Double Booking With Qf

[Va Bene]

I originally booked 4 award Y flights from MEL-LHR return for Sept/Oct school holidays with QF. Did this on the first day they became available and paid all the taxes ($1600).
I work for a European based company and they have postponed a mid year conference to the middle of Sept. I have now booked flights with QF one week before the award flight and also the same flight number on the return leg as I have with the award flight. My plan is to fly over for the conference then meet the family when they fly to LHR and at the end of the 2 week holiday, fly back with them.
I booked and paid for the work flight this week in order to secure a good price and seat on both legs (it will be school hols and rugby WC). I didn't want to cancel the award flights yet as my company has changed these conference dates before. Once I know it is locked in, I can drop the award flight for me and get the points and taxes refunded.
QF have called me today and informed me that I must cancel one of the bookings and they wanted to cancel the entire return award booking for the complete family which I told them was unacceptable. They have now cancelled my return award flight.

Does anyone know if this is normal practice as I wanted to keep my options open?

Wife not happy as she has no lounge access on the way out to UK with the kids and I've been talking up the F lounge with the Spa treatment (not that I said she needs it!). Also one of the Spa people told me that they were looking at extending their hours beyond 5pm (our flight is in the evening).

 

[NM]

Yes this common in the airline industry. The airlines spend a lot of money on computer software to try to find cases where people are holding multiple reservations. Sometimes they flag what looks like a double booking but is just someone with crazy travel patterns and of course they cannot see situations where a person may be using a different airline on a different ticket for some integrated itineraries, which is why they have called you sand not just cancelled the reservation.

It is especially likely to be found if you have multiple seats booked on the same flight. I had this happen once when I was not sure if I would be approved for business class travel, so had a reservation in both economy and business class. QF called my TA and said they had to cancel one of them.

Some people have been found to rort the system somewhat with making multiple or false reservations that they never plan to use and that can cause the airline's yield management systems some grief, and naturally the airline wants to have a reasonable idea of how many seats are really sold and how many are available to sell.

 

[markis10]

A thread a while ago linked to a Qantas FAQ that mentioned you may book two seats in your name, the thread was in relation to large people flying but cannot find it now.

I have had Qantas insist on cancelling a booking when I had a paid flight on QF and an award booking on BA. I have also had them cancel a booking where I accidently booked the same trip on the same flights twice, would love to find that reference again about the recommendation of booking two seats from Qantas!

 

[tscharke]

i feel ya pain Va bene...trying to co-ordinate business flights with family award bookings is a nightmare! A similar situation happened to me with AA award bookings on hold - you can see the point of view from the airline however that doesnt help when you have already mentioned the idea to the family A lot of time can be wasted trying to get things right......the value of FF awards now have a different meaning to me!!!