If you have trouble, contact Jetstar... how?

[Eric George]

The difference between Jetstar and the theatre is that the theatre will try to sell your tickets on the night - if warned in advance. I can guarantee they will be sympathetic if they have to charge you. They don't have you by the short and curlies - you can always have an evening at the cinema or another theatre. We were stuck in Singapore, and Jetstar knew it... All they wanted was to make sure they sold us the ticket out of there.

 

[anat0l]

I would characterise it as exploitative. So - Fly Jetstar and be ready to be exploited (or screwed) at every legal opportunity.

It's times like this where I think any further advice to the OP is a folly exercise.

 

[Eric George]

I'm aware of the costs associated with mobile roaming, but i'm also aware of the public phones located in Singapore, and the many internet cafe's, phone books, information centers and helpful people.

As the poster has stated anyway they knew of this but didn't know after the fact, so that's not a JQ (or any airlines issue).

Sorry I was not clear - the number on the website was a Melbourne one i.e. an international call from Singapore Airport. I imagined I was speaking to Jetstar in Melbourne, and most of that $75 was spent listening to mindless advertising jingles about Jetstar while waiting for the next customer service agent to be free...

 

[Eric George]

It's times like this where I think any further advice to the OP is a folly exercise.

Quite right, Anat0l. I don't want advice. I just want to warn people that if you have a problem, don't expect help or human behaviour from JQ. Swallow your losses and book with a proper airline.

 

[anat0l]

Sorry I was not clear - the number on the website was a Melbourne one i.e. an international call from Singapore Airport. I imagined I was speaking to Jetstar in Melbourne, and most of that $75 was spent listening to mindless advertising jingles about Jetstar while waiting for the next customer service agent to be free...

The Singapore contact number was given on the website as 800 6161 977. I'm assuming this is toll-free or a local call in Singapore.

The alternative number is an Australian number, which obviously from Singapore would not be a free call.

 

[dajop]

All they wanted was to make sure they sold us the ticket out of there.

How much did they end up charging you at the last minute? Was it the fully flex fare around $1k SGD? This may have been an issue - sometimes you can get last minute (return) fares on some airlines for around $750 (not oneway though!) but if it was anything less than $700 SGD, you probably did the best you could have given the different carriers that fly the route or indeed any route back to Oz.

 

[mannej]

Yes, of course, Jetstar was legally 'in the right' when they screwed us (apart from the misleading bit).
Of course, being uncontactable, refusing to take information from my friend, charging us the full whack when we had done everything we could to mitigate the problem, generally refusing to listen, does not represent not customer-friendly operations. I would characterise it as exploitative. So - Fly Jetstar and be ready to be exploited (or screwed) at every legal opportunity.
By the way, having it done to you legitimately does not make it feel any better, believe me.

Sorry, but Jetstar never screwed you. They are not legally entitled to speak to your friend regarding your flight due to privacy laws, I am guessing that the only way around this is if you had a TA book the ticket.

As part of your prep to travel (anywhere), you should have the numbers of each airline and hotel as a minimum. This would be a big help in situations like this where you could not access the info from the location you were at.

You have not mentioned your original connection time or the length of your delay, as they are both important in working out what went wrong here(IMO). As previously mentioned, flights like this, that are booked over different tickets are a risk, and you aren't protected if anything goes wrong. Perhaps you should have contacted the first carrier to see what they could do to help you if anything. They are the ones who delayed you, so they should be the first port of call.

Looking at the JQ website, you had up two 24hrs before a flight to change the booking, for a fee and the difference between the original fare and the new fare, which may have added up to the 2.5x you had to pay anyway (not 350%?). LCC's are very inflexible, and if you got a Jetsaver fare, chances are the T&C's would have been fairly restrictive aswell.

I think you may just have to cop the lessons that adequate insurance and preparation before you leave is essential. Perhaps a TA could book this type of ticket on a single itinerary and ticket to protect the connection next time.

Its a pity that it is an expensive lesson

 

[mannej]

Swallow your losses and book with a proper airline.

Or book through on a single itinerary to protect you against missed connections?

 

[gilby08]

Sorry I was not clear - the number on the website was a Melbourne one i.e. an international call from Singapore Airport. I imagined I was speaking to Jetstar in Melbourne, and most of that $75 was spent listening to mindless advertising jingles about Jetstar while waiting for the next customer service agent to be free...

Sorry but if you access the internet in SIN, the website would've directed you to the 3K (singapore based) website, then down at the contact us section, Singapore is the 1st number listed on that list..
There are 16 different phone numbers for 16 different countries, nearly all are toll free.

 

[Eric George]

Guys, guys, listen to me. We knew we had a problem 30 hrs out. We had no internet, but our friend got us a contact number from Jetstar - didn't work. What to do now? Email them - you only get a customer feedback form from the website (expect an answer in a couple of days) and there is NOTHING on your ticket. No contact details at all.

Jetstar was effectively uncontactable. So our friend went to Cairns Airport where no-one would listen to her. If they wanted to nit-pick over legal issues, they could have given her a contact number we could call, but they would not even talk to her.

Once we got to Singapore, we could ONLY buy tickets from the 0800 number, not talk about our probelms. When we got to the website, we found a Melbourne number given as contact. In fact it was not a real contact, simply a switch-through to the ticket sales office in Malaysia.

Point is, throughout the whole protracted saga, NO-ONE from Jetstar would talk to us. Not even when we got back to Australia, when they just referred us to their website. Jetstar did not help, did not listen, did not care.

Don't let it happen to you, folks. Even if you have insurance, the sheer frustration of being stone-walled at every turn is not worth it. Use another airline, that's the lesson to take away.

 

[docjames]

. We knew we had a problem 30 hrs out.
.

This amount of warning is not really relevant - what is relevant is the amount of time in connection between the flights you booked. As has been posted, your problems may have been avoided by taking a conservative apporach and allowing a much bigger window between flights. eg. i was not prepared to risk DRW-SIN on a JQ ticket when connecting to QF SIN-LHR lest the JQ flight be delayed and I get stuck in SIN (and then as you did, be "forced" to pay a fortune to get on another flight).

The comments to your OP have been if you book inflexible tickets on any carrier, expect to either lose them completely (a LCC) or pay fees to change (LCC or "legacy" carrier) if you cant make the flight. Any amount of waring (30hrs, 3hrs or 3mins) is irrelevant.


Again, how close was the connection and which airline(s) was/were carrying you Mongolia-SIN?


The lack of a person to speak to the instant you have a problem (agian, be it 30hr or 3hr in advance) is the tradeoff for buying a cheap ticket on a LCC. As you rightly advise, if you want to be able to talk to someone about a problem with your booking at any time, dont use Jetstar (or any other LLC - eg. Air Asia, Tiger etc). Use a "legacy" or "full service" carrier (and expect to pay a higher price).

 

[gilby08]

Jetstar was effectively uncontactable. So our friend went to Cairns Airport where no-one would listen to her. If they wanted to nit-pick over legal issues, they could have given her a contact number we could call, but they would not even talk to her..

I hope you relise that alot of airport phones can not dial an outside line, let alone an international number

Once we got to Singapore, we could ONLY buy tickets from the 0800 number, not talk about our probelms. When we got to the website, we found a Melbourne number given as contact. In fact it was not a real contact, simply a switch-through to the ticket sales office in Malaysia...

It's a call center, the call centre has a presence in Malaysia and in Carlton in Melbourne, which is owned by Salesforce which is a sales company. Some people will say that this shouldn't matter and that they should help regardless of who/what the company/contractors are. But this is a LCC, not a full service carrier.
The call center serves the asian Jetstar network (3k) and also the Australian network (JQ). Obviously if someone in Malaysia is avail first you would be directed to them first.

Point is, throughout the whole protracted saga, NO-ONE from Jetstar would talk to us. Not even when we got back to Australia, when they just referred us to their website. Jetstar did not help, did not listen, did not care.

Why keep blaming Jetstar for? Blame the other airline that delayed you?

Don't let it happen to you, folks. Even if you have insurance, the sheer frustration of being stone-walled at every turn is not worth it. Use another airline, that's the lesson to take away.

I think the lesson learnt is that i should never use that 1st airline that you still haven't spoken much of.

 

[gilby08]

The lack of a person to speak to the instant you have a problem (agian, be it 30hr or 3hr in advance) is the tradeoff for buying a cheap ticket on a LCC.

But with this there are numerous phone numbers that JQ have for people to use, and they would all work.

 

[yohy?!]

Guys, guys, listen to me. We knew we had a problem 30 hrs out. We had no internet, but our friend got us a contact number from Jetstar - didn't work. What to do now? Email them - you only get a customer feedback form from the website (expect an answer in a couple of days) and there is NOTHING on your ticket. No contact details at all..

Don't book an air ticket without knowing how to (or who will) change it?

Jetstar was effectively uncontactable. So our friend went to Cairns Airport where no-one would listen to her. If they wanted to nit-pick over legal issues, they could have given her a contact number we could call, but they would not even talk to her.

Why couldn't she look up the number herself from the Contact Us link on the jetstar.com website? This is clearly shown multiple times on your E-Ticket as the way to reach them by phone.

Once we got to Singapore, we could ONLY buy tickets from the 0800 number, not talk about our probelms. When we got to the website, we found a Melbourne number given as contact. In fact it was not a real contact, simply a switch-through to the ticket sales office in Malaysia.

The problem was that you didn't notify Jetstar to change your flight and accordingly forfeited it.

Point is, throughout the whole protracted saga, NO-ONE from Jetstar would talk to us. Not even when we got back to Australia, when they just referred us to their website. Jetstar did not help, did not listen, did not care.

Had you managed to speak to them prior to missing your flight they would've been able to help. Of course now you are trying to extract money from them for your mistake what exactly are they supposed to do? They're a business not a charity and one that is run on tight margins and even tighter conditions.

Don't let it happen to you, folks. Even if you have insurance, the sheer frustration of being stone-walled at every turn is not worth it. Use another airline, that's the lesson to take away.

Travel 101: Buy insurance, carry print outs of your itinerary and passport and know who to call if you are travelling somewhere with no internet!!

 

[Eric George]

But with this there are numerous phone numbers that JQ have for people to use, and they would all work.

May be it was just the days we were having our problems that they did not work... Believe me, we did everything we could to speak to ANY Jetstar employee. This was not just a miss on their part - they were purposefully uncontactable. Why else would they brush off my friend in Cairns with a call centre number, instead of taking detils from her, or giving a number where we could speak to a real person.

 

[dajop]

Travel 101: Buy insurance, carry print outs of your itinerary and passport and know who to call if you are travelling somewhere with no internet!!

And add one more - Have a Plan B - if travelling with connections on separate tickets, work out in advance what your options will be if you miss such a connection.

 

[gilby08]

May be it was just the days we were having our problems that they did not work... Believe me, we did everything we could to speak to ANY Jetstar employee. This was not just a miss on their part - they were purposefully uncontactable. Why else would they brush off my friend in Cairns with a call centre number, instead of taking detils from her, or giving a number where we could speak to a real person.

They must have known that you were calling so they switched off all their phone numbers around the world with all the different telco providers and their 3rd party contact centres. :shock:

Because the airport staff are ground staff and are there to check people in, tag bags, depart flights etc etc. Why couldn't your friend get the phone numbers on the Jetstar website? Would've saved alot of time and petrol and airport parking fees.
As for the CSA taking details, they cannot do that, it is a breach of privacy. If it is not the customer in anyway/shape or form, a company can not help.

 

[Eric George]

Don't book an air ticket without knowing how to (or who will) change it?



Why couldn't she look up the number herself from the Contact Us link on the jetstar.com website? This is clearly shown multiple times on your E-Ticket as the way to reach them by phone.

Yup - that's the number to the call centre - where we started.

The problem was that you didn't notify Jetstar to change your flight and accordingly forfeited it.

Yup, and guess why we did not notify them? They were uncontactable, apart from the call centre who sell you tickets, and they weren't talking about anything else.

Had you managed to speak to them prior to missing your flight they would've been able to help. Of course now you are trying to extract money from them for your mistake what exactly are they supposed to do? They're a business not a charity and one that is run on tight margins and even tighter conditions.

Yup, they might just have had to charge us a penalty, but as they were uncontactable, they were able to slug with a full new fare.

Travel 101: Buy insurance, carry print outs of your itinerary and passport and know who to call if you are travelling somewhere with no internet!!

Yup, but before you leave check the phone numbers actually go to some-one who can listen.

 

[Eric George]

They must have known that you were calling so they switched off all their phone numbers around the world with all the different telco providers and their 3rd party contact centres. :shock:

Because the airport staff are ground staff and are there to check people in, tag bags, depart flights etc etc. Why couldn't your friend get the phone numbers on the Jetstar website? Would've saved alot of time and petrol and airport parking fees.
As for the CSA taking details, they cannot do that, it is a breach of privacy. If it is not the customer in anyway/shape or form, a company can not help.

Right, Jetstar choses not be available in Singapore but to operate at arm's length, but it was the Cairns Airport Jetstar manager who brushed off my friend, and nothing she could do would prise out a phone number to call - apart from the ticket sales call centre.

No excuses about being a LCC - if you don't want to talk to your customers when they have problems, you deserve to be remembered as actively unfirendly.

 

[yohy?!]

They must have known that you were calling so they switched off all their phone numbers around the world with all the different telco providers and their 3rd party contact centres. :shock:

Because the airport staff are ground staff and are there to check people in, tag bags, depart flights etc etc. Why couldn't your friend get the phone numbers on the Jetstar website? Would've saved alot of time and petrol and airport parking fees.
As for the CSA taking details, they cannot do that, it is a breach of privacy. If it is not the customer in anyway/shape or form, a company can not help.

+1 +1 +1 what else can be said? If you want to fly the cheapest prepare to take responsibility for yourself. . .