If my Business Class Classic Rewards Flight is cancelled do Qantas have to put me on another Business class flight?

[chiken_nugets]

I think the optimal outcome from a wife point of view (even though I wouldn't personally say no to staying on QF6 through to SYD and experiencing the transit lounge) is clearing immigration in Perth and arriving in domestic in Brisbane. A shorter trip overall and when you get home it is a really easy arrival process.

I called again and got someone helpful in RSA who is trying to make the final sector J.

Very happy though to be nitpicking about the final details and not stuck with a horrible itinerary via six airports!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I think the optimal outcome from a wife point of view (even though I wouldn't personally say no to staying on QF6 through to SYD and experiencing the transit lounge) is clearing immigration in Perth and arriving in domestic in Brisbane. A shorter trip overall and when you get home it is a really easy arrival process.

I think you’ll find the current flights you are booked on should provide a smoother experience even if that last sector is in economy.

I called again and got someone helpful in RSA who is trying to make the final sector J.

Let us know if you were successful

Very happy though to be nitpicking about the final details and not stuck with a horrible itinerary via six airports!

Yeah this is definitely a much cleaner itinerary. I will also point out that this is yet another datapoint proving that not all airline imposed changes/cancellations are necessarily a bad thing. I doubt you would’ve been able to book the current itinerary you are in as a classic award given how popular QF6 has proven to be. However this schedule change forced QF’s hands. This is why I continue to enjoy cancellations and changes particularly to award bookings since it lets me go back and book the flights I really wanted at no cost!

-RooFlyer88

 

[chiken_nugets]

I doubt you would’ve been able to book the current itinerary you are in as a classic award given how popular QF6 has proven to be.

100%, I would have had buckley's of booking a reward seat on QF6. Thank you KLM!

 

[turkz1]

Well there goes Christmas. Had a Qantas business classic rewards flight from NRT-SFO that I would have missed due to weather causing a 6 hour delay from MEL-NRT. After trying Qantas 5 times on the phone the only offer I was given was a refund. Given that NRT-SFO flights are over $4k one way for Christmas we had to abandon our entire booking. Business as usual for Qantas these days.

Edit: Worth adding for posterity that the JAL agents on the ground tried everything to get us a rebooking including trying to get us on a United flight however since Qantas owned the second leg of our trip nothing could be done without Qantas consent. Other passengers who had all legs booked through JL were promptly moved to UA61. We tried to speak to Qantas boots on the ground at MEL and were told by the Swissport ground staff that the only service desk is prior to check in and we would have to be offloaded and exit to speak to anyone. Funny enough, prior to checking in we did also have to go to this service desk because despite having seat reservations our ticket was not issued (probably not a surprise to any of the AFF veterans) and the only service we were afforded was a small torn off sheet of paper with a 1300 number to call. Find it completely bonkers that once we were at the gates JAL ground staff were scrambling to do their best to find a resolution for us while I couldn’t speak to a single soul from Qantas on the ground in MEL instead getting passed around between what sounded like South Africa and Manila until the nth hour and we were offloaded from our flight. Unbelievably disappointed that this is now commonplace with QF.

 

[encryptededdy]

Well there goes Christmas. Had a Qantas business classic rewards flight from NRT-SFO that I would have missed due to weather causing a 6 hour delay from MEL-NRT. After trying Qantas 5 times on the phone the only offer I was given was a refund. Given that NRT-SFO flights are over $4k one way for Christmas we had to abandon our entire booking. Business as usual for Qantas these days.

Was the NRT-SFO JAL as well? Maybe someone else can chime in but I thought that in that instance JAL should be able to rebook you? I guess Qantas still needs to reissue the ticket? But presumably JAL staff would have a way of contacting Qantas to do that that doesn't involve you calling the call centre.

 

[turkz1]

Was the NRT-SFO JAL as well? Maybe someone else can chime in but I thought that in that instance JAL should be able to rebook you? I guess Qantas still needs to reissue the ticket? But presumably JAL staff would have a way of contacting Qantas to do that that doesn't involve you calling the call centre.

Yes NRT-SFO was JAL. JAL ground staff rang their admin team numerous times with no success advising that they could not make changes to the booking due to QF owning it. I also asked specifically if they could contact Qantas on my behalf and was told that no, I would have to contact Qantas. At one point QF told me to speak to JAL as the booking had gone into airport control(?) but a this point JAL said they could still not do anything about it. Also just putting it out there… the swissport admin team on the ground were asking a lot of questions and diluting the situation without being able to offer anything at all toward a resolution. It was a rough day at the airport. 2+ years since the the pandemic and we’ll be missing the chance to reconnect with so many of our family as a result.

 

[encryptededdy]

Yes NRT-SFO was JAL. JAL ground staff rang their admin team numerous times with no success advising that they could not make changes to the booking due to QF owning it. I also asked specifically if they could contact Qantas on my behalf and was told that no, I would have to contact Qantas. At one point QF told me to speak to JAL as the booking had gone into airport control(?) but a this point JAL said they could still not do anything about it. Also just putting it out there… the swissport admin team on the ground were asking a lot of questions and diluting the situation without being able to offer anything at all toward a resolution. It was a rough day at the airport. 2+ years since the the pandemic and we’ll be missing the chance to reconnect with so many of our family as a result.

Of course it's not your fault in not knowing, but I do suspect the JAL ground staff may have made mistakes here. I think they're supposed to contact Qantas to get the ticket reissued after they make changes to it. I'm sure someone else here can probably say for certain what the correct process is.

I can't imagine getting the customer to call the issuing carrier in the event of IRROPS is correct.

 

[turkz1]

Of course it's not your fault in not knowing, but I do suspect the JAL ground staff may have made mistakes here. I think they're supposed to contact Qantas to get the ticket reissued after they make changes to it. I'm sure someone else here can probably say for certain what the correct process is.

I can't imagine getting the customer to call the issuing carrier in the event of IRROPS is correct.

Not sure if it was lost in translation however JAL also advised that the subsequent JL58 tomorrow was overbooked in both classes. Whether they should have advised us to fly into NRT and waited for them to secure an alternative route or if they would have again pushed that back onto Qantas is a murky situation. Have to say the prospect of being stuck at NRT without a paddle was not attractive at the time. Qantas had already flatly advised no alternative and at that point it was very unclear if our insurance would cover the second leg of $4k per person or an earlier return. Still unsure about the insurance coverage in this instance.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not sure if it was lost in translation however JAL also advised that the subsequent JL58 tomorrow was overbooked in both classes. Whether they should have advised us to fly into NRT and waited for them to secure an alternative route or if they would have again pushed that back onto Qantas is a murky situation. Have to say the prospect of being stuck at NRT without a paddle was not attractive at the time. Qantas had already flatly advised no alternative and at that point it was very unclear if our insurance would cover the second leg of $4k per person or an earlier return. Still unsure about the insurance coverage in this instance.

Just to confirm we’re these flights on separate tickets? MEL-TYO and separate ticket TYO-SFO? If it was all on the one ticket you would have been protected right through.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Well there goes Christmas. Had a Qantas business classic rewards flight from NRT-SFO that I would have missed due to weather causing a 6 hour delay from MEL-NRT. After trying Qantas 5 times on the phone the only offer I was given was a refund. Given that NRT-SFO flights are over $4k one way for Christmas we had to abandon our entire booking. Business as usual for Qantas these days.

Edit: Worth adding for posterity that the JAL agents on the ground tried everything to get us a rebooking including trying to get us on a United flight however since Qantas owned the second leg of our trip nothing could be done without Qantas consent. Other passengers who had all legs booked through JL were promptly moved to UA61. We tried to speak to Qantas boots on the ground at MEL and were told by the Swissport ground staff that the only service desk is prior to check in and we would have to be offloaded and exit to speak to anyone. Funny enough, prior to checking in we did also have to go to this service desk because despite having seat reservations our ticket was not issued (probably not a surprise to any of the AFF veterans) and the only service we were afforded was a small torn off sheet of paper with a 1300 number to call. Find it completely bonkers that once we were at the gates JAL ground staff were scrambling to do their best to find a resolution for us while I couldn’t speak to a single soul from Qantas on the ground in MEL instead getting passed around between what sounded like South Africa and Manila until the nth hour and we were offloaded from our flight. Unbelievably disappointed that this is now commonplace with QF.

Were you flying
MEL-NRT on JL and then a separate ticket on a QF Award NRT-SFO ?

Or is this a very straightforward MEL-NRT-SFO on QF Business Award?

If the latter then JL is responsible for rebooking you in the event of a misconnect.
If the former then it’s separate tickets and if your first flight is delayed then QF has no responsibility to rebook you.

 

[turkz1]

Just to confirm we’re these flights on separate tickets? MEL-TYO and separate ticket TYO-SFO? If it was all on the one ticket you would have been protected right through.

Yes MEL-TYO was purchased directly from JAL. TYO-SFO was a classic flight reward from Qantas. If it was all booked through JAL they would have put me on UA61 straight away. They initially tried to do this but were unsuccessful. Should we really not be using miles for these eventualities though? Is it understood that QF is not supposed to support these flights if there are issues and that they are indeed throwaway flights? Because that would indeed be Qantas having it both ways. QF didn’t have any classic flight rewards from MEL-TYO so the booking had to be broken up. I was mistakenly under the impression that JAL and/or Qantas would have helped me figure this one out in the case of an eventuality but I messed around and found out. Would have also happily put a layover in between but at the time of booking NRT was not allowing overnight layovers due to covid entry restrictions. Bit of a perfect storm of my ignorance and other factors that lined this one up.

 

[turkz1]

Were you flying
MEL-NRT on JL and then a separate ticket on a QF Award NRT-SFO ?

Or is this a very straightforward MEL-NRT-SFO on QF Business Award?

If the latter then JL is responsible for rebooking you in the event of a misconnect.
If the former then it’s separate tickets and if your first flight is delayed then QF has no responsibility to rebook you.

Unfortunately the former, that’s correct. QF didn’t rebook me and JL was unsuccessful at rebooking me after giving it a fair crack. Would have happily booked a straightforward MEL-NRT-SFO if there was an option but there were not available rewards seats for MEL-NRT at the time of booking.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Yes MEL-TYO was purchased directly from JAL. TYO-SFO was a classic flight reward from Qantas. If it was all booked through JAL they would have put me on UA61 straight away. Should we really not be using miles for this reason though? QF didn’t have any classic flight rewards from MEL-TYO so the booking had to be broken up. I was mistakenly under the impression that JAL and/or Qantas would have helped me figure this one out in the case of an eventuality but I messed around and found out. Would have also happily put a layover in between but at the time of booking NRT was not allowing layovers. Bit of a perfect storm of my ignorance and other factors that lined this one up.

This is a situation where you can use miles, but you really need a big buffer between your flights to allow for potential delays.

Overnight or next day is ideal for this purpose. However, to be fair, if I had been in your situation I possibly would have risked a 6 hour connection, which allows for a good three hour delay on my first flight.

Longer than that is unusual. You just got really bad luck.

However, once it became apparent that the delay on the outbound would have misconnected in TYO i would have assessed onward options before departing Australia. I was in a similar situation once connecting separate tickets LAX-HNL then HNL-MNL. The LAX-HNL was delayed past the departure time of the MNL flight so I organised a cheap replacement ex HNL via Tokyo before even contemplating getting on my LAX-HNL.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Yes MEL-TYO was purchased directly from JAL. TYO-SFO was a classic flight reward from Qantas. If it was all booked through JAL they would have put me on UA61 straight away. Should we really not be using miles for this reason though? QF didn’t have any classic flight rewards from MEL-TYO so the booking had to be broken up. I was mistakenly under the impression that JAL and/or Qantas would have helped me figure this one out in the case of an eventuality but I messed around and found out. Would have also happily put a layover in between but at the time of booking NRT was not allowing layovers. Bit of a perfect storm of my ignorance and other factors that lined this one up.

Unfortunately this is what can happen when you have separate tickets.
If you need to book separate tickets then it’s best to build in a buffer at the transit point.
Overnight stay is what I would be most comfortable with.

I can understand your frustration at the cancellation of your trip but I don’t think QF can be held responsible for this.

You have a JL ticket on revenue connecting to a QF Award on JL.
The initial flight is delayed. You miss your QF Award flight on JL.
QF would never rebook you on revenue UA to SFO as their company credit card would be paying for that.
JL is off the hook.

 

[turkz1]

Unfortunately this is what can happen when you have separate tickets.
If you need to book separate tickets then it’s best to build in a buffer at the transit point.
Overnight stay is what I would be most comfortable with.

I can understand your frustration at the cancellation of your trip but I don’t think QF can be held responsible for this.

You have a JL ticket on revenue connecting to a QF Award on JL.
The initial flight is delayed. You miss your QF Award flight on JL.
QF would never rebook you on revenue UA to SFO as their company credit card would be paying for that.
JL is off the hook.

Yeah understood. Overnight stay would have been ideal but not possible at NRT during time of booking due to covid restrictions. Quite a few circumstantial events leading to this outcome including this morning’s fog at MEL that delayed dozens of flights and caused a fair few diversions. Wild day and a lesson learned overall.

Whether QF or JAL can be held responsible is an open question. If I had paid QF or JAL for both flights on JAL I would have been covered. I paid JAL directly for one and redeemed another via QF and suddenly that absolves both from resolving any issues? Doesn’t quite sit right. If JAL is compensated for that flight by QF via my redemption booking why can neither assist to get me connected?

The question around UA61 is aso an interesting one. JAL was willing to book UA61 and attempted it. QF did not assist. UA61 bridges both of those legs as it is MEL-SFO. Ultimately would it have been a shared cost? I offered to pay a fare difference at the JAL counter but nothing could be done.

Don’t want to dilute this topic with my fringe case but all in all just a bit disappointed with the fact that qantas defaults to refunds with rewards flights with zero support offered even when the partner airline is pushing for a resolution and just as is stated in the OP that’s Qantas having it both ways.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Yeah understood. Overnight stay would have been ideal but not possible at NRT during time of booking due to covid restrictions. Quite a few circumstantial events leading to this outcome including this morning’s fog at MEL that delayed dozens of flights and caused a fair few diversions. Wild day and a lesson learned overall.

Whether QF or JAL can be held responsible is an open question. If I had paid QF or JAL for both flights on JAL I would have been covered. I paid JAL directly for one and redeemed another via QF and suddenly that absolves both from resolving any issues? Doesn’t quite sit right. If JAL is compensated for that flight by QF via my redemption booking why can neither assist to get me connected?

The question around UA61 is aso an interesting one. JAL was willing to book UA61 and attempted it. QF did not assist. UA61 bridges both of those legs as it is MEL-SFO. Ultimately would it have been a shared cost? I offered to pay a fare difference at the JAL counter but nothing could be done.

Don’t want to dilute this topic with my fringe case but all in all just a bit disappointed with the fact that qantas defaults to refunds with rewards flights with zero support offered even when the partner airline is pushing for a resolution and just as is stated in the OP that’s Qantas having it both ways.

I suspect if you were CL / P1 then you may well have got a resolution via the VIP team going above and beyond and well outside SOP

Not an option available to others unfortunately.
I’m fairly certain would be the same with no status on a BA / AA award on JL.

 

[RichardMEL]

The problem is it's NOT a shared cost from QF's point of view.

Basically as far as QF is concerned with the ticket you got from NRT-SFO you'd be a no show for that sector due to .. well reality is they don't care the reasons why. With no availability (and limited rerouting, if any, options) then they could, and did.. (panfully) walk away from it. Seems like JL proposed very reasonable solution, but their hands are tied because you only purchased a ticket with them from MEL-NRT - which they were operating, but horribly delayed (I think had they cancelled that flight, the situation might be slightly different, but still problematic imo). See, you could have still taken that flight to NRT you purchased.... (and well being stuck in MEL with no flights is probably better than being stuck in Tokyo I would think).

As others have said this is the incredble risk with separate tickets - even if on the same airline. JL is correct in that they couldn't touch the QF issued ticket, even though it's on their flight and QF clearly wouldn't come to the party - I understand why of course but it's a coughpy outcome even if the "rules" have been met per se.

In theory this is where a far more unified oneworld coordination system would help - or perhaps from a customer perspective SHOULD help. I mean they're an alliance in theory but the two parts aren't behaving as part of the alliance that's supposed to look after their alliance customer. Disappointing.

As per other comments this is where padding, and a lot of it, and/or flexibility is essential.

it occurs to me that if JL were saying the NRT-SFO flight was oversold - would they have been willing to move you to the next day or something like that I wonder - helps them out and you'd make that connection. QF would probably not have a problem with that. Now you may not have been able to make an overnight in NRT and a delayed arrival in SFO work for your plans (christmas) but seems to me that might have been an angle to potentially work on. Of course it's easy for me sitting here not stressed out and annoyed that my trip has been nuked.

 

[encryptededdy]

The question around UA61 is aso an interesting one. JAL was willing to book UA61 and attempted it.

Yeah, given you were on seperate tickets I wonder what the intent was here. Was JAL going to pay for the UA flight? Or maybe their ground staff in Melbourne isn't super experienced with seperate tickets and thought it would be allowed by policy, but actually isn't.

 

[turkz1]

The problem is it's NOT a shared cost from QF's point of view.

Basically as far as QF is concerned with the ticket you got from NRT-SFO you'd be a no show for that sector due to .. well reality is they don't care the reasons why. With no availability (and limited rerouting, if any, options) then they could, and did.. (panfully) walk away from it. Seems like JL proposed very reasonable solution, but their hands are tied because you only purchased a ticket with them from MEL-NRT - which they were operating, but horribly delayed (I think had they cancelled that flight, the situation might be slightly different, but still problematic imo). See, you could have still taken that flight to NRT you purchased.... (and well being stuck in MEL with no flights is probably better than being stuck in Tokyo I would think).

As others have said this is the incredble risk with separate tickets - even if on the same airline. JL is correct in that they couldn't touch the QF issued ticket, even though it's on their flight and QF clearly wouldn't come to the party - I understand why of course but it's a coughpy outcome even if the "rules" have been met per se.

In theory this is where a far more unified oneworld coordination system would help - or perhaps from a customer perspective SHOULD help. I mean they're an alliance in theory but the two parts aren't behaving as part of the alliance that's supposed to look after their alliance customer. Disappointing.

As per other comments this is where padding, and a lot of it, and/or flexibility is essential.

it occurs to me that if JL were saying the NRT-SFO flight was oversold - would they have been willing to move you to the next day or something like that I wonder - helps them out and you'd make that connection. QF would probably not have a problem with that. Now you may not have been able to make an overnight in NRT and a delayed arrival in SFO work for your plans (christmas) but seems to me that might have been an angle to potentially work on. Of course it's easy for me sitting here not stressed out and annoyed that my trip has been nuked.

Appreciate the input and we did mention we were open to next day or further. Even flights that were 4-5 days out from NRT-SFO were on the table for us as we wouldn’t have minded the few days in Tokyo but we have to have had something concrete in the way of a connection to SFO. JAL said no to this, only checking the same next day flight which was oversold and this was roughly the point where they completely let us go by telling us to phone Qantas. Qantas didn’t even attempt to find a suitable alternative. About 20 seconds of “let me check” followed by “the best we can do is a refund.“

 

[turkz1]

Yeah, given you were on seperate tickets I wonder what the intent was here. Was JAL going to pay for the UA flight? Or did maybe their ground staff in Melbourne isn't super experienced with seperate tickets and thought it would be allowed by policy, but actually isn't.

Unsure. Our booking reference did briefly change to UA61 at which point I naively thought we were in the clear. All downhill from there today though!