MH reward flight zeroing out for travel this Sept - booked on Qantas, when should I expect the cancellation notification?

lulu123

Newbie
Joined
Apr 12, 2022
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7
HI all,

First time posting but really enjoyed reading all other posts. I'm hoping someone may have had a similar experience to mine and could share the outcome and/or advice.

We originally booked a business RTW classic reward ticket with Qantas for travel this Sept (we were newbies and had NO idea the issues we were going to face with delayed phone calls, ticketing issues, and etc). We're bronze being such newbs

We have many flights on the one booking and the outbound flight to the UK is BNE -> KUL (direct) 6 Sept 2022 on MH 134. It's ages away but I wanted to see how full it was so tried to search for it on the Malaysian Airline website and the flight doesn't come up. Alarm bells goes off. Especially since we have a connecting flight to catch to get to UK with another airline (we left about 10 hrs transit in case of delays).

I tried to google this issue and found an article on TPG on what to look out for when airlines start to cancel fights:
1) Flights no longer available to book. 2) Flights are 'zeroed' out on EF.

So I looked on EF and yes, indeed it looks like the flights are "zeroed' out, see attached. But I have no notification from Qantas on the flight cancellation (and I've had plenty previously on our trip with BA, AA and QR flights).

I called up Malaysian Airlines and they confirmed that the flight is no longer appearing on the website but said it's still scheduled and probably sold out. I highly doubt that as I've looked about a month ago and there's approx only 10 seats taken (I know some people don't choose seats until check in) but all the flights around that time aren't sold out either. and it's Brisbane for travel over 2 months away...

My questions are below:
1) Should I expect that this flight will be cancelled soon and if so has anyone experienced this and what were the time frames between finding out it wasn't bookable/zeroed out to official cancellation. Do you think booking through Qantas has 'delayed' the message of it being cancelled or disadvantages us for replacement flights?

2) If it's cancelled, I assume MH will put me on another flight but only if there is a reward business available? I can't find any business reward booking flight out of BNE, SYD or ADL (was being desperate and looking for back up options). I'm starting to panic that they will only tell us a week out and then not even economy would be available!!!

3 ) Has anyone experienced this and NOT had the flight cancelled and travelled on the zeroed out flight?

4 ) Any advice on next steps? I guess I'll have to wait for the dreaded email and then numerous calls to find an alternative (there don't seem to be many) ?

Thanks in advance!
 

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In response to point number two, I would think there’s a high chance MH will move you to another flight, especially if you’re connecting. Different airline, but I had a Sri Lankan award booked through qantas… Sri Lankan cancelled the inbound and sent me an email updating the flights for the next day. I still had to call them up because then I ended up arriving to CMB after I was departing to MEL and explained QF couldn’t release the same fare on a partner airline so they fixed it, even after they told me QF was my “travel agent” (QF as a TA sounds like a recipe for disaster…can barely do being an airline correctly).

Some airlines aren’t as annoying as QF so when you get the notification I’d just try calling MH again and see what they say. Just tell them QF can’t release the same fare class.

Of course after saying all that a backup plan wouldn’t go astray.

Cheers
 
In response to point number two, I would think there’s a high chance MH will move you to another flight, especially if you’re connecting. Different airline, but I had a Sri Lankan award booked through qantas… Sri Lankan cancelled the inbound and sent me an email updating the flights for the next day. I still had to call them up because then I ended up arriving to CMB after I was departing to MEL and explained QF couldn’t release the same fare on a partner airline so they fixed it, even after they told me QF was my “travel agent” (QF as a TA sounds like a recipe for disaster…can barely do being an airline correctly).

Some airlines aren’t as annoying as QF so when you get the notification I’d just try calling MH again and see what they say. Just tell them QF can’t release the same fare class.

Of course after saying all that a backup plan wouldn’t go astray.

Cheers
Thanks so much for this, really appreciate it and great tip on calling malaysian airlines , I'll definitely try! I agree - Qantas as a TA is the stuff of nightmares!
 
I had some MH flights cancelled earlier this year for an award itinerary I was travelling on. MH emailed me and automatically put me on a flight the next day, and Qantas automatically issued a new e-ticket for the new flight not long after.

Sadly I don't know whether the replacement flight had award space or not, so I'm unsure if they would've rebooked me automatically if it did not.
 
I had some MH flights cancelled earlier this year for an award itinerary I was travelling on. MH emailed me and automatically put me on a flight the next day, and Qantas automatically issued a new e-ticket for the new flight not long after.

Sadly I don't know whether the replacement flight had award space or not, so I'm unsure if they would've rebooked me automatically if it did not.
Thanks for sharing - that’s reassuring that they put you on an alternative flight. Just wondering if you knew roughly how long they cancelled prior to your scheduled flight? Was it months or weeks in advance? I called up MAS and they said sometimes they’re cancel 3 days before departure which is obviously not ideal!

I’m also so shocked that Qanatas reticketed your flights straight away - you should buy a lottery ticket as I’ve always had to chase up multiple times and then had my ticket cancelled cause they didn’t ticket on time ( apparently so have many others too judging by backlash on social media!)

Thanks again!
 
Welcome to AFF @lulu123 .

Sorry if it sounds like I’m confusing things for you but if it is a Qantas award ticket and Malaysian airlines has cancelled the flight then I think you’ll have to work through Qantas to get a replacement. What do others think? As soon as you do that the better. However if MH haven’t advised the world of the cancellation then Qantas probably won’t be able to act yet.

I have a revenue ticket on QR in November and Qantas have cancelled my first QF connecting flight out of Hobart to Adelaide. It’s definitely cancelled my travel agent who booked the flight says it is ( and it’s no longer for sale ) but Qantas hasn’t advised her yet of the cancellation so she can’t do anything about it in the QR ticket. Qantas is the absolute pits at the moment
 
Just wondering if you knew roughly how long they cancelled prior to your scheduled flight? Was it months or weeks in advance? I called up MAS and they said sometimes they’re cancel 3 days before departure which is obviously not ideal!
It was around 3 weeks. However, there's many reasons why they may zero out a flight without cancelling, so it's hard to predict.

I know it's stressful but there's literially nothing you can do about it right now :(
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I’m also so shocked that Qanatas reticketed your flights straight away
Me too! Glad they did though, I was a busy enough organising a newly found overnight in KUL that I didn't have time to call them up and wait on hold for it to ticket.
 
Welcome to AFF @lulu123 .

Sorry if it sounds like I’m confusing things for you but if it is a Qantas award ticket and Malaysian airlines has cancelled the flight then I think you’ll have to work through Qantas to get a replacement. What do others think? As soon as you do that the better. However if MH haven’t advised the world of the cancellation then Qantas probably won’t be able to act yet.

I have a revenue ticket on QR in November and Qantas have cancelled my first QF connecting flight out of Hobart to Adelaide. It’s definitely cancelled my travel agent who booked the flight says it is ( and it’s no longer for sale ) but Qantas hasn’t advised her yet of the cancellation so she can’t do anything about it in the QR ticket. Qantas is the absolute pits at the moment
Thanks for the welcome and no not confusing and makes total sense. Looks like I’ll just have to sit and wait… Fingers cross you’re put on an alternative flight soon and get notified.

I have definitely chosen the wrong time to try to book through Qantas but lessons learnt!
 
Personally I will keep calling as long as you can be bothered and have time and see if you can get a competent agent who can see the flights been cancelled and work on a replacement. You may be lucky and the agent might not realise that they have to advise by MH. 😊 Getting a reward seat only a week or so out from the scheduled flight will be very difficult and you might be stuck.

How about looking at an earlier ( day or so prior) flight on MH and then calling Qantas just to change the schedule without even mentioning that the original flights been cancelled. It might cost you a night in a hotel but at least you have I confirmed flight. Oh by the way you know about the difficulties in having to be re-ticketed and the perils of that so that’s another thing to consider if you make this ‘voluntary’ change.
 
Personally I will keep calling as long as you can be bothered and have time and see if you can get a competent agent who can see the flights been cancelled and work on a replacement.
The problem is Qantas can't open award space on MH, so I'm unsure how they are to get OP to KUL to connect with their next flight, unless they open space on their own flights via. SIN which seems unlikely, especially since the MH flight hasn't even been officially cancelled. I would say if you are to call someone now, MH are the only people who can help (but I have no idea how willing they would be to help, since you have to get the agent to recognise the implications of the flight being zeroed...)
 
The problem is Qantas can't open award space on MH, so I'm unsure how they are to get OP to KUL to connect with their next flight, unless they open space on their own flights via. SIN which seems unlikely, especially since the MH flight hasn't even been officially cancelled. I would say if you are to call someone now, MH are the only people who can help (but I have no idea how willing they would be to help, since you have to get the agent to recognise the implications of the flight being zeroed...)
Sure I agree with all that. But I was thinking that the OP might get a another incompetent ( poorly trained) Qantas agent who didn’t realise that they shouldn’t replace the flight 😊 and also maybe go a day or two earlier just to get the flight locked in. The OP can only try, if they have time or can be bothered. Wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t.
 
On the MH website it says the direct is not scheduled that day, but it shows a QF BNE-MEL connection for example

As @RooFlyer says @lulu123 has a choice whether to be proactive about this or not

I’ve detailed some of my experience with this precise issue but with JL - classic reward flight canceled but no notification from JL or QF on this thread
 

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