Concerns with a reward booking

[cxthomps]

Can I ask for some advice please.

Fri 28th I took nearly 4 hours to try and book a reward flight through the contact center (the website error'd when trying). I experienced a less than helpful agent and eventually after multiple mistakes got transferred to a supervisor. The booking was on a partner airline for flights Jan 2023, 4 x adults in First Class. The amount of points and taxes I was quoted was a lot less than the website and when I queried it (a few times) I was told in response that this was a 'Z' class fare. The booking was verbally confirmed and I was provided with a booking reference.

Since Friday I have been monitoring the booking in my account. As of today it is still there but no points have been taken and my credit card has no $ taken (not even pending). I am concerned that the booking will be cancelled / not honored as the points / $ are significantly wrong and the seats won't be available if/when this unravels.

Should I keep quiet and hope for the best / argue to hell and back if it unravels OR get hold of Qantas and try and proactively resolve what might happen ? Is there anyone with access to more information than I have that could take a look at the booking reference and give me peace of mind ?

Thx
C.

 

[ChrisMars]

Can I ask for some advice please.

Fri 28th I took nearly 4 hours to try and book a reward flight through the contact center (the website error'd when trying). I experienced a less than helpful agent and eventually after multiple mistakes got transferred to a supervisor. The booking was on a partner airline for flights Jan 2023, 4 x adults in First Class. The amount of points and taxes I was quoted was a lot less than the website and when I queried it (a few times) I was told in response that this was a 'Z' class fare. The booking was verbally confirmed and I was provided with a booking reference.

Since Friday I have been monitoring the booking in my account. As of today it is still there but no points have been taken and my credit card has no $ taken (not even pending). I am concerned that the booking will be cancelled / not honored as the points / $ are significantly wrong and the seats won't be available if/when this unravels.

Should I keep quiet and hope for the best / argue to hell and back if it unravels OR get hold of Qantas and try and proactively resolve what might happen ? Is there anyone with access to more information than I have that could take a look at the booking reference and give me peace of mind ?

Thx
C.

Did you receive the ticket itinary via email? Which partner airline?

 

[cxthomps]

British Airways is the airline, and no I did not receive an email (despite being promised by the supervisor I would).

 

[ChrisMars]

British Airways is the airline, and no I did not receive an email (despite being promised by the supervisor I would).

I don't have lots of experience in international award booking, but my advice is to call them and to see what is going on.

 

[cjd600]

definitely want them (QF) to issue the ticket, asap. Unfortunately might need to call and trigger this

 

[Scr77]

Qantas is a disaster to deal with. You need the ticket or the booking will be cancelled by BA.

 

[RichardMEL]

sadly probably gone to the far (manual) queue for some stupid reason. Unfortunately will need a call to prod them.

At least BA isn't QR who are infamous for quick cancels on unticketed bookings, but I wouldn't want it to hang around for long either.

 

[Gold Member]

You need the ticket or the booking will be cancelled by BA.

Further to Scr77’s comments, all airlines have a TTL (Time To Live) or similar feature for bookings that are put on hold or not immediately ticketed for various reasons. IME, this TTL window ranges from 2-5 days or so depending on the airline and whether it’s direct or via a partner airline. Unless you call Qantas and ask them to extend the TTL the booking will “time out” and your precious First class inventory will disappear, and worse still may not reappear.

Its also very unlikely that Qantas will actually ticket your booking with the erroneous small number of points quoted. That in itself could be one of the reasons why it hasn’t ticketed yet; the automated engine found a conflict and won’t process it until manual intervention. The ticketing engine is smart enough to fix most award points requirements, so be prepared to pay for the full award points and taxes. Don’t rely on the incompetence of Mindpearl South Africa as evidence to support your quoted discounted award.

Good luck!

 

[cxthomps]

Thanks for the advice, I called up the 1300 number (found in another thread) and got an Australian agent (within 5 seconds !!). They looked into the ticket and fixed it to the correct points etc and I now have an email with e-ticket. The agent was shocked how badly the South African team had tried to enter the booking, and yes it would never have been ticketted. I got a refund of the cc charges and they backdated the taxes to the day I tried to make the booking (exchange rate had changed).

Happy with the outcome.

C.

 

[Gold Member]

Glad you got a good outcome. Now you have the ever increasing threat of CX not operating your future flights

I realise this might be a dream redemption for you, and I don’t want to ruin your day, but I seriously recommend you consider a backup award or alternative flights.

 

[Mattg]

Glad you got a good outcome. Now you have the ever increasing threat of CX not operating your future flights

I realise this might be a dream redemption for you, and I don’t want to ruin your day, but I seriously recommend you consider a backup award or alternative flights.

I may have missed something, but the OP said the operating airline is British Airways?

 

[cxthomps]

Yes the operating airline is British Airways so hopefully all good. CX availability was not showing up for me anyway and I would have been more than hesitant to book it.

C.

 

[Gold Member]

I may have missed something, but the OP said the operating airline is British Airways?

Oops. Not sure how I got Cathay from that post. Maybe it was the final words in the post “Thx, C“. Maybe my quick scan put the two letters together.

I’ll see myself out now.

 

[AIRwin]

Oops. Not sure how I got Cathay from that post. Maybe it was the final words in the post “Thx, C“. Maybe my quick scan put the two letters together.

More likely the first 2 letters of @cxthomps ?

 

[NM]

Yes the operating airline is British Airways so hopefully all good. CX availability was not showing up for me anyway and I would have been more than hesitant to book it.

C.

While the operating airline is BA and indeed Z-class on a BA flight number is for first class awards, I just wonder if the points discrepancy is related to Z-class being for premium economy classic awards on QF flights and the call centre person has tried to book as a QF code share or something strange like that is going on.

Does the quoted points cost reflect a Premium Economy award redemption?

It is really, really unusual for BA to have 4 x Z-class first class award seats available on a single flight, even 330 days before scheduled flight operation.

 

[RooFlyer]

Thanks for the advice, I called up the 1300 number (found in another thread)

Good outcome (I hope it sticks!!) and the value of AFF