This relates to another thread I started, but people were asking me "why" and once I wrote it up, I thought it was worth posting separately to find out if anyone has ever had an experience like this with Qantas (I'm a Gold for what it is worth - clearly, not much)... I'd be furious at Qantas even if I was a non-status flyer...
We started with a round trip family booking MEL to HNL return (points booking) - booking was for myself, my husband, our 4 year old and our 2 year old...everyone booked under 1 booking/flying together. Something came up with my husband's work - he needed to return to MEL a week before the rest of our family. Called Qantas - they said "no problem", we can split your husband's booking off/cancel his return and book him a return that you will have to pay for at current ticket prices (approx AU$734 for the single return leg)/refund the points (less penalty) & taxes paid etc. I was very happy with that. Spent some time on the phone while the agent split his booking off/confirmed by cc number/went over ALL seat assignments to ensure family still seated together for all flights (important later). Agent was quite nice - seemed competent.
Well, no email came through to my registered email or my husband's email regarding new single leg booking, which I thought was odd - so I called. Here's what they found...my husband's return leg had been cancelled, no new booking had been made and my 4 year old was also split off from the original booking which they guessed was due to his middle name being the same as my husband's first name (given how pedantic airlines are about matching names to reservations, this is just sloppy). Agent #2 was appropriately apologetic, spent ages on the phone - he said 1 - they won't charge me the penalty points for the cancellation (which, I have not checked) and 2 - he took my cc number (rather than just repeating the last 4 digits of the card used for the original booking as Agent #1 did) and promised me all was set.
I logged on to my QF account and my husband's QF account the next day - could not find one of the now 4 related bookings (as per the above, there were now 4 bookings - one for myself & my 3 year old; 1 for my 4 year old who should have never been split off and 2 for my husband - outbound and return). Qantas had promised me they were all linked in their system and that we were all seated together. I was at wits end - this was 2 days before our trip. I reached out to a local community group on Facebook to find out if anyone had any contacts with Qantas (I knew there was one active member who used to work for Qantas in specifically for their Chairman's Club members). This lovely woman responded and offered to help free of charge. She took all my details etc., went over the booking (she could not believe how stuffed up it was) and called Qantas. She spent 1.5 hours on the phone with them (I kid you not) - she would not take anything from me although I'm taking her for coffee next week. She asked the agent on the phone to issue my husband's ticket on the spot (apparently, there's 2 steps - booking/paying & then having the ticket issued...new purchases are first in the queue for ticket issuance and any changes get pushed to the back of the queue and are moved up based on departure day...according to Lovely Woman...so she wanted them to push through my husband's new ticket). Agent said they couldn't push it through as it was after 5pm on a Friday (true or not, I don't know). Lovely Woman also asked them to confirm our family seats as she said she did not trust them to do anything right at this point. Anyway, Lovely Woman said we should be set and told me to double check in the lounge on departure day (note - I forgot to do this - will prove to be a big mistake although I really did not think it was necessary at this point).
Later that same night (2 nights prior to departure), I call Qantas to confirm that all the AFIS information was still tied to all bookings - went through EVERY booking and she confirmed all AFIS info there (this is why I did not think to check in the lounge - I mean, if she could see all the bookings/confirm AFIS, all should be set).
Arrive at airport, our family of 4 flies out no problem...seats together etc.
Husband departs HNL a week before the rest of us. I speak to him from HNL the day after he landed in Melbourne and find out - HE HAD TO PURCHASE A TICKET ON THE SPOT FOR AU$1400 AS QANTAS HAD NO BOOKING IN THEIR SYSTEM FOR HIM. He had the print out with the confirmation number which he showed them and they (at this point 3 of them in HNL airport) said that it had been cancelled as it had never been paid for - I KID YOU NOT. I then spent TWO $^&*() HOURS on the phone during my holiday (with steam coming out of my ears) with Qantas Customer Service. The very nice agent (all agents very nice - it's the competency I question), looks at all our bookings including my husband's and just cannot figure out why it was cancelled. She said there are tons of notes about the rebooking/confirmation etc. etc. She said that she sees no reason why we won't be refunded the difference but she cannot do it - it needs to go through their complaint system. Because I'm on holiday without a laptop, she offers to write up and submit the complaint for me - which she does (adds about 40 minutes to the call). I see on my phone that it was submitted and Qantas has 15 business days to reply...it's been 10 business days - no response. I'm giving them the 15 days before I dispute the charge with AmEx (my Qantas branded AmEx which costs almost $400/year in fees and I will drop if I abandon Qantas which is highly likely based on the input received in this thread - the only reason I've put up with the fee is that it comes with travel insurance that more than pays for itself by not having to buy it separately when we travel).
But it does not end there - just to add a final insult. I board the Qantas jet to head home from HNL to MEL via SYD and we walk to our seats - we are assigned 2 seats in the middle row of 5 seats and 1 seat ACROSS THE AISLE - remember, my children are 4 and 2!!!! and one of them is expected to sit with strangers across the aisle (or am I expected to sit with strangers and let me 2 depend on whoever else is in the row of 5) - this is despite confirming we are seated together at least 4-5 times in the months/weeks/days leading up to the trip. Of course the passengers involved agreed to change and we ended up with the entire middle row - but this just added to my outrage.
Reliving this has fired me up again - I'm pounding at the key board...so that's my tale.
We started with a round trip family booking MEL to HNL return (points booking) - booking was for myself, my husband, our 4 year old and our 2 year old...everyone booked under 1 booking/flying together. Something came up with my husband's work - he needed to return to MEL a week before the rest of our family. Called Qantas - they said "no problem", we can split your husband's booking off/cancel his return and book him a return that you will have to pay for at current ticket prices (approx AU$734 for the single return leg)/refund the points (less penalty) & taxes paid etc. I was very happy with that. Spent some time on the phone while the agent split his booking off/confirmed by cc number/went over ALL seat assignments to ensure family still seated together for all flights (important later). Agent was quite nice - seemed competent.
Well, no email came through to my registered email or my husband's email regarding new single leg booking, which I thought was odd - so I called. Here's what they found...my husband's return leg had been cancelled, no new booking had been made and my 4 year old was also split off from the original booking which they guessed was due to his middle name being the same as my husband's first name (given how pedantic airlines are about matching names to reservations, this is just sloppy). Agent #2 was appropriately apologetic, spent ages on the phone - he said 1 - they won't charge me the penalty points for the cancellation (which, I have not checked) and 2 - he took my cc number (rather than just repeating the last 4 digits of the card used for the original booking as Agent #1 did) and promised me all was set.
I logged on to my QF account and my husband's QF account the next day - could not find one of the now 4 related bookings (as per the above, there were now 4 bookings - one for myself & my 3 year old; 1 for my 4 year old who should have never been split off and 2 for my husband - outbound and return). Qantas had promised me they were all linked in their system and that we were all seated together. I was at wits end - this was 2 days before our trip. I reached out to a local community group on Facebook to find out if anyone had any contacts with Qantas (I knew there was one active member who used to work for Qantas in specifically for their Chairman's Club members). This lovely woman responded and offered to help free of charge. She took all my details etc., went over the booking (she could not believe how stuffed up it was) and called Qantas. She spent 1.5 hours on the phone with them (I kid you not) - she would not take anything from me although I'm taking her for coffee next week. She asked the agent on the phone to issue my husband's ticket on the spot (apparently, there's 2 steps - booking/paying & then having the ticket issued...new purchases are first in the queue for ticket issuance and any changes get pushed to the back of the queue and are moved up based on departure day...according to Lovely Woman...so she wanted them to push through my husband's new ticket). Agent said they couldn't push it through as it was after 5pm on a Friday (true or not, I don't know). Lovely Woman also asked them to confirm our family seats as she said she did not trust them to do anything right at this point. Anyway, Lovely Woman said we should be set and told me to double check in the lounge on departure day (note - I forgot to do this - will prove to be a big mistake although I really did not think it was necessary at this point).
Later that same night (2 nights prior to departure), I call Qantas to confirm that all the AFIS information was still tied to all bookings - went through EVERY booking and she confirmed all AFIS info there (this is why I did not think to check in the lounge - I mean, if she could see all the bookings/confirm AFIS, all should be set).
Arrive at airport, our family of 4 flies out no problem...seats together etc.
Husband departs HNL a week before the rest of us. I speak to him from HNL the day after he landed in Melbourne and find out - HE HAD TO PURCHASE A TICKET ON THE SPOT FOR AU$1400 AS QANTAS HAD NO BOOKING IN THEIR SYSTEM FOR HIM. He had the print out with the confirmation number which he showed them and they (at this point 3 of them in HNL airport) said that it had been cancelled as it had never been paid for - I KID YOU NOT. I then spent TWO $^&*() HOURS on the phone during my holiday (with steam coming out of my ears) with Qantas Customer Service. The very nice agent (all agents very nice - it's the competency I question), looks at all our bookings including my husband's and just cannot figure out why it was cancelled. She said there are tons of notes about the rebooking/confirmation etc. etc. She said that she sees no reason why we won't be refunded the difference but she cannot do it - it needs to go through their complaint system. Because I'm on holiday without a laptop, she offers to write up and submit the complaint for me - which she does (adds about 40 minutes to the call). I see on my phone that it was submitted and Qantas has 15 business days to reply...it's been 10 business days - no response. I'm giving them the 15 days before I dispute the charge with AmEx (my Qantas branded AmEx which costs almost $400/year in fees and I will drop if I abandon Qantas which is highly likely based on the input received in this thread - the only reason I've put up with the fee is that it comes with travel insurance that more than pays for itself by not having to buy it separately when we travel).
But it does not end there - just to add a final insult. I board the Qantas jet to head home from HNL to MEL via SYD and we walk to our seats - we are assigned 2 seats in the middle row of 5 seats and 1 seat ACROSS THE AISLE - remember, my children are 4 and 2!!!! and one of them is expected to sit with strangers across the aisle (or am I expected to sit with strangers and let me 2 depend on whoever else is in the row of 5) - this is despite confirming we are seated together at least 4-5 times in the months/weeks/days leading up to the trip. Of course the passengers involved agreed to change and we ended up with the entire middle row - but this just added to my outrage.
Reliving this has fired me up again - I'm pounding at the key board...so that's my tale.
And I think a number of folks here have her direct contact details (gained legitimately!), if the OP cares to ask for them.
