A Rant - Dealing with Qantas since COVID has been nothing but difficult

[JRWhite]

Dealing with Qantas since the COVID outbreak has been nothing but difficult

I probably now have some sort of flag that comes up when I call, labeling me a pest as nothing is ever able to be resolved in one call and promised call backs often fail to happen. In saying that - there have been some very pleasant people in customer care that have worked to resolve some the issues, but it always seems difficult as issues are beyond the agents ability to easily resolve with different departments

Summary of frustrating issues
1. I got left stranded by Qantas when the fleet was grounded and $5K out of pocket to get home with another airline.
2. I was about to go P1 with forward bookings when COVID hit so asked the question about P1 status but it was a flat no.
3. Refunds delays - one took 8 months (not sure they all would have happened if I had not followed up)
4. Cancelled / changed bookings for what travel I have done
5. Issues with missing credit card Frequent flyer bonus spend points that took a long time to resolve
6. Now an issue of not being able to use the a credit and paying more than what was originally quoted due to Qantas errors

Qantas are frustrating to deal with to say the least - Latest is issue 6 above
Context: I am a WP (life Gold) - father (Life Gold) pass away unexpectedly
* We had to phone to book credit for my mother (credit in her name)
* Booked with call center flights so she could travel with me on a work and sport trip. Tickets were supposed to be issued within a hour
* Tickets never arrived, so phoneed back -no history of the booking apparently and the credit is archived
* Only solution was to book tickets on completly new itinerary and pay on CC, with Qantas advising the credit would be sent for immediate refund as opposed to the 6-8 week process

Problem 1: We ended up having to to pay more for the quoted flights as the price had changed from what was supposed to be ticketed 24 hrs earlier. I am told the only reolsution is to open a customer care case and they will apparently go listen to the original call and hopefully refund the difference as the booking team cannot address the cost increase despite the failure being a Qantas error

Problem 2: I have to again provide certified copies of the death certificate and certified copy of the last will showing I am the appointed executor as the original payment method was my late fathers credit card

Problem 3: Emailed Customer care as advised and when followed up - no case number exists as it has to be lodged on the online form - which I have now done but we have lost a week in the process

Problem 4: when following up the refund - I am am now told it will be 6-8 weeks when I was told this would be immediately processed as a refund as we were not able to use the credit as advised and instead had to purchase a new itinerary

 

[MJHoops]

I don’t normally recommend suing over issues like this
But I sued Qantas in vcat with an issue very similar to your travel credit one
I tried retrieving the situation via the Fiji call centre on 11 Aug to no avail

On Friday 12 Aug I forwarded the application once filed to three emails -
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

On Friday 19 Aug I was contacted by a member of customer care by email and given a phone number to call
Today Thursday 24 Aug that particular issue has been resolved

 

[JRWhite]

I don’t normally recommend suing over issues like this
But I sued Qantas in vcat with an issue very similar to your travel credit one
I tried retrieving the situation via the Fiji call centre on 11 Aug to no avail

On Friday 12 Aug I forwarded the application once filed to three emails -
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

On Friday 19 Aug I was contacted by a member of customer care by email and given a phone number to call
Today Thursday 24 Aug that particular issue has been resolved

I see other members with bigger issues than mine, like losing reward bookings for much needed family holidays when a holiday probably has never been more needed with all the COVID madness and stress created for many over the last couple of years

On paying extra for the new itinerary.
I was told by a helpful lovely Qantas agent yesterday that the issue with paying more for the new itinerary will go nowhere, so agreed to close that case. Life is too short to spend any further time on that matter.


On the matter of the refund of the credit.
This still seems complicated. They asked for another statutory declaration yesterday, so still waiting. This issue seems completely wrong. Qantas converted AUD bookings to travel passes before the bookings were archived. It seems for credits in other currencies, the policy is to refund when someone rings up to book a new itinerary, i.e. You must buy a new itinerary to get the refund.
1. Some people may not have the ability to fund the a new itinerary purchase while waiting for the refund.
2. It gets rather difficult to sort out in a situation like mine where a refund cannot be processed to the original payment method. It is frustrating because I was speaking to Qantas in May this year with regards to credits in my late fathers name and the reason this credit was not refundable was because the credit was in my mothers name and she could use on future travel.

 

[MJHoops]

Frustrating is, I suspect, an understatement

I commend your calm sounding tone about it all!

I just can’t believe the only way to get through to someone who can actually try to fix clear Qantas errors, within a reasonable time, is to pay $225 to get their attention with a consumer tribunal claim… they must be putting out spot fires all over the place

 

[JRWhite]

Frustrating is, I suspect, an understatement

I commend your calm sounding tone about it all!

I just can’t believe the only way to get through to someone who can actually try to fix clear Qantas errors, within a reasonable time, is to pay $225 to get their attention with a consumer tribunal claim… they must be putting out spot fires all over the place

Yes, nuts that you have to spend $225 to try and get the case put infront of the right person.

Expecting common sense, or appropriate compensation for some of the past issues and out of pocket costs with Qantas from my own past experience is simply not going to happen. Holding onto it simply is not healthy. No one seems to have an ability to address / fix issues.

Pre COVID, I decided to give Qantas all my travel and added some additional bookings to push for P1 but I now split my travel between different Air NZ and Qantas. I hold Gold Elite status with Air NZ, but the benefits are not as good as Qantas and Air NZ don’t have the same flight routes.

I have been travelling enough with Qantas to maintain WP despite having LTG but they risk me giving up chasing enough status credits to retain WP and travelling even less with Qantas in the future.

 

[JRWhite]

UPDATE

It remained a little unclear if the refunds team require me to waste another hour of myself driving across town to find another JP for another stat dec



It is a nightmare trying to get confirmation from Qantas

• Attempt 1; Phoned this morning to seek confirmation. As customers are not allowed to be transferred to the refunds department, The agent advises he will phone me back in 15 minutes
• 
  
• Attempt 2: 2 hours later when that has not occurred, start again. The new agent will put me on hold while they speak to the refunds team, I get cut off (no call back)
• 
  
• Attempt 3 : So phone back, start again, wait online while the agent messages with who he says he the team manager. Waiting for an email from them to confirm hopefully that as per phone call, refund will be 7-14 days. Get cut off

Still no confirmation

I promise I am doing my best to be polite, but this is so bloody exhausting

Yes, it is complicated, but it is Qantas who have made it complicated. If we could have used the credit, we would not have a problem. This really is totally unacceptable.