What do Qantas do if a delayed flight means you miss your second leg in business class? Upgrade/Points differential refund/Full refund/etc

[Flyboi420]

Long time lurker first time poster - sorry if this is the wrong board.

Anyone know what happens if a delayed Qantas domestic leg means you miss your international business class leg?

Got 2X Business to Europe on Qatar via QFF. 1 Domestic leg, then ADL-DOH-CDG (all booked in 1 trip, not mix and match). If the next flights to your destination don't have J availability, what do they do? Upgrade to 1st? Economy seats + points differential refund?

The layover time is cutting it a bit close, but regardless am more so curious than worried. Been saving up for years to have enough points for this, and my partner has bad claustrophobia. Just want to make sure all bases are covered in a worst case scenario.

Thanks so much all for your help and wisdom

 

[aikman]

There's a recent story here similar to yours where the Qantas domestic flight was delayed and they missed their Qatar international flight.

Neither Qatar nor Qantas arranged alternative flights and the passenger was left stranded and had to buy their own ticket back to their home city.

Consider yourself lucky if they even put you on the next flight. If it ends up being economy good luck negotiating compensation from Qantas. I expect it will be a long and hard fight to get anything back from them.

 

[jpp42]

If you are booked on points and miss your flight, regardless of who's fault it is, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to get a business class seat on the next flight - you may get an economy seat. In fact, even if you don't miss the connection , you may still get an involuntary downgrade, as just happened to someone else recently (not the same person referred to above), see: Beware: QFF Award on Qatar Business flight Downgraded at check-in . Your ticket is worth the least of anyone in that business class cabin and the staff know this, so don't expect any kind of priority treatment. As noted in that thread, be sure to check-in to the airline's own web site OLCI to try to reduce the chance of this.

If you are downgraded, remember that carrier charges are higher for business class so you are due a refund of the difference in both the points and the taxes/carrier charges/fees. You will have to fight Qantas for this, they won't do it automatically.

Australia has very poor consumer protections around this and the carrier is only obligated to get you to your destination, eventually, if they can, with many caveats; they have no obligation to carry you in the class that's booked, it's just "best effort." They may very well bump you if they can sell your seat again for more revenue (this seems to happen on Jetstar and Qantas too, not singling out Qatar specifically).

 

[Flyboi420]

Wow, reading through the thread of the person who had my nightmare experience is motivating to ring up Qantas and try to get a longer layover in ADL. Right now its a 2 hr 15 min layover in ADL.

 

[VPS]

Wow, reading through the thread of the person who had my nightmare experience is motivating to ring up Qantas and try to get a longer layover in ADL. Right now its a 2 hr 15 min layover in ADL.

How long before you are travelling. I certainly wouldn't be risking it at the moment but YMMV

 

[Flyboi420]

How long before you are travelling. I certainly wouldn't be risking it at the moment but YMMV

Only 2 weeks from now - only thing is, when trying to change this booking in the past, the call centre has had all sorts of issues inc:
- accidental cancellation and rebooking
- not ticketing
- double booking as per my Qantas app
- hanging up mid conversations

So i feel like its a real roll of the dice to call and ask for a change to the domestic leg. Am honestly frightened by it.

Perhaps I can book a JQ 1 way to ADL before. If Qantas issue on the night, take the JQ backup. If not necessary, lose the $200.

 

[offshore171]

What's the domestic leg and how long is the layover?

 

[Flyboi420]

What's the domestic leg and how long is the layover?

MEL-ADL, believe it’s QF697. And layover is 2 hrs 15 minutes

 

[sudoer]

Just get to MEL early and ask if they can put you to an earlier departure. It's not worth the risk of the call centre stuffing it up. Also 2h15m at ADL should be fine for a D-I transfer.

 

[dajop]

As this involves QR award seats, ringing up and changing the first sector is not risk free either. Although it should be a simple revalidation, but with a lot of QF agents at the moment there is a not insignificant risk that ANY change to the booking could ultimately lead to loss of the QR sectors if not handled correctly.

As @sudoer suggests best to rock up a couple of flights earlier and attempt to get on earlier flight at the airport.

 

[Flyboi420]

Alright this sounds like a good plan - hope they accomodate with the earlier flight as I’m only QFF Silver.
Thank you all for your input!

 

[Matt_01]

What is the date of the QR flight, I was a weekly ADL-MEL commute and knew what flights used to run with regularity. At the moment the flight numbers days and times are all over the place. Also if you are flying out in the next couple of weeks school holidays across the states start kicking in from around this time and given the media reports from Apr and Jun/Jul it could all go to s#!t again the strikes next Monday seem to coincide with the start of the holiday period. I would give consideration to flying in the day before, spend a night and go into town in the morning that way you are here for the commencement of the QR sectors.

 

[Flyboi420]

Thanks Matt - sent you a PM.

Wondering if asking for an earlier flight is common practice for Rewards (J) bookings?
When I used to fly on flex tickets for work it was a non-issue, but not sure what the likelihood the Qantas staff will accomodate a Silver member like me is when the request is just out of an abundance of caution (vs not meeting the MCT). Will be happy to move to economy to keep the QR leg intact.

 

[jpp42]

Thanks Matt - sent you a PM.

Wondering if asking for an earlier flight is common practice for Rewards (J) bookings?
When I used to fly on flex tickets for work it was a non-issue, but not sure what the likelihood the Qantas staff will accomodate a Silver member like me is when the request is just out of an abundance of caution (vs not meeting the MCT). Will be happy to move to economy to keep the QR leg intact.

The agents have pretty wide latitude on the day, so this to some extent will depend on what conditions are like on that day. If there's good weather and everything is running on time, they may just tell you that you'll be fine on the original connection. But they are just as likely to agree to put you on the earlier one (if seats are available), because it doesn't really cost Qantas anything to do that and it's clear you're just trying to make your connection, not trying to get free flexibility on a cheap ticket. (If you had no subsequent International leg, the change would be denied if there were no other disruptions.)

 

[RichardMEL]

Agree with this. on Day of travel agents will likely treat a U seat as a full fare J (or near enough) and probably not disciminate due to being reward. If there's space they should flow forward without much fuss (as its common sense really). The chances of someone showing up to buy the ticket wthin, for example, the next hour.. are not high so they're not going to hold back on inventory for something like that.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Australia has very poor consumer protections around this and the carrier is only obligated to get you to your destination, eventually, if they can, with many caveats; they have no obligation to carry you in the class that's booked, it's just "best effort." They may very well bump you if they can sell your seat again for more revenue (this seems to happen on Jetstar and Qantas too, not singling out Qatar specifically).

Perhaps I misread the initial post but where would Australian consumer law kick in here? Looking at the itinerary the travel seems to commence from Adelaide and end in Paris, France, EU. Now I know EU261 would not apply since none of the airlines involved are EU carriers, but I reckon some EU consumer protection laws would nonetheless apply since the contract involves travel to an EU member state.

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Perhaps I misread the initial post but where would Australian consumer law kick in here? Looking at the itinerary the travel seems to commence from Adelaide and end in Paris, France, EU. Now I know EU261 would not apply since none of the airlines involved are EU carriers, but I reckon some EU consumer protection laws would nonetheless apply since the contract involves travel to an EU member state.

-RooFlyer88

EU261 applies to all European carriers, into and out of the EU.

EU261 applies to non-EU carriers only with a departure from the EU, including any subsequent connections as part of continuous travel that day.

EU261 would only apply to BA for departures from Australia.

 

[papeto]

Perhaps I misread the initial post but where would Australian consumer law kick in here? Looking at the itinerary the travel seems to commence from Adelaide and end in Paris, France, EU. Now I know EU261 would not apply since none of the airlines involved are EU carriers, but I reckon some EU consumer protection laws would nonetheless apply since the contract involves travel to an EU member state.

-RooFlyer88

I think EU261, works only if you fly out of europe on a non- european carrier. I checked it out when Qantas abondend us in Brisbane after we missed our connection with Qatar Due to Qantas delay. I am currently taking them to NCAT for loss and consequential loss. Not a fun exercise but needs to be done.

 

[dajop]

EU261 would only apply to BA for departures from Australia.

To be pedantic there are currently no departures from Australia that EU261 applies to as there are no EU based carriers currently flying to Australia.

However, the almost identical UK261 would apply to BA departures from Australia.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

To be pedantic there are currently no departures from Australia that EU261 applies to as there are no EU based carriers currently flying to Australia.

However, the almost identical UK261 would apply to BA departures from Australia.

Lufthansa and Swiss and FinnAir all fly out of Australia by way of Singapore/Tokyo. Certainly I could see itineraries that have something like SQ to SIN then LH/LX to FRA/ZRH. In which case EU261 may come into play since part of the itinerary is operated by an EU airline and they would be the most significant carrier in such an itinerary.

-RooFlyer88