Reward seat withdrawn after being paid for

[mstuart681]

Another planned holiday, bought with points ruined. I purchased 2 business class tickets from Sydney to Tokyo for next year - part of a round the World experience. The ticket was paid for with points and taxes paid. The ticket was issued. I added subsequent legs into Europe & USA.
Now, the first leg has dissapeared. Numerous phone calls to Qantas, and they finally tell me the reward seat has been withdrawn and no others are available.
They said this can be a problem booking a seat so far out (10 months). But you have to book business class reward seats that far out, or you don't get them.

Qantas encourages us to acquire points, but make it very difficult to actually use them, causing disappointment along the way.

 

[Matt_01]

Another planned holiday, bought with points ruined. I purchased 2 business class tickets from Sydney to Tokyo for next year - part of a round the World experience. The ticket was paid for with points and taxes paid. The ticket was issued. I added subsequent legs into Europe & USA.
Now, the first leg has dissapeared. Numerous phone calls to Qantas, and they finally tell me the reward seat has been withdrawn and no others are available.
They said this can be a problem booking a seat so far out (10 months). But you have to book business class reward seats that far out, or you don't get them.

Qantas encourages us to acquire points, but make it very difficult to actually use them, causing disappointment along the way.

Was the first leg SYD-Tokyo with QF or another carrier, also were seat lost during the reticketing process.

 

[mstuart681]

The first leg was with Malaysian Airlines, booked through Qantas site.
It disappeared a week after other legs were added, but before they have been ticketed.
The initial reasons Qantas told me was "The tickets hadn't been paid for". Subsequently the reason has become, "The seats were withdrawn"

 

[antycbr]

The first leg was with Malaysian Airlines, booked through Qantas site.
It disappeared a week after other legs were added, but before they have been ticketed.
The initial reasons Qantas told me was "The tickets hadn't been paid for". Subsequently the reason has become, "The seats were withdrawn"

Sounds like ticketing and they auto cancelled on you. They were then reallocated as revenue or someone else got their award ticketed using “your” seats

 

[Matt_01]

The first leg was with Malaysian Airlines, booked through Qantas site.
It disappeared a week after other legs were added, but before they have been ticketed.

I am confident that the lost seats will have been instigated by MH as it sounds like QF just put your tickets in the reticketing queue. IME MH seem to have strict ticketing deadlines (similar to QR, EK and a lesser extent JL) and if QF do not ticket in the required timeframe MH will cancel your seats and either make them available to anyone as rewards or not at all. Depending on your status and how much you want to push QF ask them to release seats on QF metal and/or ask them to send a message to the OW desk for assistance but I would not hold your breath. For these types of issues it will be best to speak with a competent operator.

There was a similar thread involving QR earlier this year but cannot find it, from memory the AFFer who posted continued to push the point and I believe ended up with a successful outcome. If I come across the thread I will add the link.

 

[MrJetset]

Another planned holiday, bought with points ruined. I purchased 2 business class tickets from Sydney to Tokyo for next year - part of a round the World experience. The ticket was paid for with points and taxes paid. The ticket was issued. I added subsequent legs into Europe & USA.
Now, the first leg has dissapeared. Numerous phone calls to Qantas, and they finally tell me the reward seat has been withdrawn and no others are available.
They said this can be a problem booking a seat so far out (10 months). But you have to book business class reward seats that far out, or you don't get them.

Qantas encourages us to acquire points, but make it very difficult to actually use them, causing disappointment along the way.

You should argue for QF to accommodate you on their own QF25 service as this was their mistake, not yours. It puts your entire RTW award in jeopardy.

The seat was not withdrawn. The award was lost because of QF's inability to ticket by the required deadline.

 

[mstuart681]

So far my calls for assistance to Qantas have gone like this -
Call 1 - It's been auto cancelled due to lack of payment, I'll pass it on to ticketing. Thank you.
Call 2 - It's been cancelled, I'll look into it and call you back (No call back)
Call 3 - The flight has probably been withdrawn by the airline, there's nothing we can do. You probably shouldn't book this far out.
Call 4 - I will fix it up for you, you'll be able to see it on your booking in 15 to 20 minutes (didn't happen)
Call 5 - There's nothing we can do, talking to a supervisor won't resolve this and will be a waste of time, but I'll get one to call in the next day or 2.
Call 6 - Offered to put me on a jetstar flight - I explained that was against the rules of the RTW tickets. She has emailed MA to get flight re ticketed (I know that won't happen).

 

[Kerrodt]

So far my calls for assistance to Qantas have gone like this -
Call 1 - It's been auto cancelled due to lack of payment, I'll pass it on to ticketing. Thank you.
Call 2 - It's been cancelled, I'll look into it and call you back (No call back)
Call 3 - The flight has probably been withdrawn by the airline, there's nothing we can do. You probably shouldn't book this far out.
Call 4 - I will fix it up for you, you'll be able to see it on your booking in 15 to 20 minutes (didn't happen)
Call 5 - There's nothing we can do, talking to a supervisor won't resolve this and will be a waste of time, but I'll get one to call in the next day or 2.
Call 6 - Offered to put me on a jetstar flight - I explained that was against the rules of the RTW tickets. She has emailed MA to get flight re ticketed (I know that won't happen).

I mean seriously, with this level of incompetence and dishonesty it is a wonder they are able to achieve any correct outcome for passengers. It staggers me that the executive in charge of these contact centres has not been fired. It is appalling.

 

[antycbr]

I mean seriously, with this level of incompetence and dishonesty it is a wonder they are able to achieve any correct outcome for passengers. It staggers me that the executive in charge of these contact centres has not been fired. It is appalling.

She was promoted to running a whole division (JQ) and is firmly in the frame for running Qantas Group (Alan Joyce’s job).

 

[oz_mark]

The first leg was with Malaysian Airlines, booked through Qantas site.
It disappeared a week after other legs were added, but before they have been ticketed.
The initial reasons Qantas told me was "The tickets hadn't been paid for". Subsequently the reason has become, "The seats were withdrawn"

I'd say the full story was that the seats were cancelled because Qantas hadn't ticketed them in time.

 

[mstuart681]

That leg had been ticketed - I had an e-ticket.
Not sure if they needed to re-ticket it?. This is my first RTW booking.

 

[Mr H]

That leg had been ticketed - I had an e-ticket.
Not sure if they needed to re-ticket it?. This is my first RTW booking.

When you change a booking, the whole booking becomes unticketed and needs to be reticketed. If it is not done in time, airlines will auto-cancel the flights. The timeframe for this auto cancel can vary by airline and by flight. My most recent experience was losing MH flights within five hours of asking for a change. The cancelled MH flights do not come back.

 

[Matt_01]

That leg had been ticketed - I had an e-ticket.
Not sure if they needed to re-ticket it?. This is my first RTW booking.

Each time you add, change, cancel a sector (flight) the whole ticket is reissued/ re-ticketed, it is just the way it works. As this is your first OWR booking also be aware that each time you change the booking the fees and taxes may also be adjusted. As an example for one of our bookings I was going to change a flight (IB within the EU) then the agent advised that the fuel fines that JL had added or changed added nearly USD300 per PAX in the bookings for flights I already had.

Reading comments on this site most seem to think that OWR are easy to get and manage but they are not alway simple. If you have not already done so take a look at this thread "oneworld" award (132.4K/249.6K/318K/455K) Planning - The Definitive Thread it is full of valuable information and there are a number of posters who know what they are talking about and others that no idea but just reading the last 5 pages or so you can work this out and take on or otherwise the advice of others. I have booked a number of OWR trips in J and have learnt the hard way what can/not be done and the gotchas that one can run into.

 

[Kerrodt]

She was promoted to running a whole division (JQ) and is firmly in the frame for running Qantas Group (Alan Joyce’s job).

It’s a horrifying proposition. The Peter Principle in full form here.

 

[Danger]

If the subsequent changes by mstuart81 did not involve any changes to that first MH (Malaysia Airlines) leg, I would argue the member still had a valid ticket on that flight, that ticket being the ticket he or she was emailed originally.

As others have said, Qantas has coughed this up completely. You need to repeatedly call Qantas until it is fixed. Record the dates, times and names of all phone calls. I would also refer the idiots at the offshore call centres to s. 9.1(c) of the Qantas conditions of carriage. The significant change is the cancellation of your flight that was solely the fault of Qantas. You are entitled to the remedies outlined in the dot points including, as others have mentioned, rebooking on the Qantas service direct to Tokyo.

 

[Matt_01]

She was promoted to running a whole division (JQ) and is firmly in the frame for running Qantas Group (Alan Joyce’s job).

It’s a horrifying proposition. The Peter Principle in full form here.

Just saying, wasn’t the current CEO of VA the head of/CEO of JQ maybe history is repeating.

 

[mstuart681]

I spoke with Qantas again today - about booking an economy rewards seat from Sydney to Japan to commence this Journey (to replace the leg that's disappeared).
They said I wasn't able to book an economy, only a business class as all the other flights were business class. Any new booking would be in a separate booking number. Is this right?

 

[Mr H]

I spoke with Qantas again today - about booking an economy rewards seat from Sydney to Japan to commence this Journey (to replace the leg that's disappeared).
They said I wasn't able to book an economy, only a business class as all the other flights were business class. Any new booking would be in a separate booking number. Is this right?

No that is not right but it seems to be a common misapprehension in the Fiji call centre.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I spoke with Qantas again today - about booking an economy rewards seat from Sydney to Japan to commence this Journey (to replace the leg that's disappeared).
They said I wasn't able to book an economy, only a business class as all the other flights were business class. Any new booking would be in a separate booking number. Is this right?

No that is not correct. You can certainly combine awards in different cabins, but it will price at the higher J rate for the whole trip if it’s one of the One World Awards

 

[mstuart681]

Yes, I knew it would still be at the higher rate for the RTW trip. This is such a nightmare to book - constantly told different things by Qantas staff / Unable to assist.