Article: The Challenges of Booking Qantas Reward Tickets By Phone

[Darjulian]

The Challenges of Booking Qantas Reward Tickets By Phone is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

The Challenges of Booking & Changing Qantas Classic Reward Tickets By Phone

Many Qantas customers are already well aware of the major problems right now with the Qantas call centre. To Qantas' credit, the horrifyingly long wait

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

Still awaiting call back from at least 7 different calls. Currently unable to find Classic Reward seats home from New York to Australia on QF website even though there is a lot of availability showing on the AA website.

Can’t believe I can’t fly out of Australia or back on Qantas, our national provider.

Ian Williams

 

[BD1959]

Can’t believe I can’t fly out of Australia or back on Qantas, our national provider.

There's actually nothing unusual in flights being available, just NOT on QF - it appears as though QF actively encourage you to spend points on other carriers at times, especially on premium routes (eg US and UK).

Still awaiting call back from at least 7 different calls. Currently unable to find Classic Reward seats home from New York to Australia on QF website even though there is a lot of availability showing on the AA website.

What are you seeing available on AA you're not seeing on QF? When are you looking to fly?

Regards,

BD

 

[Darjulian]

Looking to return from JFK to Melbourne on about 8 Aug 23 in Business Class

Ian

 

[BD1959]

Looking to return from JFK to Melbourne on about 8 Aug 23 in Business Class

Ian

That date won't be loaded in QFF yet. Flights currently on sale until 3 Aug 2023.

Regards,

BD

 

[Darjulian]

That date won't be loaded in QFF yet. Flights currently on sale until 3 Aug 2023.

Regards,

BD

Thank you, how can you determine that as flights on JL via HND are showing

Regards

Ian

Post automatically merged: Aug 15, 2022

Sorry my mistake, I am wanting to return on 8 July 23.

Ian

 

[Darjulian]

That date won't be loaded in QFF yet. Flights currently on sale until 3 Aug 2023.

Regards,

BD

Sorry date should be around 8 July 23

 

[Princess Fiona]

Sorry date should be around 8 July 23

I can’t see any standard Awards on AA on that date in any class. Only the expensive AAnytime Awards. These don’t show up on QF or any other OW booking engine as they aren’t normal Award seats.

 

[Darjulian]

I can’t see any standard Awards on AA on that date in any class. Only the expensive AAnytime Awards. These don’t show up on QF or any other OW booking engine as they aren’t normal Award seats.

Post automatically merged: Aug 15, 2022

 

[Princess Fiona]

Post automatically merged: Aug 15, 2022

View attachment 288230

This pic shows what I mean. These are not regular Award Business class seats.
They are AAnytime Awards booking into J
You need U availability and there is none. That’s why QF can’t see that as it’s not a business class award seat at all
AA has no U class on any of their aircraft on those dates.

EDIT: USA to Australia is 80K Miles on a normal MilesAAver Award in Business Class

 

[levelnine]

Post automatically merged: Aug 15, 2022

If you click on the business ticket and go to details, you will see this page. It needs to show U in the booking code (here it shows J) for it to be bookable as a Qantas classic flight award:

 

[Dr4manyspecies]

The only way to reliably change flights with Qantas is to rebook online and cancel the original booking. My flight was changed by Emirates, Qantas failed to re-ticket my flights, I called Mindpearl Manila multiple times and eventually they ticketed my first class booking in economy, I told them of their mistake, they hung-up. After about a week of trying to contact someone competent in Hobart I gave-up and rebooked. I still have my first class tickets but Qantas all but called me a liar, they only saw an economy booking and were unable to receive emails, so I could not prove otherwise. That was in February. I'm still waiting to hear back from Qantas (ie the airline, not the wine merchants - they call me regularly). I would prefer to sit on hold for a day knowing eventually I would get someone competent, than spend a week trying to avoid Mindpearl. Qantas has done irreparable brand damage to itself. Time to shut down Mindpearl or change your core business to selling wine.

I hear ya, glennp. I spent numerous days trying to book flights to the US with a credit. I too had multiple people say they'd call me back... with the last one I LITERALLY laughed out loud at her which must've been the key because she did actually ring me back two days later
It still took two more calls to sort it.
For added fun, on that trip I then collectively had 9 flight changes/cancellations (rather annoying that I paid more to get short layovers and then ended up with a 4 hour longer wait on the outbound flight and got home a day and a half after the initially booked flights). The app wouldn't allow me to update to a local phone number and I collectively got 2 emails alerting me of changes... of those, there was no offer of hotel or any other assistance/voucher/etc and I just sucked it up.
I guess the only good thing is that I no longer have a credit to burn so I don't have to deal with the call centre for now.

 

[adenda]

This pic shows what I mean. These are not regular Award Business class seats.
They are AAnytime Awards booking into J
You need U availability and there is none. That’s why QF can’t see that as it’s not a business class award seat at all
AA has no U class on any of their aircraft on those dates.

EDIT: USA to Australia is 80K Miles on a normal MilesAAver Award in Business Class

A bit OT but relevant to this post ...
I've been looking for AA availability between Lima and Miami for May/June 23 to close the last gap in our OWA booking and there is absolutely no U class seats on that sector for any date in 2023 that I can find (searching on AA website)
I did find one date that had seats available - 22 December 2022.
When I booked the same itinerary 2 years ago (cancelled of course) it was quite easy to find AA availability on that sector.
Does anyone have any idea what is going on? Does AA not release award seats until closer to the travel date?