I'm always diplomatic about leaving the call early - usually simply saying I've changed my mind and thanking them for their time - because they do have your QFF number and probably do make notes.
I also start every call with a positive attitude and I've found a good leading question to use is "Can you assist me with making a change with my Oneworld Classic Award booking?" Sometimes the response will be a slow repeating back to me of the words "Oneworld Classic Reward" - almost as if they're typing it into Google! On other occasions I've had a more enthusiastic "Certainly" - which engenders a bit more confidence. It's when I get the first type of response that I use that as a signal to bail out. And that's based on many occasions when I didn't bail out and suffered the consequences varying from nothing being achieved to completely unrelated flights in my itinerary being inexplicably cancelled!

 

[Mr H]

I haven't encountered Cape Town anywhere near as often as Suva so can't really comment on them. Regarding bailing out early, I'm always diplomatic about leaving the call early - usually simply saying I've changed my mind and thanking them for their time - because they do have your QFF number and probably do make notes.
I also start every call with a positive attitude and I've found a good leading question to use is "Can you assist me with making a change with my Oneworld Classic Award booking?" Sometimes the response will be a slow repeating back to me of the words "Oneworld Classic Reward" - almost as if they're typing it into Google! On other occasions I've had a more enthusiastic "Certainly" - which engenders a bit more confidence. It's when I get the first type of response that I use that as a signal to bail out. And that's based on many occasions when I didn't bail out and suffered the consequences varying from nothing being achieved to completely unrelated flights in my itinerary being inexplicably cancelled!

If I may, the approach I use is to say I want to add x flights to an existing booking and/or remove y flights from an existing booking. Talking about Oneworld Classic Rewards is not necessary and likely to confuse the agent. I do not ask whether they can do it, I just tell them that is what I want to do. I do not discuss destinations or overall routes as that can go down rabbit holes, I just list flights by number and date. I find that if I know what I want, do it step by step and avoid introducing complicating factors into the conversation, I get better outcomes.

Interestingly, some of the agents who sound most confident can turn out to be the ones who do the most damage.

 

[1022]

Interestingly, some of the agents who sound most confident can turn out to be the ones who do the most damage.

I agree. Perky sounding MNL agents fall into this category often.

Conversely my last call regarding a OWA change started very ominously when the CPT agent answered “Qantas Baggage Services” After clarifying that I didn’t call baggage services, he apologised and told me he was rusty, having just come back on phones temporarily (from working in an email escalations team) during the recent classic reward dump. He reinstated a couple of dropped MH flights due to previous agents’ disregard for ticketing deadlines and helped me snag a CX F flight that thankfully didn’t subsequently become waitlisted like many CX bookings did around that time. Called back twice as the day went on to update on where it was in the ticketing process.

I’m glad I wasn’t too trigger happy to HUCA when the call started quite awkwardly. In the end he was one of the few truly on-the-ball offshore agents I’ve spoken to.