What to do if my flight has been downgraded on Qantas??

[docjames]

Bummer

 

[medhead]

JohnK, as NM has pointed out, you do not pay a different fair according to the aircraft type (Not that I don't agree with you about being stuck on a 767). Thats what makes your examples like apples and oranges!

Personally, I was reading JohnKs example with the assumption that the BMW and Yaris were in the same rental class in his example. -clearly in reality they would not be the same.

But perhaps take the example of my Uncle booking a BMW in Spain and getting offered an Audi. He booked a BMW because it was the trip of his life and he would never get to drive a beamer otherwise. Maybe that better suits what John was trying to express.

 

[JohnK]

Yes that is similar to what I was trying to express but I am not expressing myself properly and I am wrong anyway as all the experts know how to interpret terms and conditions properly and we should all just accept terms and conditions for fear of catching swine flu.

If I look at SYD-LAX for example there are 4-5 carriers using a variety of aircraft types. Now we know that not all aircraft types are the same regardless of whether they get someone from A to B or not. If we are on an A380, B747, A330 we get better seating options, IFE etc but on a 767 you get squat.

Yes I know I paid a price for Qantas to get me from SYD-LAX but I expect it will be one of A380, B747 or A330. If they substituted a 767 this is not good enough, nor is it acceptable and they have basically just stuffed my trip and I should just be grateful that they can get me to LAX at all, keep my mouth shut, don't whinge and just accept it as it just a part of everyday life. Is there any business other than airline that can get away with this sort of garbage?

How about if all they can offer is a B737 milk run via Cairns, Guam, Honolulu then LAX. Should I still be grateful? Perhaps they should just offer to give me my money back and all is OK. I paid for SYD-LAX flight to be on the aircraft type that was scheduled not the aircraft type that the airline thinks they should schedule because they can't get their act together.

I can honestly see why airlines get away with anything they want as there are way too many gutless people afraid to speak up. All economy seats are not the same....

 

[medhead]

How about if all they can offer is a B737 milk run via Cairns, Guam, Honolulu then LAX. Should I still be grateful? Perhaps they should just offer to give me my money back and all is OK. I paid for SYD-LAX flight to be on the aircraft type that was scheduled not the aircraft type that the airline thinks they should schedule because they can't get their act together.

I think you'd be on a winner if complaining in this case. It would get into the magic 3 hour timing change that appears in T&C often as the measure for serious disruption by the airline.

 

[serfty]

... The only options that Qantas gave us was to rebook for a different day when the A380 might be flying, or to pay to upgrade out tickets to business class. Both options are an impossibility as neither of us can travel on different days, nor can we afford to upgrade our tickets. The Qantas agent said that we are basically SOL. ...

This has been pointed out before - It seems Qantas were prepared to permit [free] changes to the booking to allow the OP and co. to travel on a 388.

The implication here is that Qantas are aware of the difference between the products (as advertised - in seat power in WHY) and were prepared to make exceptions to normal policy.

 

[NM]

Ask for refund and move travel to another carrier would be my prefered approach if unhappy with downgrade of class. F ticket should be fully refundable.

Found a good solution. I called AA EXP Desk and asked about some options regarding changes to the award itinerary. I changed the OW180F awards (zone 6, 14,000 to 20,000 mile OneWorld awards) to a combination of the new One-Way Partner awards.

So now have BNE-HKG-KUL in J instead of the original BNE-MEL-HKG-JUL (the original MEL-HKG was to be F and was downgraded to J when CX pulled F cabins from Australia). This saves about 4 hours travel time and cost 35,000 miles each for the One-Way award.

That is followed by an Asia 2 to Asia 2 one-way Partner Award in F for 32,500 miles each, routing KUL-HKG-BKK (HKK-BKK on new 77W config).

Then ending with Asia 2 to SWP F One-Way Partner award for 45,000 miles each using BA for BKK-SYD and QF for SYD-BNE.

So they have refunded the 2 x 180,000 miles for the original award, waiving the US$175 redeposit fee as the change was requested following the invol downgrade of the original routing. Then the new itinerary will cost 112,500 miles each.

The agent managed to preserve the HKG-KUL-HKG-BKK-SYD-BNE portion of the journey retaining the award seats that were already booked by retaining the original PNR booking reference rather than cancelling and starting again. This was very good news as I did not lose the F seats HKG-BKK and BKK-SYD. They are refunding the old taxes (US$121 each) and charging me the new taxes (US$129 each).

So I have now saved 135,000 miles, paid an extra US$16 in taxes plus exchange rate loses) and saved 4 hours travel time on the outbound. But for that we miss out in MEL FLounge. I can cope with that . The miles saving alone is worth more than a business class return trip to Europe (120,000 miles).

So in the end a good outcome for an equipment downgrade. I would have preferred to stick with the original award, but given there was nothing AA or CX could do about the equipment downgrade, I think it was a good outcome in the end.

 

[jrm27]

Bummer

Indeed! Jsut got off the phone with a Customer Service Agent again, and it's the same message (which I've definitely aniticipated). I asked how much it would cost to upgrade our tickets to Premium Economy (where they do have power options), and was told it would cost an additional $5,000. Well, we're going to a church conference and had to fundraise to get there... there sure isn't another 5k in the budget for upgrades. The agent told me to sleep during the flight. Great, but I have trouble sleeping on planes. So, basically... still in the same boat. Ah well, that's life. One can only hope that they change the flight back to the original plane!

Thanks for the input and discussion all. Any other ideas/input would be most appreciated. What a cool community this is here...

 

[Dave Noble]

I would suggest buying a couple of extra batteries for the laptop if working on the flight is that important. Just make sure that they are fully charged before boarding and you will have several hours worth of power

Dave

 

[NM]

I would suggest buying a couple of extra batteries for the laptop if working on the flight is that important. Just make sure that they are fully charged before boarding and you will have several hours worth of power

That is certainly less than $5000 cost. Most modern laptops will get at least 3 hours operation from a new, fully-charged battery. Many can get in excess of 5 hours from such a battery when properly configured for low power operation.

 

[harvyk]

jrm27, having just come back from LAX - SYD on the A380 in Y, I can assure you that even with the in-seat power your going to have a load of trouble working without getting an exit row seat \ bulkhead seat... Unlike the B747's where the seat back recline still means that you can put your tray table out and puta small laptop on it, in the A380's you just about have the person in front of you recline into your lap (it's ok because you then do the same to the person behind).

It's kinda nice for sleeping but unfortuantly it does make it impossible to do work.

 

[Dave Noble]

That is certainly less than $5000 cost. Most modern laptops will get at least 3 hours operation from a new, fully-charged battery. Many can get in excess of 5 hours from such a battery when properly configured for low power operation.

On top of that, no-one is likely to want to work for the entire journey time; it is a long flight and likely going to want some resting in that time. My new lappy gets 5 hours in low power mode , so 1 extra battery would do me quite ok for even a LAX-SYD type run

Dave

 

[docjames]

I think as already posted - even though the flight is 14 hours, you lose a minimum of 30 mins (prob more like 45) on take off/approach.

You lose a minimum of 45 mins each meal (x2), you cant use the laptop whilst the trays are there.

It's the middle of the night, the lights are off and those around you are trying to sleep so it's worth trying doing the same (even if you cant sleep per se, the rest will make it easier at the other end).

Your body feels like midnight by the time you get out of LAX so after takeoff it's like 1am on your bodyclock. How much productive work will there be and how much will be error-strewn? How great will you feel when you arrive in the morning into SYD and your body has been awake all day the day before, all night (14hrs of it) and you have a full day in SYD upon arrival? When it's like 2pm and you havent slept the day before but it's only 7am on arrival? I can tell you first hand how it feels - lousy! (I've done this for work more than i care to remember!)

If you can't sleep, there's far more than you could ever watch on the In flight entertainment - QF's is one of the best in the sky.

I say save the money ($5k! buy a whole new laptop!), use the laptop for as long as the batteries will give (3-5hours), that means with all the other distractions you're down to basically that same amount again - either sleep, watch the IFE or if you're desperate and it's quiet, the FA's will do their best to get the battery charged for you if you ask them when they're not rushing around.

Enjoy the trip and dont stress too much about working on the flight.

Have a great time in Australia!

 

[jrm27]

Thanks so much for chiming in with your thoughts, insights, and experiences everyone! I am very appreciative! Really looking forward to this trip... I've always wanted to visit australia!