Article: Airlines Get Away With So Much By Fobbing Off Complaints

[lady]

I have found AIR ASIA to be far away the worst to try to contact ---- never mind getting compensation.
At best you can find their AI bot BO. No b----y use at all.
Am considering ACCC or airline ombudsman to follow up on treatment by them.

Having said my piece I must add that cabin staff are amazing what they manage to do with what is permitted/provided by the airline. KUDOS TO THEM!

 

[BVT]

Air Canada!

A letter to the CEO, copied to the Chairman with fortnightly follow ups, eventually produced exactly half of the compensation claimed, by way of flight voucher .... not terribly useful if you live in Australia!

 

[jase05]

Oman Air has given me some grief over the years. Wonderful product and staff great in the air but if something goes wrong they don’t want to know about it.
Had issues of them not offering any accommodation and basically told to fend for ourselves in Muscat as it was our choice not to accept the downgrade to Y on an overbooked flight to BKK. The lack of service desk at MCT was useless and after several hours of dialogue between staff we eventually were rebooked in J for 2 days later but fobbed off by staff and told that we would need to foot the bill for accommodation ourselves and told that we “might” get compensated later. After 3 months of back and forth I decided it wasn’t worth my time or money and gave up.
Another time we had a cancellation and I needed to pay for a ticket on Etihad and it took over 6 months to get a refund. Many calls and emails and eventually but eventually got the money back.
Interestingly I have a UK based cousin who works in Oman and flys back and forwards several times per year and he said they are the worst and make BA look like a competent airline in comparison

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Travelled with Virgin from Melb to Queenstown NZ on 25 Oct 2024 with 2 pieces of luggage totalling less than 23Kgs the allowance given for the ticket we had purchased. Contacted their customer service 2 days prior to confirm we would be able to travel that way. At Melb airport Virgin booked us in with 2 pieces of luggage. On our return from Queenstown flight 10 Nov 2024, Virgin charged us excess baggage as we had two pieces of luggage, still weighing in total less than the 23 kgs allowed. Lodged a complaint 13 Nov no response from Virgin, resubmitted the complaint on 4 Dec 2024 no response. then wrote a letter 7 Jan 2025 reiterating earlier complaints and have not heard anything! I received acknowledgements that the complaints had been received but no resolution of the complaints!! The letter went totally unanswered!! Virgin not remotely interested in making contact just taking your money!!

The published allowance has long been 1 bag maximum, at up to 23kg maximum. You got lucky getting the fees waived in one direction, although you shouldn't have been given incorrect information by the airline. Still, the ticketed allowance would apply, and the ticketed allowance is 1x23kg.

 

[Melburnian1]

In 2022 we had a return flight in J MAN-AUH-MEL with Etihad using Aeroplan points. They attempted to downgrade us at the airport to economy on the AUH-MEL leg, which I refused and they eventually provided the business class we had redeemed for the following day. We were given vouchers at MAN which I later realised were EU261 payments for the change. That's where the issues started. It took over 6 months to actually get the money. I had something like a dozen calls with promises made that it would be in my account the next day, or that I would get a call back, or that the bank details I provided were wrong. I documented each of these along with the employees name, and it was only after I emailed the only executive I could find details for (I think he was the CFO) with the notes I had taken that the money magically appeared in my account the following week.

jgm, well done for being persistent.

Time and time again it seems what you did - contacting a senior staffer - is the only way to see money owed come your weigh.

I struggle to name any other subsector in Australia's economy that has such a disgraceful record of failing to pay their dues. Once upon a time it may have been used car dealers, but consumer protection laws have helped purchasers somewhat.

 

[SydneySwan]

Oman Air make BA look like a competent airline in comparison

BA competent? An astonishingly low bar indeed.

 

[jase05]

BA competent? An astonishingly low bar indeed.

And this was coming from a long time top tier BA FF.
He said WY are absolutely hopeless in that area which is a pity as their in air service is very good. When things go right it’s great but when they go wrong

 

[harvyk]

I have a Qantas complaint here, last year my family and I where in SIN, and the night before we where meant to fly home we got a message that our return flight to SYD was postponed by 15 hours. Lucky enough our hotel was able to extend our booking by an extra night (family of 6, already it's limited options in SIN, before trying to book it literally last minute). So $1,100 later at least we weren't going to be on the street the night we where supposed to fly home. This is after spending 2 hours trying to get through to Qantas on the phone, with the number in the SMS going no where.

So now I'm back in Australia, Qantas says "sorry, oh and here is $200 for your accom". It was 6 of us on a single booking, so that was $200 for accom total that they where willing to pay. I forget how many letters and phone calls it took, but I ended up telling them over the phone "I'm been a loyal Qantas flyer for 18 years, I have always chosen the Qantas option every time I fly, and yet never again, you can just cancel my FF account here and now". That seemed to upset the woman at the other end of the phone.

The person on the phone then decided as a gesture of good will to refund the full $1,100. All the other expenses of an extra unplanned day we still paid for ourselves (wasn't really that much).

I realised something today, it's now been over a year since I stepped foot on a Qantas aircraft.

Qantas, love the airline, hate the company.

 

[dajop]

So now I'm back in Australia, Qantas says "sorry, oh and here is $200 for your accom". It was 6 of us on a single booking, so that was $200 for accom total that they where willing to pay. I

Was your hotel booking just one "room"? (i.e a single room number, regardless of how many rooms within the room number). There policy states "A$200 or local equivalent value per room booked reimbursement (receipts required)^" It penalises those with multiple occupants of a single "room" even though the room might have been several "rooms" within a suite, for example. So - a theoretical exercise - if you had booked a cheap ibis hotel (for example) at $200/night for 6 individual rooms - you might well have been reimbursed $1200 no fuss.

 

[harvyk]

Was your hotel booking just one "room"? (i.e a single room number, regardless of how many rooms within the room number). There policy states "A$200 or local equivalent value per room booked reimbursement (receipts required)^" It penalises those with multiple occupants of a single "room" even though the room might have been several "rooms" within a suite, for example. So - a theoretical exercise - if you had booked a cheap ibis hotel (for example) at $200/night for 6 individual rooms - you might well have been reimbursed $1200 no fuss.

QF's original answer was it was $200 per flight booking, so a booking of 6 people still equalled $200.

Also having 4 kids under the age of 18 severely limited our options esp last minute.