Qantas has finally fixed an issue that resulted in frequent flyers missing out on the correct points and status credits on certain Oneworld codeshare flights.
When an AFF member recently got caught out by this, they tried submitting a missing points claim with Qantas. After Qantas refused that initial claim, this person tried calling the airline. But Qantas repeatedly and incorrectly insisted that the flights in question were “charter or cargo” services, and therefore ineligible to earn anything.
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This issue affected Qatar Airways flights marketed by Finnair
A few years ago, Finnair significantly expanded its partnership with its Oneworld alliance partner Qatar Airways. As part of this, Finnair began operating flights to Doha from Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen on behalf of Qatar Airways.
Finnair also began to codeshare on many Qatar Airways flights, including between Doha and Australia. These Finnair marketed codeshares operated by Qatar Airways all have flight numbers between AY6001 and AY6999. For example, Finnair markets the Qatar-operated flight from Perth to Doha as AY6530.
Fast forward to this year, and AFF member scott.in.the.clouds paid for a Finnair Business Class ticket from Melbourne to Stockholm via Doha. The sectors between Melbourne and Doha were codeshare flights operated by Qatar Airways.
According to the Qantas website, Finnair-marketed codeshare flights are eligible to earn Qantas points and status credits if they’re operated by Qantas or another Oneworld airline. The fare class itself was one that’s eligible to earn points.
This member automatically received the correct points and status credits for the Finnair-operated sectors between Doha and Stockholm. But not for the Melbourne-Doha or Doha-Melbourne flights. The same thing also happened to this member’s partner, who travelled on the same itinerary.
What happened when this member submitted a missing points claim
Scott.in.the.clouds first tried submitting a missing points request with the Qantas Frequent Flyer Service Centre, emailing copies of the boarding passes as proof that they’d taken the flights in question. Qantas replied by email that flights AY6684 (operated as QR905 from Melbourne to Doha) and AY6681 (operated as QR0988 from Doha to Melbourne) are charter or cargo flights, and therefore ineligible to earn Qantas points.
This was clearly not the case, but mistakes happen. That’s OK. A simple phone call should have been enough to clear up the confusion.
Unfortunately, when scott.in.the.clouds then tried calling Qantas, the agent simply doubled down and claimed that all Finnair flights numbered between AY6001 and AY6999 are ineligible for Qantas points and status credits. This member wrote on our forum:
The QF agents I have spoken to all insist that AY flights coded 6001-6999 are not eligible for earning Qantas points.
They acknowledged that my booking class R (business) is eligible for earning points, but they have based their decision on the flight codes AY 6684 and AY 6681 which are ineligible. This is not explained anywhere on the QF website. The agents will not budge and they will not let me escalate when I ask to speak to a supervisor. Very disappointing.
We requested a response from Qantas
After coming across these posts on the AFF forum, we contacted Qantas directly and asked them to look into it. If Qantas Frequent Flyer members were indeed not able to earn points on Finnair-marketed Qatar Airways flights, we felt it was important to draw attention to this because it would also affect many other unsuspecting passengers.
To Qantas’ credit, they did properly investigate the issue after we contacted them and have since acknowledged that this was a mistake. These flights are indeed eligible to earn Qantas points and status credits, it turns out, and Qantas has now fixed its internal systems to rectify the issue.
“We have apologised to the member and can confirm that they have now received the full amount of status credits and points they were entitled to for their travel,” a Qantas spokesperson said.
Why did Qantas repeatedly refuse to issue the correct points and status credits?
Qantas’ systems rely on updated flight number ranges provided by each partner airline to determine which flights, including codeshares, are eligible to earn points and status credits.
Australian Frequent Flyer understands that recent changes to Finnair’s codeshare arrangements with Qatar Airways hadn’t yet filtered down into Qantas’ internal systems.
Qantas will also retrospectively credit the points and status credits to other passengers who were incorrectly denied them for similar flights.
That’s certainly good news. We just wish that the impacted customers would have been able to resolve this issue themselves – and much sooner – rather than being stonewalled by Qantas contact centre staff who had incorrect information and seemed to lack the authority to fix or escalate the issue.
Qantas has invested heavily in technology and its contact centres over the past couple of years, and things have certainly improved on that front compared to the lows of 2022. But things like this are still slipping through the cracks, especially when customers who don’t have Qantas status aren’t able to reach a more experienced agent in Hobart.
