False card billing (Qantas are Scum)

[Alecw]

Hey there.
This is my new worst ever customer experience. I thought you all better be made aware that this can happen to you - left without flights and without any money and little recourse or assistance.

Gold member going to meet a business contact in Budapest, had these flights booked for some time. The contact I was meeting caught covid, and I had to change my flight plans to a different date and destination. Fortunately I had flexible tickets and so changed the booking. Unfortunately, the phone agent gave me wrong information, stating that the booking was direct. I paid the fare difference over the phone ($3k) and then when I got the ticket, it had several stops which did not work for me for various reasons. I cancelled the flights but was told that the change fares are not refundable of course. So far, this is just your regular terrible Qantas customer experience however, nothing exceptional.

So I go book fresh flights myself using qantas.com, thinking that I will take advantage of the double credits announcement from yesterday. I book the legs separately, starting with my return journey from Prague, and then book my departure for Sunday night, Hungary via Dubai. After I pay, I get the confirmation notification on my phone that the money was deducted from my card ($17k), and decide to go into seat selection and chose where we would sit.

After receiving confirmation of our seats, I close the browser and a few minutes later, notice I didn't get my email confirmation. So login to the FF booking site and...my booking is gone. There is no sign anywhere that it ever existed. I double check my bank (NAB), and it has fully processed and authorised the purchased (it isn't pending or on hold and it says payment was authorised). In the Qantas site, the return flight is there, but not our business-class $17,400 departure flights.

So I call Qantas. Phone agent can't help me as I don't have a booking number, but I have no way to find out what it is as i did not take note of it before I closed the browser. I ask for any flights to Budapest on my name, she says there are none. I search up the the flight numbers I was meant to be on and she says our names don't appear anywhere. How can that be, I literally reserved seats? She says it clearly wasn't confirmed as Qantas never took payment and there is no record of any such booking. I note that my account begs to differ - my card is now maxed.

I give her my card number, and after checking with billing support, she flat our calls me a liar and that were no purchases to that card. So I give her the booking reference for the other flights that do appear in the portal, and were made on the same card. She can see them, now back tracking about no charges to that card before. She says that whatever happened, I never booked properly and I certainly wasnt charged. When I offer to show her my bank statement, she suggests I call NAB and that she can clearly see that Qantas never requested or authorised a payment. I note that this is a problem as clearly NAB didn't decide to pay Qantas $17k on this particular day unprompted so speaking to NAB will lead them back to Qantas.

I am now panicking, as even if I somehow get a refund, it takes weeks to process and I have no way to pay for my flights in the next 24 hours.

At this point I start to lose my temper. No swear words or screaming, but I definitely start to get upset. She is clearly done with the call and trying to get me to hang up. Then I have a brainwave : i put my ABN on the purchase. Checking my Qantas business account and ...YES!!! The booking is there! Even with chosen my seat selection!!! I give the agent the booking number and suddenly she is no longer so sure of herself. She can see something is terribly wrong with the system. So...then she starts lying. She says that yes, it does show up on my name and my flight but she couldn't tell me that before until I gave her the booking reference. The reason for this, you see, is I made the booking through Qantas business and not Qantas FF. No, I tell her, it was booked on the FF site not the business site. And that makes no sense - my name is ON THE SEAT. Why wouldn't my name show up on the flight?

She puts me on hold again, and now says that yes, you have do indeed have a booking, but you don't have a ticket because Qantas haven't been paid. Again, my account says otherwise. She says to call the bank, as their billing dept has no record of that card being processed today (back to that bs). This goes in circles for a while, as I know NAB are going to tell me what the account shows - I made a card purchase and to take it up with the vendor.

She says, after refusing many times to put me through to someone else, that no one can help me until I call the bank, then I can call back and pay again to secure my seats. After contemplating, I borrow a friend's card, and decide to just book again fresh and cancel the old booking, to prevent Qantas from claiming to NAB that I ended up taking the flight and so refusing to refund. I call back. New agent, I start to explain what I want and she talks over me loudly explaining she has read the notes and I never got charged and blah blah. I try to explain I did get charged but what I want to do is - she talks over me again loudly and rudely.
This is 5 hours into this ordeal and I am 20k in the hole and very fed up. I raise my voice and talk over her.
She loudly cuts me off again says "Are you going to let me talk?". I say "No."
She hangs up.

I contact NAB and mark the transactions as fraudulent. Another happy FF.

 

[drron]

Just when you think things can’t get worse.

 

[justinbrett]

Just when you think things can’t get worse.

I hope he realises that much/all of the journey for "starting with my return journey from Prague, and then book my departure for Sunday night, Hungary via Dubai" isn't going to get DSCs.

For what it's worth I've had transactions with both VA and QF that authorised on my CC but failed for some reason (it actually happened on the same day for both, I think it was something to do with AMEX) - they did expire and the available balance was returned. I don't use NAB but none of my credit cards authorise and take the actual money (not just available balance) so quickly. Minimum 24 hours. It can fail between authorisation and the money being deducted, in which case it's returned automatically.

 

[Quickstatus]

While the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side, there are other airlines operating between the cities you mention

 

[justinbrett]

Judging from your posting history you've had terrible luck with QF, seems crazy you're still booking flights with them.

Also you've got a good friend that lets you charge 20K to their credit card - they're a keeper!

 

[kpro]

Not saying this experience couldn't be improved. However, couple of things don't quite add up for me -

After receiving confirmation of our seats, I close the browser and a few minutes later, notice I didn't get my email confirmation. So login to the FF booking site and...my booking is gone. There is no sign anywhere that it ever existed. I double check my bank (NAB), and it has fully processed and authorised the purchased (it isn't pending or on hold and it says payment was authorised). In the Qantas site, the return flight is there, but not our business-class $17,400 departure flights.

In my experience, I have never had any purchase on a credit card be fully processed as a confirmed transaction within minutes of the payment being charged. There is always a delay of at least one day between a pending transaction before it becomes a confirmed transaction.

So I call Qantas. Phone agent can't help me as I don't have a booking number, but I have no way to find out what it is as i did not take note of it before I closed the browser. I ask for any flights to Budapest on my name, she says there are none. I search up the the flight numbers I was meant to be on and she says our names don't appear anywhere. How can that be, I literally reserved seats? She says it clearly wasn't confirmed as Qantas never took payment and there is no record of any such booking. I note that my account begs to differ - my card is now maxed.

Am wondering if you put in your FF number when making the booking, or if when you pull up the booking reference, is your number in there? What is the status of the flights?

She puts me on hold again, and now says that yes, you have do indeed have a booking, but you don't have a ticket because Qantas haven't been paid. Again, my account says otherwise. She says to call the bank, as their billing dept has no record of that card being processed today (back to that bs).

It is possible that the card processing merchant or acquirer authorised the transaction, but there was an issue with another part of the transaction through to Qantas. It sounds like your booking is in a limbo state, which is what would happen if you took a booking through to the payment page and then exited without paying.

Likely the payment would've dropped off your card in a few days, noting my first point above. Doesn't help when the fare price was high and you maxed your limit though.

 

[encryptededdy]

In my experience they have to call the billing department (even Hobart) to find card transactions that aren't linked to a booking properly.

Unfortunately, I think this is just yet another classic case of the Qantas call center agents having no initiative to go beyond the most basic level to help customers. I'm pretty sure the transaction (or at least transaction attempt) is in their system somewhere, it's just it isn't linked to the booking so someone would have to go digging for it.

 

[Alecw]

I hope he realises that much/all of the journey for "starting with my return journey from Prague, and then book my departure for Sunday night, Hungary via Dubai" isn't going to get DSCs.

For what it's worth I've had transactions with both VA and QF that authorised on my CC but failed for some reason (it actually happened on the same day for both, I think it was something to do with AMEX) - they did expire and the available balance was returned. I don't use NAB but none of my credit cards authorise and take the actual money (not just available balance) so quickly. Minimum 24 hours. It can fail between authorisation and the money being deducted, in which case it's returned automatically.

I am somewhat inexperienced here and was indeed disappointed to learn that the non-codeshare legs missed the status credits. Still better than non double for the QF leg

Having experience with other cards - I have used a AMEX Platinum, a business ANZ Visa Black, and a personal Commbank Master Diamond. Of these, some do not hold charges as pending without a specific reason. Some do (the Visa Black and the AMEX in particular) but the Mastercard and Nab Qantas Visa only do so with specific vendors (not Qantas).

There was no indication in this case from the statement that the charge was not fully finalised (no pending, available balance difference, etc)

While the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side, there are other airlines operating between the cities you mention

Judging from your posting history you've had terrible luck with QF, seems crazy you're still booking flights with them.

Also you've got a good friend that lets you charge 20K to their credit card - they're a keeper!

Yes, being a couple of hundred status from Platinum enticed me to use Qantas. Sigh. I am an abused housewife.

And you're not kidding. I said that rather casually but of course that's exceptional - he happens to owe me big, but still a very rare mate.

my experience, I have never had any purchase on a credit card be fully processed as a confirmed transaction within minutes of the payment being charged. There is always a delay of at least one day between a pending transaction before it becomes a confirmed transaction.

As I said above, this is normal on this particular card (NAB Qantas Signature Visa). Charges are not delayed unless suspicious and they don't sit in pending or have a separate available balance section. My Mastercard also behaved like that. Most cards I am aware do not.

Am wondering if you put in your FF number when making the booking, or if when you pull up the booking reference, is your number in there? What is the status of the flights?

I was signed into my FF account when I made the booking, and added my ABN when prompted. I could not find a booking reference until I though to check the Business Rewards portal. When I pulled it up later in the FF site, it showed an weird empty booking - ie had no flights assigned to it,

It is possible that the card processing merchant or acquirer authorised the transaction, but there was an issue with another part of the transaction through to Qantas. It sounds like your booking is in a limbo state, which is what would happen if you took a booking through to the payment page and then exited without paying.

Likely the payment would've dropped off your card in a few days, noting my first point above. Doesn't help when the fare price was high and you maxed your limit though.

I hope you are right. That would take this from an existential financial crisis to a mere 'horrible experience'. I do not know what could have happened though - an organisation as big as Qantas doesn't use middle men like Stripe, they deal directly with the card vendor. I still have no idea if NAB will honour my request to dispute the payment.

In my experience they have to call the billing department (even Hobart) to find card transactions that aren't linked to a booking properly.

Unfortunately, I think this is just yet another classic case of the Qantas call center agents having no initiative to go beyond the most basic level to help customers. I'm pretty sure the transaction (or at least transaction attempt) is in their system somewhere, it's just it isn't linked to the booking so someone would have to go digging for it.

I mean, I get it, her computer said no. She wasn't trained for these edge cases, and 99% of the time it's the customer who has done something stupid. I have worked call centres and fully understand.

But I do have an issue with a) total unwillingness to escalate or provide a path for me to get assistance when it became clear that something HAD gone terribly wrong with her system, and b) the total and complete lack of sympathy, switching to full on rudeness and accusing me of lying, then also lying to me. Judging by the reaction of the other agent when I called back, she has marked something on my file stating I am a troublemaker or abusive. I would like to get her supervisor to listen to the call and see how long she gaslighted and passive-aggresived me before I started to get annoyed.