"oneworld" award (132.4K/249.6K/318K/455K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

[Ponky]

OK so I have decided to ring the call centre to try and make a few changes to my booked OWA itinterary. However, I am hearing impaired and struggle to hear over the phone, especially when the person on the other end has a heavy accent. Accordingly, I worry that if I get through to the call centres in the Philippines or South Africa I am going to have a very hard time getting the transaction sorted.

- Is there any alternative to using the phone that people are aware of?
- If not, in your experience what is the best time to call to get onto an Aus-based call centre (I'm in Perth)?
- In general, what is the quality of the sound/connection like when you get through to the call centres?

Normally, my wife helps me with such calls, but given people's experiences of being on hold potentially for hours, I am not sure it is going to be possible to have her sitting around waiting on hold with me for that amount of time.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

OK so I have decided to ring the call centre to try and make a few changes to my booked OWA itinterary. However, I am hearing impaired and struggle to hear over the phone, especially when the person on the other end has a heavy accent. Accordingly, I worry that if I get through to the call centres in the Philippines or South Africa I am going to have a very hard time getting the transaction sorted.

- Is there any alternative to using the phone that people are aware of?
- If not, in your experience what is the best time to call to get onto an Aus-based call centre (I'm in Perth)?
- In general, what is the quality of the sound/connection like when you get through to the call centres?

Normally, my wife helps me with such calls, but given people's experiences of being on hold potentially for hours, I am not sure it is going to be possible to have her sitting around waiting on hold with me for that amount of time.

There might be something of use for you on the “Help for Deaf or Hearing Impaired Passengers” page - refer link:

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/travel-info/specific-needs/deaf-or-hearing-impaired-passengers.html

 

[djkelly69]

In general, what is the quality of the sound/connection like when you get through to the call centres?

IME pretty poor for the overseas call centres, Aus ones no problem.

 

[renatts]

That’s not a common occurrence. Points and $ does not necessarily = ticketing unfortunately. And if partner airlines are involved it can get complicated.

Would be interesting to get the full details.

I've had this happen on a number of occasions in the past 6 months. All with Qatar.

Here are the times it happened, and the reasons.

1. Qatar auto cancelled a AMS - DOH - SIN part of my award booking due to removing all Singapore transits and putting in the requirement for Government approval because reinserting all the flights. They removed my flights, then reinserted them into the booking - Same flight numbers and times, but with a warning about the transit not being approved (this is what the Qantas call centre in Hobart told me). This booking was Auto-Cancelled because Qantas didn't re-ticket the booking after the changes. My e-ticket, that had been ticketed for 6+ weeks, had the exact flight details but Qatar would not honour it. Qantas put me in revenue full price J to try and avoid this happening again...

2. Qatar cancelled the same part of the same booking due to the DOH - SIN being a revenue booking but the rest being a Oneworld Award. Qantas couldn't help, and there were no award seats left anymore. This happened weeks after receiving my new e-ticket and re-selecting seats.

3. I then rebooked via Hong Kong (before the ban on flights). Qantas didn't re-ticket the booking in time. Auto-Cancel.

4. I was lucky my seats were still available, Qantas ticketed the booking again while I was on the phone. Happy days. Qatar made a schedule change 1hr earlier, also using the Cathay Pacific 777 instead of a Qatar A350 for DOH - HKG. This was auto-cancelled because it wasn't re-ticketed.
This is where I gave up on using Qatar in my booking. There's only so many hours I can spend trying to rebook the same flights I have already had ticketed.

Yes they were all originally ticketed and seats selected, except #3, but were cancelled anyway. I never got a notification, I only saw the change because I was logging in daily to check for a better routing. I wonder if could have turned up at the airport in May and found out at Check in that my flights were gone if I didn't obsessively check things.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I only saw the change because I was logging in daily to check for a better routing.

Where did you notice the change?
In MMB, or somewhere else?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Where did you notice the change?
In MMB, or somewhere else?

I check a range of sources each day. Something simple like google flights will pick up schedule changes. You can churn five or six results in a minute or two.

MMB will pick up something more nuanced like the Qatar changes which - almost uniquely - can cause their flights and associated tickets to cancel.

 

[Mr H]

Probably covered upthread, but beware of marriages. I had to change an itinerary (I'll detail it in a future post) and some of my flights that had been available individually had become married. Specifically, these were a pair of JL flights and a pair of QR flights - less than 24 hours connection within each pair. This meant that dropping one of the flights meant dropping the other in the pair. One of the involuntarily dropped flights came back for redemption and the other didn't - forcing a long and convoluted alternative route.

 

[renatts]

Where did you notice the change?
In MMB, or somewhere else?

Yeah in MMB. Flights had just disappeared. Instead of Amsterdam to Brisbane it was Singapore to Brisbane.

A little pathetic that QFs system doesn’t pick this up and email you at least.

 

[GaryLG]

My trip is falling apart so I'm after some advice.

Due to leave end of March and had planned and booked to come back via Japan mid-May spending about 11 days before returning to MEL

Last week my tour company decided to cancel their tour and this afternoon QF "made network changes" in other words cancelled my JL flight from NRT-MEL!!

I know Japan's been locked down but had hoped things were improving before I needed to decide to abandon my plans fully.

So before I end up back on the phone trying to sort out flights, etc some collective wisdom please?

1. Any insight to how likely Japan will be to open up in 3 months?
2. Any COVID safeish alternatives that I can try and get my flights, etc changed to?

Otherwise I guess I am looking at returning earlier or extending my stay in the UK (or maybe some more of Europe)!!

TIA

 

[Oubline]

My trip is falling apart so I'm after some advice.

Due to leave end of March and had planned and booked to come back via Japan mid-May spending about 11 days before returning to MEL

Last week my tour company decided to cancel their tour and this afternoon QF "made network changes" in other words cancelled my JL flight from NRT-MEL!!

I know Japan's been locked down but had hoped things were improving before I needed to decide to abandon my plans fully.

So before I end up back on the phone trying to sort out flights, etc some collective wisdom please?

1. Any insight to how likely Japan will be to open up in 3 months?
2. Any COVID safeish alternatives that I can try and get my flights, etc changed to?

Otherwise I guess I am looking at returning earlier or extending my stay in the UK (or maybe some more of Europe)!!

TIA

I can't help, but I have also just received a cancellation email for MEL-NRT in April. I'm hoping that JAL may contact us with alternative flights, and so that all might not be lost...

In terms of alternate ways home, I find there seems to be OK availability on HEL-SIN with Finnair.

 

[GaryLG]

I can't help, but I have also just received a cancellation email for MEL-NRT in April. I'm hoping that JAL may contact us with alternative flights, and so that all might not be lost...

Looks like there are flights though until I know there will be no quarantine there is no point.

 

[Mr H]

My trip is falling apart so I'm after some advice.

...

1. Any insight to how likely Japan will be to open up in 3 months?
2. Any COVID safeish alternatives that I can try and get my flights, etc changed to?

I feel your pain. Who can say what things will look like in three months. It is interesting looking at the threads when Covid first started with heroic predictions that were nothing like reality. The only thing I have learned is that when things change, they change quickly. I am personally booking things that are fully refundable - and if travel restrictions are still a thing then I will not risk travel at all. I cannot afford to get stranded or get Covid and get sent to Covid-jail while my itinerary unravels. Nor do I want to wear a mask everywhere.

 

[GaryLG]

I feel your pain. Who can say what things will look like in three months. It is interesting looking at the threads when Covid first started with heroic predictions that were nothing like reality. The only thing I have learned is that when things change, they change quickly. I am personally booking things that are fully refundable - and if travel restrictions are still a thing then I will not risk travel at all. I cannot afford to get stranded or get Covid and get sent to Covid-jail while my itinerary unravels. Nor do I want to wear a mask everywhere.

All very true and I think I have safely made everything fully refundable (and insurance of course).

My first thought before the QF email was to wait till the end of this month as the Japanese government may well do an update then but we'll see.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

All very true and I think I have safely made everything fully refundable (and insurance of course).

My first thought before the QF email was to wait till the end of this month as the Japanese government may well do an update then but we'll see.

Is it that JAL has made the network changes and cancelled the flight, for which QF has advised you of as the ticket issuer? If JAL is still running the flight I'm not sure how QF can unilaterally cancel it.

 

[GaryLG]

Is it that JAL has made the network changes and cancelled the flight, for which QF has advised you of as the ticket issuer? If JAL is still running the flight I'm not sure how QF can unilaterally cancel it.

Looks like JAL are no longer flying directly to MEL so I guess they can but it would have been better if they had offered the new via SYD one at the same time.

 

[Oubline]

Looks like JAL are no longer flying directly to MEL so I guess they can but it would have been better if they had offered the new via SYD one at the same time.

A problem is that the MEL flight went into NRT and the SYD one into HND. At the moment with the lack of ability to transfer between NRT and HND it will mess up those who were planning to only transit Japan. For for anyone planning to stay in Japan and not just transit, the SYD flight would have been perfect though.

 

[renatts]

I too had my JAL MEL - NRT flight just cancelled in May..

I’m hopeful it will come back as JL8774 like the March flights.

Background - JAL Cancelled JL774 MEL to NRT and replaced it with JL8774 departing MEL 2 hours earlier. That would still work perfectly fine for me, if there are seats available obviously.
Either that or beg Qantas to SYD - HND and hope for JAL HND to HEL

 

[GaryLG]

I checked both NRT and HND departures for MEL and it didn't look there were either but hopefully as renatts posts they come back. Though without non-quarantine access not sure if I should bother trying to rebook straight away.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I checked both NRT and HND departures for MEL and it didn't look there were either but hopefully as renatts posts they come back. Though without non-quarantine access not sure if I should bother trying to rebook straight away.

Yes! Book/rebook as soon as possible. Once a country opens up any seats will be snapped up in a second… leaving you with few, if any, choices.

 

[GaryLG]

Yes! Book/rebook as soon as possible. Once a country opens up any seats will be snapped up in a second… leaving you with few, if any, choices.

Okay, will do.