Qantas Promises to Fix Ongoing Reward Flight Ticketing Failures

[muppet]

Update: This morning I can see in the Qantas App that the flights have been added back in and are “Waitlisted” so I’m happy they are looking into it so quick!

No reply to my email as yet.

Well 3 days in not much progress. Still no reply to my email to reward ticketing address.
The original flights that were lost were temporarily added back as “waitlisted”. They’ve now dropped off on Wednesday and new options on MH the day before are in there as waitlisted. My points have been fully refunded. Other confirmed sectors on QF and AY seem to be holding.

Should I wait out rewardticketescalations or call?

With no reply it’s hard to know if something is happening or i’m at risk of loosing the other sectors I still have.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Well 3 days in not much progress. 1. Still no reply to my email to reward ticketing address.
2. The original flights that were lost were temporarily added back as “waitlisted”. They’ve now dropped off on Wednesday and new options on MH the day before are in there as waitlisted. 3. My points have been fully refunded. Other confirmed sectors on QF and AY seem to be holding.

4. Should I wait out rewardticketescalations or call?

With no reply it’s hard to know if something is happening or i’m at risk of loosing the other sectors I still have.

First, commiserations for your plight. Those of us who have gone through this unforgiving meat grinder (multiple times…) know how you feel.

A couple of comments / observations (refer numbering in quoted message):
1. The escalation staff seem to only make contact when they absolutely have to. But of course that leaves you in the grey zone of “should I be patient & let them do their work, or should I jump up & down to get some action”.
2. This looks like an indication that they are working on your issue, and that the first choice has failed, and that they’re now on plan B.
3. This seems a bit odd. If the other sectors are still there, then why refund the points? Do you still have a valid e-ticket for these other surviving sectors?
4. I suggest another email, referencing the previous email(s), outlining (calmly & succinctly) your concerns and any proposed solutions that you have, and invite them to call you to discuss. I have sometimes had success this way.

Keep in mind that despite all best efforts, sometimes it’s difficult to get the solution that you want…

 

[MelbFlyer]

It's been a while since my last rewards flights (just under a year now), but wow - this is still going on?

I would have thought it'd be fixed by now, but then again it is Qantas.

 

[UP4014]

The squeaky wheel everyone, keep that in mind.

But I do get ground down over time myself.

 

[Danger]

There is work happening behind the scenes.

Things are definitely much better now than they were 18 months ago, but it's still in both AFF and Qantas' interest that any remaining issues get resolved.

It's great that things are improved, but the title of the thread isn't, "Qantas promises to be much better". Qantas allegedly promised. Qantas didn't deliver.

I don’t think any of us were ever surprised by that.

I know I wasn't.

 

[muppet]

Well 3 days in not much progress. Still no reply to my email to reward ticketing address.
The original flights that were lost were temporarily added back as “waitlisted”. They’ve now dropped off on Wednesday and new options on MH the day before are in there as waitlisted. My points have been fully refunded. Other confirmed sectors on QF and AY seem to be holding.

Should I wait out rewardticketescalations or call?

With no reply it’s hard to know if something is happening or i’m at risk of loosing the other sectors I still have.

Well just to close this out. The full sequence of events for my ticket:

Day 1 - Made minor date change to a single AY flight and within 4 hours MH had reclaimed its sectors
Day 1 - Emailed rewardticketescalations who added sectors back and asked via OneWorld desk for reinstatement. The reply from MH was no, but how about the day before.
Day 3 - QF added in a bunch of MH options and resent request to MH which was not answered.
Day 5 - QF added its own metal sector ‘On Request’ that appears to have been denied.
Day 7 - muppet finds his own way to London using an extra stop but on the originally planned day, calls overseas call centre who helpfully adds it all in and send it to ticket queue but refuses to ensure an urgent ticketing. So I email escalations and pleaded for an instant ticket which they kindly do. They reply that its ticketed and to make sure i have enough points available… this is the first reply I get.

All up, a minor AY date change for 2 pax cost 10,000 points extra and $1,120 in taxes as the new flights involved BA….

I can see they were trying to help, but I’m unsure if they would have ultimately have been able to deliver - that’s why once I found a way to save my ticket I just bit the bullet and did so - at great personal expense.

Lesson learned, will not be making any more changes.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Sounds like a nice case for some legal action

 

[muppet]

Well a further update, after I had found an alternative and managed to have it successfully ticketed - MH finally replies to QF and plonks two sectors back into the PNR (the now fully ticketed and correct PNR). The flights were the day before the original flights they removed, so not ideal but if I was patient it would have eventually been fixed.

In the end, I could not wait while knowing a solution was available with 2xU seats on partners that could be scooped up at any time.

But if you wait 8 days - looks like they will come to the party and fix it. So it seems like ticketescalations do have an ability to fix things!

 

[Mwenenzi]

All up, a minor AY date change for 2 pax cost 10,000 points extra and $1,120 in taxes as the new flights involved BA….

I can see they were trying to help, but I’m unsure if they would have ultimately have been able to deliver - that’s why once I found a way to save my ticket I just bit the bullet and did so - at great personal expense.

Lesson learned, will not be making any more changes.

Real govt taxes or/and carrier surcharges (~airline profit)?
Still paid this with the latest "further update" changes?

Worth a claim to your state tribunal
example VIC Home | VCAT

 

[muppet]

Real govt taxes or/and carrier surcharges (~airline profit)?
Still paid this with the latest "further update" changes?

Worth a claim to your state tribunal
example VIC Home | VCAT

Mostly BA carrier surcharges. I don’t intend to pursue it - QF could well argue they were working on it and I made a voluntary change.

 

[AFF Editor]

We've been in touch with Qantas about the issue where certain partner airlines, including Malaysia Airlines, were cancelling reward flights with changes that weren't re-ticketed within a few hours.

You can read the response from Qantas, and what they're doing to try to resolve this issue, here:

Qantas Working to Fix Reward Ticket Cancellation Flaw

Qantas is working to resolve a glitch causing reward flight tickets on partners including Malaysia Airlines to be unexpectedly cancelled.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[SydneySwan]

Your statement 'The good news is that Qantas is aware of this issue and has taken steps to address it since Australian Frequent Flyer brought it to the airline’s attention.' What the hell are Qantas managers doing? They should have been aware and working to resolve without anyone having to raise it with them. The shadow of AJ is long indeed.

 

[Danger]

Your statement 'The good news is that Qantas is aware of this issue and has taken steps to address it since Australian Frequent Flyer brought it to the airline’s attention.' What the hell are Qantas managers doing? They should have been aware and working to resolve without anyone having to raise it with them. The shadow of AJ is long indeed.

I'd be stunned if Qantas wasn't already aware. My guess is the article is inflating AFF's own worth.

 

[tm.smile]

This may or not belong here, but I was booked on a classic reward for MH128 this coming Saturday that was cancelled by MH. Because it was a change by Malaysia, they rebooked me. Except to depart from Sydney instead.

Despite significant escalation, it was deemed that MH was responsible for the change and therefore to allow me to depart from MEL as originally booked, Qantas would need to charge me the extra points for the ticket to be put on a Jetstar flight.

 

[rigram]

This has happened to me twice now - last year it was Cathay that reclaimed flights, causing some disruption - a month ago it happened with an MH booking - luckily was onto it quickly and got original seats back.

I'm fearful that it will happen again - and now check future bookings every couple of days to ensure they are still "live" PNR with the correct segments.

Frustrating having to spend an hour or so on the phone to rectify

 

[sonjabella71]

@AFF Editor
Your article is quite timely. I was about to reach out to you with a horror story which Qantas has been quite dismal at even acknowledging any issues. In short, I spent over 30 hours on the phone with Qantas making a One World business class redemption booking (which is almost a Unicorn these days) and had my flights cancelled multiple times by Malaysian Airlines, Japan Airlines and Sri Lankan Airways. I had Qantas staff call me a liar, I had incorrect details provided to me by staff (one staff member, and a supervisor, insisted tickets were only valid from 12 months from date of initial ticket issue, which is incorrect given it is actually 12 months from first date of departure).

Given I had a similar experience with my last 2 bookings, this time I recorded dates, times and names of all conversations to provide to Qantas and the only conclusion I can reach after going through the complaints process, and then emailing incoming Chairman John Mullen, is all of the media hype and promises made by the new CEO and the incoming Chairman John Mullen are disingenuous!

I worked for Qantas for 3 years, most of that time in Telesales in the Brisbane office, so I am more familiar than most with the processes and procedures of booking and issuing frequent flyer tickets.

I would love to connect with you Matt and share my experience to see if there is anyway you are able to assist in getting Qantas to take my complaint seriously. I have written a media release and am ready to fire on all cylinders, including making enquiries into a class action given the serious misconduct of some staff and the inability of Qantas to issue eTKT receipts with the correct amounts paid (my last eTKT shows I have paid $0 in taxes when in fact I have paid almost $2000) - surely that is bordering in fraudulent behaviour.

Anyway, I hope you are able to assist or give some guidance if you are able to review my complaint to Qantas.

Thanks
Sonja

 

[encryptededdy]

[snip]

Qantas recently reorganised its manual ticket handling queues to resolve the most time-sensitive reward seat bookings first.

Does this imply that previously, the ticket handling queue was not ordered to put the most time sensitive bookings first? That seems like an incredible oversight for an airline.

“Protecting these reward seat bookings is extremely important to us, and we have invested significantly in our contact centres to manage these issues when they occur.”

Ever since they got a significant bunch of outsourced call centres to handle the call wait time crisis of 2022, the Qantas call centres have degraded in quality (even to me as a Platinum member) to the point where every single call I make seems to involve the agent saying something I know to be false or not knowing how to do something I know is possible.

I'm not sure where they're investing in their contact centres, but I feel like at least 75% of the staff picking up the phone are not qualified enough to be touching customers bookings, let along reward bookings which are more complex and harder to recover when something goes wrong (e.g. it doesn't ticket).

Sometimes I wonder whether the badwill that Qantas has generated with their contact centres messing up customer bookings and telling lies (whether on purpose or because they don't know the real answer so just make something up - very common!) offsets the cost savings that these call centers offer over doing them in-house.

 

[sonjabella71]

Does this imply that previously, the ticket handling queue was not ordered to put the most time sensitive bookings first? That seems like an incredible oversight for an airline.


Ever since they got a significant bunch of outsourced call centres to handle the call wait time crisis of 2022, the Qantas call centres have degraded in quality (even to me as a Platinum member) to the point where every single call I make seems to involve the agent saying something I know to be false or not knowing how to do something I know is possible.

I'm not sure where they're investing in their contact centres, but I feel like at least 75% of the staff picking up the phone are not qualified enough to be touching customers bookings, let along reward bookings which are more complex and harder to recover when something goes wrong (e.g. it doesn't ticket).

Sometimes I wonder whether the badwill that Qantas has generated with their contact centres messing up customer bookings and telling lies (whether on purpose or because they don't know the real answer so just make something up - very common!) offsets the cost savings that these call centers offer over doing them in-house.

Completely agree, but am very surprised that even as a Platinum member you are experiencing the abysmal service failures that I have been experiencing for the past few years. There is definitely a lack of training and knowledge, particularly with redemption bookings. I used to work in the Brisbane call centre years ago before it was outsourced and cannot believe the hurdles people have to jump through these days to get a booking completed!

 

[encryptededdy]

Completely agree, but am very surprised that even as a Platinum member you are experiencing the abysmal service failures that I have been experiencing for the past few years. There is definitely a lack of training and knowledge, particularly with redemption bookings. I used to work in the Brisbane call centre years ago before it was outsourced and cannot believe the hurdles people have to jump through these days to get a booking completed!

During 2021 and earlier Platinum members generally only got the Hobart call center, but nowadays the only difference I can see is that we go to the front of the phone queue so there's nearly no wait. Unfortunately there's not much benefit to the fast answer time if the person picking up the phone doesn't know what they're doing

 

[sonjabella71]

During 2021 and earlier Platinum members generally only got the Hobart call center, but nowadays the only difference I can see is that we go to the front of the phone queue so there's nearly no wait. Unfortunately there's not much benefit to the fast answer time if the person picking up the phone doesn't know what they're doing

That really is quite shocking at the Platinum level! I guess they are more interested in paying their CEO's millions of dollars than keeping their customers happy even those who are truly frequent flyers like yourself!