Hello and advice please [Major Booking Failure]

[PaulF444]

Hello to everyone and would be grateful for any advice for my daughter.

She is from the UK and currently living in Northern Territories with her boyfriend.

We recently met up in Greece, however her flight from Darwin to Athens was a nightmare. They were delayed by over 24 hours and lost one night stay at their hotel in Athens as a result. They received virtually zero help during their trip and, from what I can see from the forum, it is common for them to have received zero customer support in her complaint.

I am now on a mission to ensure they get a refund at least for their flight plus compensation.

I would welcome some advice on how to engage with Qantas.

Many thanks
Paul

 

[theblank]

They were delayed by over 24 hours and lost one night stay at their hotel in Athens as a result.

That is a travel insurance claim, the airline will not cover that, nor are they responsible. If she hasnt got any Travel Insurance, then lesson learned for next time.

I am now on a mission to ensure they get a refund at least for their flight plus compensation.

Your daughter should have been put up in a hotel by Qantas for the night and given food. Thats all she is going to get, you will not get a refund for the flight and definitely no compensation.

The travel insurance cover will also pay up some costs and a small cash benefit for each 24 hours of the delay.

Sorry, but your mission will fail, save yourself some time.

 

[mannej]

Do you have some more information such as routing, reasons for the delay etc as this will help members provide advice as to what your daughter may be able to pursue.

 

[Steady]

Welcome aboard PaulF444, sounds like your daughter had a bad run.

Out of curiosity, what was/were the flight number(s)?

 

[PaulF444]

That is a travel insurance claim, the airline will not cover that, nor are they responsible. If she hasnt got any Travel Insurance, then lesson learned for next time.

theblank, thank you for your comments and perhaps I did not get over the extent of the issue as this was my first post. In essence this was a series of mistakes by Qantas, not just a simple delay.

I understand that you might consider my "mission" fruitless, but I am sorry, there has been literally NO contact from Qantas, which is totally unacceptable. Nobody should expect that level of dis-service and if nobody makes an stand then nothing will change.

I at least expect some form of communication

In summary this was a 3 leg journey: Darwin - Singapore - Dubai - Athens

In brief:

• When they got to Darwin her boyfriend was booked to London Gatwick not Athens. In addition they were not on the system after Singapore. However their bags were booked to Athens
• My daughter was given a boarding pass to Singapore only, whilst her boyfriend was given one through to Dubai. She was told that they would print her Dubai leg in Singapore.
• The plane departed late from Darwin and there were technical issue with the air walkway at Singapore. As a result, when they went directly to the check-in desk once off the plane, the desk had closed 3 minutes prior and could not board! They did not have a record of their onward flight, even though they were advised that they were already checked in from Darwin!
• The desk staff retained their now obsolete boarding passes because it was "an active boarding pass". How does this stack up?
• Their only solution was to provide them with a flight to Istanbul which included a wait of over 13 hours!
• No accommodation, meals, drinks or assistance was provided beyond access to the VIP lounge for 6 hours and a voucher for a "snack"!
• On going to the Turkish Airlines desk they again could not find us on the system. As a result they were reallocated to another flight to Doha, which extended their disruption to 24 hours.

This is not just a simple delay, this was down to terrible management and communication and should not go unacknowledged.

Thanks
Paul

 

[PaulF444]

Out of curiosity, what was/were the flight number(s)?

Hi Steady
Not sure, but I can find out and will report back.
Thanks
Paul

 

[PaulF444]

Do you have some more information such as routing, reasons for the delay etc as this will help members provide advice as to what your daughter may be able to pursue.

Hi mannej
Thanks for your reply, you should find the information you ask for in my post to theblank
Paul

 

[Hvr]

Hi, who was the booking agent? I.e. was it booked through a travel agent?
They may be able to advise why there was a problem.

 

[drron]

That is terrible.But did they book through Qantas.Only Jetstar flights from Darwin to SIN.Jetstar do say you may have to checkin at transit points even if transferring to a partner airline.
The flights SIN-DBX-ATH are on EK but do have a QF codeshare.If things go wrong you should take it up with the carrier providing the service.As they didn't set foot in a QF plane they will not take responsibility.
Tried booking the Darwin-Athens flight on line.Can't do it on JQ and QF only prices it ex SYD.So I guess a TA is involved.If so they will have to deal with it.If booked through a TA even if it is a QF ticket QF will correspond with the TA not the passenger.

As you can see there are many variables so really hard to give an accurate answer.
But welcome to AFF and I hope things go better for the family in the future.

 

[TomVexille]

Welcome aboard!

Good luck in your quest

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF @PaulF444.

Sounds like a complicated outcome. Good luck.

 

[kermatu]

Welcome from me too, and good luck.

 

[Quickstatus]

Welcome @PaulF444

It would be very helpful to see:

Flight numbers
Whether all flights on one booking or not
Whether all passengers on one booking or not
Where purchased.
Look for a booking reference. Does the booking reference include all legs of the journey? Or is there more than one booking reference (often called PNR in these forum)

Hopefully we can come up with some suggestions. Or at the very least, we can learn from your experience.

Speculatively,
EK sells DRW-SIN-DXB-ATH with an all EK flight numbers
JQ does not have flights DRW-SIN. Its actually 3K (Jetstar Asia).
There is only one 3K flight (3K162 codeshared with emirates as EK7750) DRW-SIN each day except for Tues and Wed. So 3K operates the first leg.

It’s either
EK7750-EK355-EK209
Or
EK7750-EK405-EK209

The interesting thing is that the transit time in SIN is 12hrs for the first and 15.3 hrs for the second. If they missed their flight at SIN, the suggestion is the delay on the DRW-SIN sector was at least 11 hours??

Its actually quicker doing a DRW- mainland australian port like BNE,SYD,MEL or PER. Even ADL.
For example, doing an EK/QF flight numbered EK/QF DRW-PER-DXB-ATH saves 7 hrs but costs $300 more each way.

How QF is involved is less clear, because the QF search engine does not sell this route via SIN and QF cannot sell a QF codeshare on EK originating in SIN with a non Australian destination (with a separate 3K ticket DRW-SIN). And QF does not sell DRW-SIN direct. At least on the QF search engine.

 

[PaulF444]

Hi Quickstatus
I will try to get more information from my daughter, but initially we have posted our frustration on the Qantas Facebook page and received an almost immediate response. My wife posted something along the lines of how shocking the Qantas customer service was. Since then we have had a reasonable email conversation asking for details of the complaint.

One of the main issues was that we sent a complaint in the first instance through the Qantas feedback form on their website. We were then sent an email with a reference. We could then attach our complaint document to this by means of a reply. However.... we repeatedly received a response saying that the reference was invalid therefore they could do nothing about it!!! Any local phone number is directed to Australia and the wait on the phone was always in excess of an hour before anyone would answer! Therefore there was effectively no way to communicate with Customer Services.

The flights for both passengers were booked as one single booking through Bestjet over the Internet. My daughter had all this documentation with her when they checked in at Darwin. The reason that we are complaining to Qantas is because that is what everyone told them to do, including Jetstar (DRW-SIN) and Emirates SIN-DXB-ATH.

I will try to get more information from my daughter, but she has limited internet as she works on one of the most remote cattle stations in the Northetn Territories.
Thanks again

 

[Quickstatus]

Thanks @PaulF444

I strongly believe you have been given the wrong information to complain to Qantas.

I strongly suspect QF is not a party here because the ticket would not have originated from QF and QF did not operate or have their flight numbers "QFxx_x" on any of the flights. The ticket is likely to be an Emirates ticket, or an Emirates Jetstar Asia ticket on 2 separate bookings

That the booking reference attached to the Qantas email means that it is not a booking reference that was created by QF.

I believe you need to contact Emirates.

Do so without headline statements such as " worst customer service"
Stick to the facts and only to the facts and avoid any opinions
Set out your case for compensation which should be reasonable - such a compensation for hotel and F&B while in transit. Anything else such as compensation for missed day of holiday in ATH wont pass muster.
And set out what you want in terms of compensation. $$ and or points. Usually its about $250 per day stuck in transit and maybe 10000 points.

 

[PaulF444]

Thanks for your reply @Quickstatus

I need to find the determine the details, but I am virtually certain that they were QF flights, with QF flight numbers.

 

[Quickstatus]

If only QF flight numbers then you are possibly in a worse position . Now you are in a sandwich between QF and EK. The two will ping pong you off to the other.

QF does not operate any of the flights in DRW-SIN-DXB-ATH. The flights are operated by:
3K Jetstar Asia DRW-SIN
EK for the rest.

 

[PaulF444]

But isn’t Jetstar a subsidiary/sister/budget version of QF?

 

[Quickstatus]

But isn’t Jetstar a subsidiary/sister/budget version of QF?

Yes it is but operationally consider it a different airline

 

[JohnK]

But isn’t Jetstar a subsidiary/sister/budget version of QF?

Only when it suits them.