Award ticket re-scheduling - ?airline obligation for overnight accommodation

[andrew58]

Just looking for some advice. I have a J award ticket Bru-Dxb-Hkg-Syd-Mel but the connection in Hkg has just become untenable because of a schedule change for the Hkg-Syd flight (QF118). After discussing with the QF service centre, I have been re-booked (initially reluctantly) onto QF30 (Hkg-Mel) the following day meaning now an overnight stay in Hkg (22 hours to be precise). Do QF have any obligation to provide accommodation for this forced overnight stay? Of course nothing re accommodation was offered but now that I have my new (J) flight to Mel confirmed I can go back to them and raise the accommodation issue if I'm likely to have any success. Thanks for your advice.

 

[serfty]

The airline will likely endeavor to avoid any responsibility for accommodating you.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Just looking for some advice. I have a J award ticket Bru-Dxb-Hkg-Syd-Mel but the connection in Hkg has just become untenable because of a schedule change for the Hkg-Syd flight (QF118). After discussing with the QF service centre, I have been re-booked (initially reluctantly) onto QF30 (Hkg-Mel) the following day meaning now an overnight stay in Hkg (22 hours to be precise). Do QF have any obligation to provide accommodation for this forced overnight stay? Of course nothing re accommodation was offered but now that I have my new (J) flight to Mel confirmed I can go back to them and raise the accommodation issue if I'm likely to have any success. Thanks for your advice.

I'd write to them and say you've noticed this is a 22 hour oernight stop and ask them what they can do to assist you with either a shorter connection or accommodation. See what they say.

 

[dajop]

I'd write to them and say you've noticed this is a 22 hour oernight stop and ask them what they can do to assist you with either a shorter connection or accommodation. See what they say.

This + make sure you mention that it was an "involuntary change" .

 

[eminere]

Might be difficult now to get Qantas to provide you with accommodation for the overnight in HK since you have already accepted the alternative flight. You didn't ask about accommodation before you accepted the flight change to QF30?

 

[Pushka]

We had similar issues in September when EK changed their flights into Sydney meaning we couldn’t connect to Adelaide that night. An F booking. While overnight accommodation in Sydney was promised by Qantas it never happened. We had accepted the change on the basis of an overnight hotel but not that we had any choice as Qantas stopped flying out of Dubai.

 

[Kangol]

See if there is a CX flight with a better connection time and ask to be put on that.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

See if there is a CX flight with a better connection time and ask to be put on that.

That will depend on CX award availability. If available, I'd would expect QF to waive any additinal points.

 

[Austman]

I can go back to them and raise the accommodation issue if I'm likely to have any success.

You can certainly go back to them.

I've never had any success over many years in the same situation. Where I have seen some success is when it's the same arrival and departure airline and they have a transit accommodation policy.

Good luck! Let us know!

 

[andrew58]

That will depend on CX award availability. If available, I'd would expect QF to waive any additinal points.

Thanks for your helpful replies. No I didn't push the accommodation consideration when speaking to them because I was worried a downgrade was coming as there was no availability at all in J (award) to any port in Australia the next day. After I made some noises about Qantas must surely have an obligation to re-route me, the agent then "forced" (his word) a J award seat on the flight to Melbourne (QF30). I thought I'd wait for the confirmation of the new flight to show up before pushing the accommodation issue. At this stage no award availability in CX is showing, not even in Y. There is a CX flight leaving at 0010 which would be perfect and EF shows at least 9 I class seats, but can/do Qantas make those available?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks for your helpful replies. No I didn't push the accommodation consideration when speaking to them because I was worried a downgrade was coming as there was no availability at all in J (award) to any port in Australia the next day. After I made some noises about Qantas must surely have an obligation to re-route me, the agent then "forced" (his word) a J award seat on the flight to Melbourne (QF30). I thought I'd wait for the confirmation of the new flight to show up before pushing the accommodation issue. At this stage no award availability in CX is showing, not even in Y. There is a CX flight leaving at 0010 which would be perfect and EF shows at least 9 I class seats, but can/do Qantas make those available?

The QF agent wasn't doing you any favours at all. They were just following standard re-booking procedures for when something like this happens.

Qantas can convert any seat on any plane over to an award seat whenever it wants. That's all that happened here. You could have had your pick of route, date and time. So if HKG-BNE-xx_ was more suitable you could have asked for that (or any other combination). And you still can ring up to request an alternative routing if there's something else that suits you better. (Just mention that you didn't have time to explore options during the initial call.)

QF can't however do the same for partner airlines. Award availability is controlled only by that airline. Qantas could put in a request to have a revenue seat released by CX but I reckon it would be about a zero chance of happening. CX has no incentive to do so and have plenty of members of their own program who would be after any award seats.

 

[andrew58]

The QF agent wasn't doing you any favours at all. They were just following standard re-booking procedures for when something like this happens.

Qantas can convert any seat on any plane over to an award seat whenever it wants. That's all that happened here. You could have had your pick of route, date and time. So if HKG-BNE-xx_ was more suitable you could have asked for that (or any other combination). And you still can ring up to request an alternative routing if there's something else that suits you better. (Just mention that you didn't have time to explore options during the initial call.)

QF can't however do the same for partner airlines. Award availability is controlled only by that airline. Qantas could put in a request to have a revenue seat released by CX but I reckon it would be about a zero chance of happening. CX has no incentive to do so and have plenty of members of their own program who would be after any award seats.

Thanks for that. The funny thing was, when i was talking to the agent I could 'see' that there was a Hkg-Bne J award seat available on the QF website for the following day (when I'm now travelling) but the agent insisted that there wasn't any availability. I assured him it was showing up online but he said that was just an 'error". In the end going direct to Mel was a better result anyway. I'll give them a call and raise the 'involuntary re-routing' and see what they say about accommodation. I think I know the answer, but worth a call I guess.