BPAY disaster

[gillianjh]

Qantas has the worst customer service ever. I booked a flight and paid by BPAY. The BPAY went through the next day and I got a receipt number. One week later Qantas cancelled my flight and said that if the BPAY was received it would be rejected and returned to my bank. I booked another flight with a credit card and I put a complaint into my bank after the BPAY was not returned within a week. Qantas then sent me an email saying they had received the BPAY and congratulations on my flight. I texted Qantas and the guy said he had reversed the BPAY and I would receive it shortly. I didn't receive it for another two weeks. I put in a complaint to Qantas which eventually got a reply 6 days later telling me the BPAY was going to be processed and I would get the refund within 21 days. After 21 days I put in a further complaint (as required by Airline Customer Service Advocates) to which I have not received an answer. 55 days after paying for the flight I got the refund, and haven't heard anything from Qantas about compensating me for the hours I spent printing and scanning documents etc as well as the financial cost. The contempt of Qantas customer service just astounds me and what is up with their BPAY system? I am switching to alternative airlines from now on.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF and sorry about the circumstances. Unfortunately giving money back to customers is something Qantas does not do well (along with most airlines), nor is customer service in general their forte (there are exceptions) .

I think 'contempt for their customers' is an appropriate phrase in so many areas.

 

[gillianjh]

That's for sure!

 

[TomVexille]

Welcome to AFF.

Personally I would pretty much only pay with a credit card for reasons like this one. Plus the additional consumer protections of course.

 

[gillianjh]

The guy on the text said that Qantas is aware of a BPAY problem and are working to fix it. But I just don't get how it would takes weeks and weeks turn it around. And why did Qantas book the flight after they said the flight was cancelled. What an absolute mess they have there.
Definitely credit card from now on.

 

[albatross710]

I did two Bpay flight bookings recently. I chose Bpay as it makes things easier for my accounting, ie it's just one transaction and not one credit car plus one bank payment.

FWIW, I used Westpac and another from Suncorp. Both were ticketed within 24 hours.

BUT...at sometime after I commenced the travel when viewing the booking it would always have a yellow banner at the top saying that it was waiting for the payment. Given that this was still there after travel had commenced ignored it.

Bpay certainly seems to have some glitch.

ALby

 

[opusman]

Never use BPay or Poli or anything that involves actually giving your own money to an airline. Always use a credit card to protect yourself.

You can purchase gift vouchers (on credit card) to avoid the CC payment surcharge.

 

[gillianjh]

Good advice, thanks!

 

[maia200]

I have used BPay once thinking to save the fees.....well never again...almost had the same run around and flights kept on saying not paid for. I only use CC and have the flights paid for there and then. It is also protected by credit card insurance and I double dip on points.

 

[juddles]

Qantas has the worst customer service ever............................. haven't heard anything from Qantas about compensating me for the hours I spent printing and scanning documents etc as well as the financial cost. ....... I am switching to alternative airlines from now on.

Hi there gillianjh, welcome to the forum

Just a couple of comments:

I disagree that Qantas has the "worst" customer service - in my world that crown goes to AGL Energy

Please do not actually expect that Qantas will compensate you for the work/hours etc that you were forced to put in just to get your money back. I feel your pain, we have all been through similar things with many businesses, but such an expectation is not real, even though it maybe should be. Acknowledging this will help to ease the stress that such an incident causes to you. Think "zen"

As far as switching to alternative airlines, that is a choice, but not always the best one. You eventually hear of or experience similar painful experiences with all airlines. To not hurt your own options, perhaps another way to look at it is that Qantas has many weaknesses, but if you learn these and work around them, they can be quite ok. In any case, AFF is a wonderful place to learn the best way to deal with things, and also to find out which other airlines may suit you better.

 

[Gold Member]

I recently cancelled a ticket that I paid with using BPAY. I screen captured the cancellation confirmation that stated the funds may take up to 7 days. I had a choice of refund to the original form of payment (BPAY?) or a credit/Gift Voucher with Qantas.

As far as I know, individuals do not have the ability to receive money by BPAY so the language on Qantas' website is confusing. Nevertheless, it wasn't until I rang up and asked about the status of my refund that I found out it was sitting there as a credit and not being processed to go anywhere. The agent was able to manually process my request upon quoting her my POLI banking details.

Let's see how long the actual refund takes now.

 

[dajop]

You can purchase gift vouchers (on credit card) to avoid the CC payment surcharge.

A warning about gift vouchers, may depend on airline, if something goes wrong that needs a refund they will only refund to original form of payment.. We had Jetstar cancel a flight on us (paid with gift cards), and we opted for refund. After some discussion they agreed to refund to bank account, and took bank account details. About a week or two later got an email requesting bank account details, rang up and after originally noting refund to gift card, we reminded them of agreement to refund to bank account and took our bank account details again. A week later we got the money back in form of gift cards, as "finance had not agreed to it" which are not terribly useful as must be used on JQ services (not 3K) and they are now suspending services on MEL-SIN. Currently have a complaint in with JQ to investigate the conversations we had and agreements made.

 

[Isochronous]

Can they even refund via the BPAY system? I thought they had to use bank transfer...

 

[Quickstatus]

It’s almost as though the airline wants you to use a fee incurring payment system rather than fee free system.

Might be an ACCC interest

 

[Himeno]

I've used BPay to buy QF tickets a number of times. Often booking after hours in the evening with the site posting a warning to "pay by midnight or we'll cancel the booking" (which is a bit hard to do when the bank is closed and won't process the evening bpay transactions until the next business day). Never had a problem.

I've tried to use the POLI option a few times, but I've never been able to get it to work.

 

[Franky]

Bpay certainly seems to have some glitch.

ALby

Qantas has the glitch, everything I pay by BPay works as it should...

 

[harvyk]

I've used BPay a fair bit to book my flights, I've yet to have a problem with it. (Of course those are some famous last words )

However that's not to say everything has being smooth sailing when it comes to dealing with customer support.

Personally my favorite game is to hang up and call again / re-send the email knowing that it'll be a different customer support rep who deals with it if I don't get the answer I want the first time. Personally I would never rely on a "cheque is in the mail" response when dealing with CS and then repurchase another ticket, especially if I've done everything by the book up until that point. As far as I'm concerned, an issue with their systems is just that, it's their problem to sort out, not mine.