Help - QF customer service not ticketing properly - lost award seats

[VPS]

We are now trying to book and pay for business flights Athens/Melbourne, but this cant be done on the Qantas website. They only allow reward bookings, which are not available. What?????

You haven't got the 'use' points' slider engaged, have you?

I think that's correct because I was trying to find reward flights from DOHA to Australia and you can only search if you are looking for reward bookings. I think (but not sure) that you have to ring and book - just what you need another call to Qantas

 

[mamunr]

Hello all,

Was hoping to get some help, I understand many have had the same issue, so hoping to find a solution through the community here.

The background is I am taking a once in a lifetime trip to the World Cup this year. I managed to find an award seat on QFF from Singapore to Doha earlier this year, and so was able to avoid an expensive revenue airfare. The award seat was Singapore to Doha via Colombo on Sri Lankan Airlines.

Originally the booking was for a morning flight out of Singapore, a lengthy transit in Colombo before an evening flight to Doha.

On 18 July I got an email from Qantas that Sri Lankan had cancelled that first leg morning flight. I called back asap and the agent on the other line found a flight in the afternoon leaving Singapore which still managed to connect to the evening flight in Colombo. I was told they'd rebook me no worries.

This was my mistake. I trusted Qantas to ticket my new booking properly.

A month later while casually looking at my QFF I noticed my booking had disappeared. The useless people at Qantas didn't ticket my new flight.

I call back and guess what? There's still seats for the first leg but there are NO MORE SEATS for the second leg. How frustrating that the second leg which I ALWAYS had a seat for (because only the first leg was ever effected) is no longer available and now my trip is in tatters.

They keep telling me they are "requesting a reinstatement" and that it will be "done in 24 hours". 1 week later after calling DAILY, still no reinstatement. Every day they keep palming me off.

As you can imagine ANY flight to Doha during the World Cup is extremely expensive so flying with another airline isn't an option, and like I said, this is 100% Qantas' fault for not re-ticketing properly.

Anyone here that can help? I've spent thousands on hotels and match tickets for the World Cup and the entire thing lies on a knife's edge due to Qantas' incompetence. They really should compensate me for their mistake, but because I'm a lowly Bronze they don't care.

 

[CaptainCurtis]

Hello all,

Was hoping to get some help, I understand many have had the same issue, so hoping to find a solution through the community here.

The background is I am taking a once in a lifetime trip to the World Cup this year. I managed to find an award seat on QFF from Singapore to Doha earlier this year, and so was able to avoid an expensive revenue airfare. The award seat was Singapore to Doha via Colombo on Sri Lankan Airlines.

Originally the booking was for a morning flight out of Singapore, a lengthy transit in Colombo before an evening flight to Doha.

On 18 July I got an email from Qantas that Sri Lankan had cancelled that first leg morning flight. I called back asap and the agent on the other line found a flight in the afternoon leaving Singapore which still managed to connect to the evening flight in Colombo. I was told they'd rebook me no worries.

This was my mistake. I trusted Qantas to ticket my new booking properly.

A month later while casually looking at my QFF I noticed my booking had disappeared. The useless people at Qantas didn't ticket my new flight.

I call back and guess what? There's still seats for the first leg but there are NO MORE SEATS for the second leg. How frustrating that the second leg which I ALWAYS had a seat for (because only the first leg was ever effected) is no longer available and now my trip is in tatters.

They keep telling me they are "requesting a reinstatement" and that it will be "done in 24 hours". 1 week later after calling DAILY, still no reinstatement. Every day they keep palming me off.

As you can imagine ANY flight to Doha during the World Cup is extremely expensive so flying with another airline isn't an option, and like I said, this is 100% Qantas' fault for not re-ticketing properly.

Anyone here that can help? I've spent thousands on hotels and match tickets for the World Cup and the entire thing lies on a knife's edge due to Qantas' incompetence. They really should compensate me for their mistake, but because I'm a lowly Bronze they don't care.

[email protected]

 

[encryptededdy]

[email protected]

Anecdotally from friends who have used this, you'll likely get a call from Hobart a business day or two after emailing her office.

 

[CaptainCurtis]

Anecdotally from friends who have used this, you'll likely get a call from Hobart a business day or two after emailing her office.

Or email a couple of hundred times, and you'll get a call from Hobart within the day

 

[RooFlyer]

This was my mistake. I trusted Qantas to ticket my new booking properly.

They keep telling me they are "requesting a reinstatement" and that it will be "done in 24 hours". 1 week later after calling DAILY, still no reinstatement. Every day they keep palming me off.

Welcome to AFF; sorry about the circumstances that brought you here.

Your experience unfortunately is mirrored by very many others. The e-amil Capt Curtis gave you is a good bet - she's head of 'Loyalty'. Keep it concise and polite and outline the precise solution you are looking for (research and specify flights you want).

 

[mamunr]

Thanks everyone I've emailed Stephanie, hopefully Hobart calls me soon. It's ridiculous that it has come to this.

Have any of you had luck getting reward seats reinstated? I'm just nervous that this isn't guaranteed and I've already invested so much into this trip.

 

[yaksha98]

Mines been on request for 2 weeks

 

[mamunr]

So I emailed Stephanie last night, but decided to try my luck again this morning and call.

It just gets worse. I was told by the operator that the email to Sri Lankan to get it reinstated was only sent yesterday. This is despite being told last week it was sent.

I am just stunned at the incompetence. Nobody cares to check/follow up on basic things, which are having huge effects on people.

I can only imagine the average punter who just trust these people, doesn't know the concept of ticketing v booking etc like us, who will rock up to the airport only to find no ticket exists for them.

I have emailed Stephanie again this morning, it took all my patience not to get angry, but I had to briefly and politely mention that I was "disappointed" that I couldn't "put my trust into the call centre".

I've taken the above advice and been very specific about what flights I need reinstated and even put my mobile number in there as like everyone says, Hobart will call me soon, so I may as well.

 

[jpp42]

The problem here is that Qantas may be limited in their ability to actually resolve this issue to your satisfaction, even with a push from Stephanie Tully's office. Since they don't fly to Doha on their own, they can't open up a seat on their own metal. Sri Lankan is unlikely to honor the reinstatement request as they've given/sold that award seat to someone else and are not going to sell it to Qantas for a pittance when they could sell for many thousands on the open market, given it's a busy travel period. It's unlikely that award seating will be available on any other carrier due to the World Cup. The only possibility would be for Qantas to pay for a revenue seat on Sri Lankan or other carrier like QR, but I have never heard of them doing this. Ultimately Qantas is likely to just cancel your trip entirely, refund your points, and call it a day, unless you can find something that fits within their framework, and I am doubtful there is anything.

Just trying to brainstorm - are you actually starting your journey from Australia and positioning for the award flight from SIN on a segment you haven't mentioned? One option I could think of is to demand Qantas get you as close to Doha as you can get on Qantas metal, for example SYD-DEL. The flight from DEL to DOH is only about 3-4 hours and you should have more options of carriers so maybe these airfares won't be as bad, although transiting in DEL on separate tickets is not really recommended. But this won't work if actually starting in SIN. Maybe you could try to get Qantas to give you a seat SIN-LHR on Qantas and then find a flight LHR-DOH ... but I'm not sure those airfares will be any better than whatever you can find directly from SIN.

 

[mamunr]

Yeah that's the issue I'm based in Sydney but I'm spending a couple of days in Singapore before heading off to the World Cup, hence the SIN to DOH leg.

I hear what you're saying and I can totally understand that it's out of their control now but if they'd done what I'd told them on 18 July properly then we wouldn't be in this situation.

I can only hope that they compensate me for something that was still their mistake.

 

[jpp42]

Are you flying in economy class?

Just FYI, I am not sure your exact travel dates but I searched some dates in late Nov/early December and found economy flights for as low as A$607 one-way on Malaysian and Oman Air, via two stops at KUL and MCT. A one-stop itinerary is available on Philippine Airlines via MNL for A$866, albeit with a long layover. So yes I would try to get some compensation from Qantas for the stuff up (they might give you more QFF points which you can't use), but you should start looking at contingencies that will still get you to Doha - I don't think it's quite as dire as you suppose. Even the direct flight on QR is around $1800, or your original itinerary on UL around $1500. These may be a bit expensive for economy, but not atrociously so.

You won't get cash compensation from Qantas here. But one idea might be to ask for an equivalent number of QFF points for the your costs due to booking the flight later. If we estimate the average booked-in-advance cost of SIN-DOH flights with one stop as A$1000 (just a rough estimate when I looked for dates in March '23), and your actual price for booking now is $1500, your loss is around $500. If QFF points are worth $0.008 each , that means you're due about 62,500 points for the inconvenience. Adjust this as appropriate - make sense? But I've never heard of this many points actually being awarded in such a situation - max "sorry" points appears to be around 10k.

 

[mamunr]

Thanks for the research. Yes have already looked at contingencies. We are a family of 3 so the costs will add up a bit. The original booking was in economy, 90k points and $522 (total for the 3 of us). Any alternative I book now will have me significantly out of pocket. Let's see what they come back with, I'll keep your calcs in mind.

 

[Ktan89]

I just read this whole thread because I'm going through my own battles with QF and it is a frustrating one being a lowly bronze member. Trying to get them to reinstate/request a better flight from QR because my original flight was cancelled. This used to be done easily where they can call the OW helpdesk and get a response approved or declined. Now they need to email and wait for a response and I tell you now, it is not within 24 hours or a week..

I'm glad to hear it all worked out Jimmy and hope that you are having a blast at the moment.
Kudos to the platinum member who took time to assist you too.

What a mess with QF... I wonder if the whole QR withholding seats from QF is because QR is sick of QF's BS.

 

[BD1959]

It is any coincidence that most of the issues we are seeing are Award flights on QR - or is that just my misconception? Are the QR systems overly sensitive to ticketing timing/QF sector issues?

Regards,

BD

 

[Mr H]

It is any coincidence that most of the issues we are seeing are Award flights on QR - or is that just my misconception? Are the QR systems overly sensitive to ticketing timing/QF sector issues?

Regards,

BD

QR is not alone in demanding prompt ticketing. In my recent experience, so too are MH and AT. I suspect QR features most prominently in these posts because their routes are most popular as one of the few routes from Australia to Europe which, in turn, are most likely to feature in complex itineraries that run into ticketing problems.

 

[encryptededdy]

I don't want to shift the blame to QR (since this is absolutely Qantas' fault here), but I do wonder why they demand prompt ticketing when a flight change occurs. I'm not very well versed in GDSes, so maybe there's a good reason for this but... maybe it's hard to configure the system to work otherwise?

Because if I was designing such a system, I can understand why I would want prompt ticketing for the initial ticket (to stop people hogging seats). However when there's an involuntary change (sometimes even by QR!), then it's clear the customer wants those seats (since it's been ticketed in the past), so why remove their booking if not ticketed within 24 hours in that case?

 

[Ktan89]

However when there's an involuntary change (sometimes even by QR!), then it's clear the customer wants those seats (since it's been ticketed in the past), so why remove their booking if not ticketed within 24 hours in that case?

I think when QR does a involuntary change, they put you on the next available flight and will wait until you accept. I think what is happening is, QF will "accept" the flight changes but their ticketing team doesn't reticket which will make the flight fall off the booking..

When QR cancelled my flight and put me on a later flight, the new flight booking will say "confirmed". When you log into your PNR it gives you a notice requesting you to contact QF to accept or reject these changes. I haven't updated mine for weeks now hoping that I can request QR to open up seats on a different flight and the new "confirmed" flight booking is still there.

So correct me if I am wrong, but I think the flight will only drop off when it is waiting for QF to reissue the ticket AFTER the acceptance of the new changes.

 

[denisestone]

I just read this whole thread because I'm going through my own battles with QF and it is a frustrating one being a lowly bronze member. Trying to get them to reinstate/request a better flight from QR because my original flight was cancelled. This used to be done easily where they can call the OW helpdesk and get a response approved or declined. Now they need to email and wait for a response and I tell you now, it is not within 24 hours or a week..

I'm glad to hear it all worked out Jimmy and hope that you are having a blast at the moment.
Kudos to the platinum member who took time to assist you too.

What a mess with QF... I wonder if the whole QR withholding seats from QF is because QR is sick of QF's BS.

Ktn, it doesn't matter that you are Bronze. We are both Gold members and get no special attention.

Does anyone know how we can book paid ATH/MEL or DOH/MEL flights without phoning QF? We want to earn QF FF points, so not booking direct with Qatar.

 

[Cognac]

Ktn, it doesn't matter that you are Bronze. We are both Gold members and get no special attention.

Does anyone know how we can book paid ATH/MEL or DOH/MEL flights without phoning QF? We want to earn QF FF points, so not booking direct with Qatar.

Booking with QR you can still put your QFF number into the booking. You'll earn SC and points per the partner earning table.

They also have a little calculator to let you know how much you should earn on a given flight (you can even select which airway is operating the flight).

Qantas Points Calculators | Frequent Flyer

Find out all you need to know about earning and using Qantas Points with our points calculators.

www.qantas.com