Qantas unable to change my booking?

[Kengyin]

I was wondering if anyone else has experience with this issue. I had a set of 4 flights booked as a multi city trip in flexible economy back during the double status credits promotion. I called up Qantas because I wanted to change 1 of the flights (the 2nd one) to another date (about 10 days later, total trip is 5 weeks), but the person on the phone kept saying he couldn't do it or find anything for the dates I wanted to change to. It was a bit hard to understand what was going on because he kept mumbling, but he kept saying things like "can't get combination" and "needs to be in the same class". The whole point in buying flexible economy was that I wanted to be able to change flights without a fee if necessary. Does anyone know why this is so difficult? Would it have been better to avoid the multi city and buy and instead buy a return trip inside a return trip? Are they unable to simply look up an equivalent flight on a different say for just that 1 flight, or do they have to run the entire algorithm of 4 flights every time they want to test a new date? Thanks for your help.

 

[encryptededdy]

What flight do you have booked in what booking class (letter), and what flight would you like to change to? I assume they're trying to find a replacement flight in the same booking class and it doesn't exist.

I don't believe the rules stipulate you must change to the same class though, you should be able to change to any fare and pay the fare difference, so I suspect it's an agent who doesn't know how to work the system.

 

[Kengyin]

Everything I've booked is in H (full fare economy). He did say that he could change to business class (too expensive for me) but that it would result in everything changing to business class. So it sounded like it's not possible to change the fare class of just 1 flight. Kind of defeats the point of flexible if it's so inflexible.

 

[encryptededdy]

Everything I've booked is in H (full fare economy). He did say that he could change to business class (too expensive for me) but that it would result in everything changing to business class. So it sounded like it's not possible to change the fare class of just 1 flight. Kind of defeats the point of flexible if it's so inflexible.

I assume all 4 flights are seperate and not connecting (more than 24h apart)? I think it should be changeable, it's just the call centre doesn't know how to do it. Is this all domestic?

 

[wenglock.mok]

There are a couple of different possibilities including:
1. Your multi-city itinerary may have been made up of a fare between A and C that goes A-B-C, and then a fare between C and E that goes C-D-E, with both fares allowing stopovers in B and D. If that's the case, individual legs (e.g. A-B, B-C) cannot be upfared without the other leg being upfared as well as the itinerary is comprised of two through fares from A to C and C to E.
2. Qantas does not typically allow economy and business class fares to be combined in the same booking - the fare rules say something like "COMBINATIONS ARE WITH ANY O-/Q-/N-/S-/V-/L-/M-/K-/H-/B-/Y-/T-/R-/W- TYPE FARES FOR CARRIER QF IN ANY RULE IN ANY TARIFF" - excluding any business or first class fares.

 

[Kengyin]

The flights are like this A-B-C (A-B being domestic), then C-D, then D-C, C-B-A. It's essentially a return trip within a return trip, but the multi city booking was much cheaper. It seems like the tradeoff in the future may be either to pay more for separate return trips but it's much easier to change (since you can do it online) or buy the multi city in non flex economy knowing I probably won't be able to change it anyway. The only benefit to flex would be being able to fully cancel without a fee I guess.

 

[justinbrett]

The flights are like this A-B-C (A-B being domestic), then C-D, then D-C, C-B-A. It's essentially a return trip within a return trip, but the multi city booking was much cheaper. It seems like the tradeoff in the future may be either to pay more for separate return trips but it's much easier to change (since you can do it online) or buy the multi city in non flex economy knowing I probably won't be able to change it anyway. The only benefit to flex would be being able to fully cancel without a fee I guess.

Might be easier to just specify the actual airports and dates rather than speaking in code.

 

[Kengyin]

Yeah so basically it's SYD-SIN via BNE, and SIN-LHR. Then return. I just tried to input my same flights (with the date I wanted changed) into the multi city calculator and it gave me a result (albeit more expensive than my original ticket), so I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

 

[Ade]

Watching this thread with interest. I might have something to contribute. I'm having the same issues with QF changing a Flex Y booking. Will update this thread as we progress. Issue is still under investigation from QBR (my booking is a QBR booking)

 

[encryptededdy]

I still think you should be able to change it, you'll just have to pay the fare difference. As @wenglock.mok says, this may involve upfareing multiple sectors and paying the fare difference, which evidently the agent you spoke to did not know how to do.

To be clear, you are trying to increase the amount of time you have in SIN? That is to say, you are delaying the SIN-LHR flight by 10 days? Is the current layover in SIN <24h?

 

[Kengyin]

Yep I want to shift the London section back, although even my original plan wasn't a layover, I was going to spend a week in Singapore before flying to London. Maybe when I call again I'll ask them if the algorithm improves if they leave off the Brisbane (was added to squeeze out more DSCs for practically no cost) section. Definitely not willing to upgrade to business though, that would cost too much.

 

[encryptededdy]

Yep I want to shift the London section back, although even my original plan wasn't a layover, I was going to spend a week in Singapore before flying to London. Maybe when I call again I'll ask them if the algorithm improves if they leave off the Brisbane (was added to squeeze out more DSCs for practically no cost) section. Definitely not willing to upgrade to business though, that would cost too much.

I think you should just call again and put in the same request again, and hope the agent is more helpful. Qantas call centres aren't known for being the most competent.

I assume what's happening is what you have is a Sydney to London fare that allows for a stopover in Singapore (this is probably why this pricing is favourable over booking separately), however the new date for the SIN-LHR leg requires a higher fare class, and moving to that would require an up-fare of SYD-BNE and/or BNE-SIN? And of course the first agent you talked to didn't know how to put that through the system. That's my guess anyway.

 

[DC3]

… Maybe when I call again I'll ask them if the algorithm improves if they leave off the Brisbane (was added to squeeze out more DSCs for practically no cost) section ..

Probably best to keep it very simple and don’t start talking about algorithms.

 

[Ade]

Probably best to keep it very simple and don’t start talking about algorithms.

It's just that big words will throw the agents off

 

[oz_mark]

If A-B-C are booked on the same day, then they have likely married, and can't be easily changed independently of each other.

 

[jpp42]

Yep I want to shift the London section back, although even my original plan wasn't a layover, I was going to spend a week in Singapore before flying to London.

Can you please answer the question specifically of whether there is less than or more than 24 hours between your BNE-SIN flight and SIN-LHR flight as currently booked? This is really important. You might have missed the significance of this, but this makes a big difference in how difficult it is to change (if the layover is less than 24 hours, the segment may be a "married sector" and impossible to separate without large fare differences.)

You could get the most help here if you just list your whole itinerary including flight numbers and booking class (the single letter) as shown in your E-ticket. As long as you don't include your name or PNR/booking reference it isn't going to be personally identifiable.

 

[Kengyin]

It finally went through. I think what happened actually was while I was making the first 2 calls, I also tried manually using the multi city planner and noticed it was lagging severely which is why I thought there might not be availability. But afterwards it worked fine, so I think the system was just not working right at first.