Downgraded from Business Class.

[drron]

You have almost hit the nail exactly on the head. But it's not the QFF number in the booking that matters - it's the number being on the e-ticket. I had an instance recently where the system could not see my status, despite my QFF number being in the booking. The problem was the number had not been transferred to the e-ticket (no idea how), and Altea works on what is on the e-ticket.

I had the same problem on Friday.The problem was it was a JASA and trying to get my FF number back in the system took some effort.It was definitely in the booking but not on the e-ticket.

 

[PLANT]

Did they tell really get down graded..... The plane flew unlike the 4 that returned/descended very quickly recently..... Share price up 168% in the year... I don't have em but hey your parents helped....

 

[Lonely Flyer]

And say what, exactly.

Since it's so popular with our glorious leaders, let's scrape a few barnacles off this hoary old thread.

Barnacle 1 - Business Class was over-subscribed. This happens to all airlines at some time or another, whether from over-booking or IRROPS. Qantas is not a serial offender in this, and gets loadings better than most. [Scrape]

Barnacle 2 - Qantas offered to put the OP (and others) up for the night and get $700 for their troubles if they could delay travel for a day. Pretty fair offer but the OP declined. [Scrrape]

Barnacle 3 - A Qantas representative (allegedly) took their frustrations out on the OP in a less than stellar example of customer service. Qantas have accepted this as fact, have taken actions to address it and given the OP 50K points and an apology. [Sccrrrape!]

Which gets us to the issue that worries the precious listeners the most ...

The compensation table for those that choose a downgrade over a reschedule or refund, is overly simplistic and works in Qantas' favour. This is the barnacle that is stuck fast to the good ship AFF, as it hints at privilege being only an ephemeral thing that status does not always protect.

Solution - fly economy. From there the only way is up!

Not to shoot the messenger in post 1 but the passengers were described as experienced travelers. Therefore it was a mistake to book a doctors appointment so soon after their return.

I feel sorry for them but the situation could have been avoided. Maybe the lesson is book direct with QF and you may get looked after.

 

[OATEK]

Not to shoot the messenger in post 1 but the passengers were described as experienced travelers. Therefore it was a mistake to book a doctors appointment so soon after their return.

I feel sorry for them but the situation could have been avoided. Maybe the lesson is book direct with QF and you may get looked after.

I seem to remember the medical appointment was arranged while they were away when a space became available in a very busy schedule, and the parents felt they had to take it, so too late to add a day.

 

[Austman]

Which gets us to the issue that worries the precious listeners the most ...

The compensation table for those that choose a downgrade over a reschedule or refund, is overly simplistic and works in Qantas' favour. This is the barnacle that is stuck fast to the good ship AFF, as it hints at privilege being only an ephemeral thing that status does not always protect.!

I agree. This has always been the elephant in this thread. Having been in downgrade and refund situations myself a few times on partly used international itineraries, the calculation is often abysmal for the passenger. But, as per Barnacle 1, other airlines have done this to me as well.

This is the matter that needs some regulation. To be more fair to the passenger.

 

[Baysider]

Wow - 1275 posts and going strong. The key that QF (and many similar organisations) miss is if you get the initial decision/compensation/reparation right all you might get is a post about how well a situation was handled (and probably 6 or so comments on the post with a smiley face from RedRoo). As this went on forever a nice assurance from QF that there were no non-tech staff duty travelling in J or F and there were no CL etc with upgrades granted in the J cabin on the flight - this would then mean a paying person has to go. Then you manage that process then and there even if airport staff are directed to contact head office noting the times of departure from UK and US are quite convenient for senior staff working in Sydney. As for compensation there is the issue that you didn't get what you paid for and this needs to be addressed as part of goodwill. Separately in my view is the fare difference issue. The fare difference should be easy - fare difference with economy fare with same conditions. Randomly picking dates in Feb 15 there is a $653 saver fare Syd-Lax in Y and Business sale $$3778 - difference $3125 or going full fare Y is $1453 and J $5978 - difference is $4525 - simple really or is too fair and simple.
I recently had a similar non airline (hotel) experience where it was explained to me that a "guaranteed" upgrade did not mean you necessarily got an upgrade. The communication on that one remains ongoing but the treatment has been a similar experience to here.
In future all these organisations have to do is be reaonable leaning towards generous and the relatively rare times these things happen are just part of business and not a huge issue.
Where the customer is at a disadvantage is it is sprung on you at a time critical point and some logical/rational discussion like asking about whether duty staff and points upgrades have been considered mightn't spring to mind.
I am not a QF basher and in fact they remain my preferred carrier but I do wonder why so many who will never fly QF again bother even looking at the QFF forum unless they are sadists or masochists.

Well stated and an excellent example of a "fair" way to calculate the refund for a downgrade. 1280+ posts now that QF could have avoided by doing something simple and transparent like this at step 1.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

im not so sure about calculating the business fare with an economy fare of the same conditions? aren't all business fares, including savers, upgradeable?

that would mean a like for like comparison would need to use an upgradeable economy fare, which may be hundreds of dollars more than the cheapest seat.

airlines could use two methods: either (a) yield management forces open N, O or Q class for the purpose of accommodating the downgraded passenger, or (b) they simply run a check to find the lowest coach fare paid on that flight (by any revenue passenger). (as USA based airlines have a system for determining the lowest paid fare on a flight, I'm assuming QF can also do that!)

 

[Baysider]

im not so sure about calculating the business fare with an economy fare of the same conditions? aren't all business fares, including savers, upgradeable?

that would mean a like for like comparison would need to use an upgradeable economy fare, which may be hundreds of dollars more than the cheapest seat.

airlines could use two methods: either (a) yield management forces open N, O or Q class for the purpose of accommodating the downgraded passenger, or (b) they simply run a check to find the lowest coach fare paid on that flight (by any revenue passenger). (as USA based airlines have a system for determining the lowest paid fare on a flight, I'm assuming QF can also do that!)

Not a bad idea. Comparing to the lowest Y fare the pax might have purchased for themselves on QF for that flight is not necessarily fair, as they may have found a cheaper Y fare with another carrier had they chosen Y. In fact, they may not have even considered travelling y with QF.

 

[Austman]

I think too that one issue with "fair" downgrade/refund calculations is that they would need to be verifiable by the passenger. So that the passenger can be satisfied that they are being paid correctly. That might be unsatisfactory where a passenger has little choice but to accept the airline's information about the fare prices they used in their calculation.

I can see why, when governments have set compensation levels, they can be solely based on the actual fare paid or another formula that has nothing to do with what other passengers might have paid or fares that might have been available.

 

[EmilyP]

Not to shoot the messenger in post 1 but the passengers were described as experienced travelers. Therefore it was a mistake to book a doctors appointment so soon after their return.

I feel sorry for them but the situation could have been avoided. Maybe the lesson is book direct with QF and you may get looked after.

Hi,

I believe I explained in a much earlier post that the specialist appointment was not booked in advance.

It was booked while my parents were in the States as my father suffered some health setbacks while there.

But could you clarify how this situation could have been avoided by my parents? Interested to know your throughts.

Also, how would booking direct through QF have changed any of this? They still would have been downgraded and received a pitiful fare refund.

EmilyP

 

[Baysider]

Hi,
Also, how would booking direct through QF have changed any of this? They still would have been downgraded and received a pitiful fare refund.

There was a post that FC bookings are the first to be shunted, I guess because FC has some kind of deal with QF to sell lower priced tickets. Also FC charge ridiculous fees for any actions on their part, and that surely would have included some cut out of the refund process. As with all things travel related (flights, hire cars, hotels, etc), those who book direct are treated better. None of that excuses what happened though !

 

[anna2103]

Can I suggest that we move this thread on - and those that want to discuss how to take this further through social media, legal action etc stay subscribed and keep the topic on those issues. Those who are not uninterested unsubscribe. We know QF final position now, so we are starting to go in circles.

 

[RooFlyer]

Everyone has option to move on and unsubscribe if they don't like the current thread content

I'm trying to get the post count to the next threshold

 

[wandering_fred]

... Maybe the lesson is book direct with QF and you may get looked after.

I certainly hope that if this situation were to ever occur and able to be proven that the various competition watchdogs in Australia would impose a serious financial penalty. As a business practice it may occur from time to time, but it should never be considered acceptable business practice by any company.

Fred

 

[Baysider]

I certainly hope that if this situation were to ever occur and able to be proven that the various competition watchdogs in Australia would impose a serious financial penalty. As a business practice it may occur from time to time, but it should never be considered acceptable business practice by any company.

Fred

There is no doubt it happens with hotel chains. Book via a 3rd party and you get the lower floor rooms, rooms by the lifts, rooms overlooking construction sites, etc. ALWAYS.

 

[drron]

im not so sure about calculating the business fare with an economy fare of the same conditions? aren't all business fares, including savers, upgradeable?

that would mean a like for like comparison would need to use an upgradeable economy fare, which may be hundreds of dollars more than the cheapest seat.

No F on the route flown in this case so their fare was only downgradeable.

 

[moa999]

I'm going to take a slightly different take to a few posters here.

In my view OP's parents should view the total compensation offered as approx $3000. Few reasons,

1. The 'ex-gratia' payment at airport. This is definitely part of compensation.
For those who chose to wait till the next day to fly in the J cabin - their compensation is this $700 for arriving 24hrs later, plus hotels, food etc looked after
For the OPs parents, the compensation is $700 plus the fare difference by schedule (as returned at a later datE).

2. The 'additional' $500 voucher and 50k points. This was seemingly provided as part of a general discussion about the downgrade and behaviour of the agents at LAX (I assume). Now not many details have been provided about the actual behaviour of agents in LAX, but if QF gave $1000 value for each coughpy experience with an employee, I would be very rich, and they would be broke. Again I think most (if not all) of this payment is an overall payment by QF for the downgrade.

I don't believe OP has published anything about what they actually paid. But looking at October 2015.
BNE-JFK return can be had for $8600 in J, and $2100 in Y (looking at cheapest fares)
So the difference is $6500 (Obviously different dates will give different results - but I suspect this is ballpark)
Now the OPs parents were downgraded for 13hrs out of a 36hr journey (one leg out of four) (ie 36% of total journey)
About $2350 applying this percentage to the fare difference.

So in this respect I would view the overall QF compensation as fair, albeit certainly not overgenerous.

--

I agree the downgraded fare table itself (1200/1250) is pretty poor, but I believe in all these situations that a payment at the airport is generally made, so in my mind this needs to be included as part of the overall package (and is potentially reflected in the table) (presumably QF also has rules about airport payments)

Where I think QF has let themselves down in this situation is:
a. Seemingly the agent behaviour at check-in
b. The communication with the OPs parents - seemingly not enough, and simple things like telling them how much the refund would be, and proactively quickening the refund process via Flight Centre, were not done
c. Not fully explaining why these pax were selected for downgrade (per OPs post they had checked in early and were SG members). RedRoo posted a generic statement but it didn't seem to answer the question


While some on this board also think the number of thread views should make QF more generous, I actually think it has the opposite effect. I suspect they are being very cautious here not to set a precedent.

 

[JohnK]

Ok, I'll stick my neck out. Where is the "company representative"* now ? How about justifying $1200 for downgrade from J to Y, ie a fraction of the real price difference ?

The company reprentative has highlighted on more than occasion how $1200 is more than adequate refund for downgrade from business to economy.

The flight didn't have an F cabin and Red Roo has already stated that there were no staff in J but otherwise an excellent summation.

What do you expect them to tell us? The truth?

 

[Baysider]

While some on this board also think the number of thread views should make QF more generous, I actually think it has the opposite effect. I suspect they are being very cautious here not to set a precedent.

If QF's claim that this is a very rare occurrence has any degree of truth, setting a precedent (of fair compensation) should not be any problem at all.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Can I suggest that we move this thread on - and those that want to discuss how to take this further through social media, legal action etc stay subscribed and keep the topic on those issues. Those who are not uninterested unsubscribe. We know QF final position now, so we are starting to go in circles.

Just on this I would suggest that if anyone has any specific ideas on potential legal grounds, they should PM those to Emily rather than stating them here. No need to give a heads-up too early!