Qantas to release thousands of Classic Reward seats in Y, PE, J, F on 24 Feb 2023 around 11am

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wsthong said:
I posted the question and this dude asked me to pray. Who is not being helpful.
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Lighten up. They’re being funny & tongue in cheek.The ‘official’ answer to your question is easily found on the QF website or post 43. Hopefully your experience may be better than what many have had to endure now QF are apparently improving and enhancing their processes & responses.
 
wsthong said:
What is the process of changing a flight once redeemed via qantas points?
First timer here!
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Firstly, definitely prepare to have some time on your hands as you're unable to amend reward bookings online yourself - the only (efficient) way is to call Qantas.

FB and Twitter also have avenues to contact, but it will take hours / days for a response.

I've just recently had to go through the process to cancel / change flights, both unsuccessfully and successfully.

I recently had to cancel a 318k points capped Oneworld Awards trip in full (I got 90% of my 6 legs in business class, my partner however got a full business class itinerary also for the same 318k cap) due to work scheduling issues.

We called up to cancel both bookings, no fuss and we got 100% of our points back within 4hrs (also no cancellation fees were applied even despite it being quoted over the phone), plus our paid taxes back within 3-4 business days.

We then booked a 2nd trip (also 6 legs, but this time under the same QFF account to avoid the above issue of me not being able to get the same cabin class, as we did our bookings one by one in our separate QFF accounts).

For our 2nd last leg, we then saw some new seats / seats that perhaps someone else had cancelled and therefore it's come back up - I then called Qantas to try to change and it was really a matter of luck from there. For reward seats that I could see online, I got the below responses (on different calls):

- Sorry, we are unable to see these seats you see online
- We can see the seats you see online, however they are for new bookings only
- We can see the seats you see online, however only the 2nd leg has 2 adult business seats, the 1st leg only has 1 - we're not sure on why you can select 2 adults without issue
- Sorry, we can't change to this flight at all
- We can see another flight which you are unable to see online

It got a bit frustrating having to call up constantly and get a completely different response each time. I then gave up on trying to change that 2nd last leg.

I called the 13 13 13 number most of the time (and waited anywhere between 10-45mins to get through to an agent), before I found out about this thread / post -

Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

Days then went by and I then saw some new business reward seats for our 1st leg, so I then called the first alternative Qantas number and got through to an agent within 5 mins.

Once I got through, I was able to change my 1st leg flight from economy reward seats to business reward seats (same day, just a different flight that had business reward seats available) without issue at all. Not sure if it's because of competence (rather than incompetence) of the agent, or if there was actually no "system or QTY issues" etc as compared with the 2nd last leg (even though I could see and select the seats online myself!) as mentioned above.

It's really luck unfortunately - some agents will be good and some not so good.

TL;DR - Have a LOT of time and patience, and utilise the below alternative numbers instead of 13 13 13.

1300 304 318
1300 659 161
1300 025 396
1300 659 116
 
Last edited:
MelbFlyer said:
Firstly, definitely prepare to have some time on your hands as you're unable to amend reward bookings online yourself - the only (efficient) way is to call Qantas.

FB and Twitter also have avenues to contact, but it will take hours / days for a response.

I've just recently had to go through the process to cancel / change flights, both unsuccessfully and successfully.

I recently had to cancel a 318k points capped Oneworld Awards trip in full (I got 90% of my 6 legs in business class, my partner however got a full business class itinerary also for the same 318k cap) due to work scheduling issues.

We called up to cancel both bookings, no fuss and we got 100% of our points back within 4hrs (also no cancellation fees were applied even despite it being quoted over the phone), plus our paid taxes back within 3-4 business days.

We then booked a 2nd trip (also 6 legs, but this time under the same QFF account to avoid the above issue of me not being able to get the same cabin class, as we did our bookings one by one in our separate QFF accounts).

For our 2nd last leg, we then saw some new seats / seats that perhaps someone else had cancelled and therefore it's come back up - I then called Qantas to try to change and it was really a matter of luck from there. For reward seats that I could see online, I got the below responses (on different calls):

- Sorry, we are unable to see these seats you see online
- We can see the seats you see online, however they are for new bookings only
- We can see the seats you see online, however only the 2nd leg has 2 adult business seats, the 1st leg only has 1 - we're not sure on why you can select 2 adults without issue
- Sorry, we can't change to this flight at all
- We can see another flight which you are unable to see online

It got a bit frustrating having to call up constantly and get a completely different response each time. I then gave up on trying to change that 2nd last leg.

I called the 13 13 13 number most of the time (and waited anywhere between 10-45mins to get through to an agent), before I found out about this thread / post -

Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

Days then went by and I then saw some new business reward seats for our 1st leg, so I then called the first alternative Qantas number and got through to an agent within 5 mins.

Once I got through, I was able to change my 1st leg flight from economy reward seats to business reward seats (same day, just a different flight that had business reward seats available) without issue at all. Not sure if it's because of competence (rather than incompetence) of the agent, or if there was actually no "system or QTY issues" etc as compared with the 2nd last leg (even though I could see and select the seats online myself!) as mentioned above.

It's really luck unfortunately - some agents will be good and some not so good.

TL;DR - Have a LOT of time and patience, and utilise the below alternative numbers instead of 13 13 13.

1300 304 318
1300 659 161
1300 025 396
1300 659 116
Click to expand...
Thank you. It was very informative. I guess sometimes these agents are stressed.
 
wsthong said:
Thank you. It was very informative. I guess sometimes these agents are stressed.
Click to expand...

No problems - I wouldn't want anyone to go through the ordeal of having to call multiple times just to get a simple change done.

It wastes everyone's time - passengers and the agents themselves who could spend the time helping someone else instead.

If we can see on our end (and select) the seats online for the number of passengers we've selected, there's no reason for the agents to not be able to see them either.

To be 100% honest, it's probably easier to just cancel your booking in full and re-do it in full once you get your points back (rather than modifying).

Of course, the risk with that is in between the time of cancellation and your points coming back, those seats you see may be snapped up by someone else.

I would have cancelled completely and re-booked (as opposed to changing my booking), but I knew that the 2 business reward seats that I booked on my AY (Finnair) flight were the last 2 (as they didn't appear in a new search - only economy came up).

Of course, if Qantas was able to implement a system for rewards bookings to be changed online, it would answer 99% of people's prayers and would free up agents for other enquiries.

With their profit that they've just announced today, there's no reason for them to not be able to do that!
 
Big John said:
I shudder to think of the number of people logging on to obtain these seats.
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A lot of people on here will definitely login for sure.

Me included - I really want to replace the last leg of my flight (currently on JQ economy as that's all I could find at the time of my booking on the route and date I wanted) to even just QF economy!
 
I just noticed on the QF page the word "progressively" released at 11am... I had in my head the whole swag would get dropped right on 11am.
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snabbu said:
I just noticed on the QF page the word "progressively" released at 11am... I had in my head the whole swag would get dropped right on 11am.
View attachment 317347
Click to expand...
as someone noted up thread, they will be released progressivly from 11 o’clock, so maybe spread progressively over the next two years? 🙂
 

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