Purchased a Qantas Flex fare but when I requested a refund they insist it is "Red-E Deal"

[kangarooflyer88]

I have submitted a dispute with my credit card and will see what happens.

Two things I have on my side will be the fact that what the customer care person is saying is illogical, you don’t get the opportunity to make separate selections of fare types for each leg. And also that if someone is able to check Qantas pricing for the day that I purchased the ticket, they will see that $3400 CAD is the right price for flex from Vancouver to Hobart. In fact even to today, there is no sale or saver fares that reach that high a cost.

Depending on which credit card you use you may have additional rights above the bare minimum provided by Australian Consumer law. For instance, if your credit card was issued in Canada, many provinces have a so called statutory chargeback provision. I won't drone on about what it entails but further details are provided here and will depend on the province where you applied for the card.

 

[opusman]

I mean the very fact that you were able to change not just the date but the routing for only $110, with no change fee, seems like proof to me that your original fare was a Flex. Sale fares from Canada have a change fee of $500 per person.

 

[Ade]

with no change fee

Spot on, @opusman

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2023

I've never seen one, even as far back as 2020.

You are right. I tried to find one and couldn't find any e-tkt with the fare code displayed. I must have seen it somewhere else ... wonder where! In any case, if the booking is active, then MMB will show it. Not helpful in OPs case though.

 

[kpro]

I've never seen one, even as far back as 2020.

I have e-tickets dating back to 2016 and the booking class is not shown.

You are right. I tried to find one and couldn't find any e-tkt with the fare code displayed.

FWIW I went back to a 2009 e-ticket, which is an older style, and it doesn't have the fare class either. However manually issued, courier text e-tickets do have classes.

Screenshot for the nostalgia.

 

[eastwest101]

Was this subject of the airlines trying to hide their fare classes from the customers and then relying on the fare-classes for calculation of change fares, refunds etc all put into the AFF submission to the Federal Government? Its a longstanding bugbear that all these tricky T&Cs that airlines rely upon are not made easily available to customers to see.

Absolutely ridiculous that you have to use a Malaysian Website to find your fare class so that a consumer can then look up their fare class so find out whats in their mystery bag "bundle of rights". If any other industry tried, that they would be hauled off to the ACCC or State Fair Trading offices for failing to take reasonable steps that the customer is aware of their rights etc etc or "Unfair contract terms" or even systematic misleading and deceptive conduct.

One day someone with a lot of time on their hands, and with all the right screenshots, and some misleading call center recordings/emails and a successful chargeback is going to go all the way in the court system and test all this in court

 

[RobStrong]

Yeah, it seems like the critical detail which is required to avoid disagreement about the terms and conditions that apply is missing from the booking confirmation.

So although I should be able to eventually get to the result that I need, due to the number of factors we’ve already discussed which point to the fact that my purchase was a flex. It’s still a huge inconvenience. Meanwhile I’m out of pocket almost $4k AUD.

 

[RobStrong]

Depending on which credit card you use

Australian credit card. But will see how the dispute plays out. Fingers crossed the bank can help.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

FWIW I went back to a 2009 e-ticket, which is an older style, and it doesn't have the fare class either.

Interesting to see Qantas has had this long tradition of not being transparent about what fare you are booked into. Presumably this tradition began before Uncle Alan became CEO of QF?

However manually issued, courier text e-tickets do have classes.

For those curious, those are the emails you might receive after booking from a call centre, they look something like this:

QANTAS ITINERARY
ABN 16 009 661 901
QANTAS AIRWAYS CONTACT CENTRES 11NOVEMBER23
10 BOURKE ROAD
MASCOT
SYDNEY NSW 2020
PH 13 13 13

TRAVEL DETAILS FOR :

CUSTOMER NAME: MR KANGAROO FLYER(ADT)
BOOKING REF:
MEMBERSHIP NO:


YOUR ITINERARY AND TRAVEL DETAILS:

QANTAS AIRWAYS QF478 ECONOMY CLASS (X) CONFIRMED
DEPART 23DEC23 MELBOURNE/MELBOURNE AIRPORT 1800
ARRIVE 23DEC23 SYDNEY/KINGSFORD SMITH 1925
OPERATED BY QF QANTAS AIRWAYS
DEPARTS FROM TERMINAL 1
ARRIVES AT TERMINAL 3 1:25 DURATION
AIRCRAFT : BOEING 737-800 (WINGLETS) NON SMOKING

Was this subject of the airlines trying to hide their fare classes from the customers and then relying on the fare-classes for calculation of change fares, refunds etc all put into the AFF submission to the Federal Government? Its a longstanding bugbear that all these tricky T&Cs that airlines rely upon are not made easily available to customers to see.

Not knowing what fare code you hold causes a number of headaches to travellers and is one of the reason why airlines who value their customers always publish this information during booking and in the email confirmation. Looking at flights I have booked with other airlines including Virgin, Air Canada, Lufthansa, United, Singapore, etc., they always show that fare code. The only airline I could see which didn't show it (aside from Qantas) was British Airways.

Oh and for those curious, here's why the fare bucket matters:

1. It tells you how many points / status credits you'll earn when crediting the flight to one of their partners (i.e. British Airways Executive Club)
2. It tells you what you can and cannot do with the ticket. For instance, Economy N,E,O, or Q fares aren't eligible for upgrades for international flights (easy to remember by the acronym Not Enough On Qantas) whereas Economy V or H fares are. Relatedly, lower bucket fares are less likely to secure an upgrade all else being equal (i.e. a Platinum holding a full Y economy fare is more like to clear the upgrade waitlist than something holding a V fare)
3. When Qantas moves to unbundled fares (i.e. Basic Economy) the distinction will matter even more since you could be seated in Economy but have next to no rights attached to your ticket (i.e. no baggage, no elite earning, no seat selection, etc.)
4. As others have pointed out, things like changes and refunds are impacted by what fare bucket you are in. Simply seeing "Economy" doesn't tell you much. Similarly during IRROPs what you are entitled to may vary. For instance, prior to the passenger right's legislation in Canada, Air Canada would notoriously only let impacted passengers booked on a standard (i.e. K fare code) fare rebooking onto a flight that showed M (flex) availability. However, those who held a Flex or full fare Y ticket could rebook into any flight that had availability in the economy cabin. I'm unsure how QF's IRROPs policy works but this can make a huge difference if you are on one of the many impacted QF flights.

Absolutely ridiculous that you have to use a Malaysian Website to find your fare class so that a consumer can then look up their fare class so find out whats in their mystery bag "bundle of rights". If any other industry tried, that they would be hauled off to the ACCC or State Fair Trading offices for failing to take reasonable steps that the customer is aware of their rights etc etc or "Unfair contract terms" or even systematic misleading and deceptive conduct.

Not entirely true. If you visit the manage my booking on the QFF website it will show you not only the fare code but the fare rules for your flight:


With that being said, this is of little benefit for the traveller looking to book a QF flight who needs to know what fare they are actually booking into. Then again you could always book with a third party like Expedia (which does show those details) since there are few benefits of booking direct with Qantas when you hold status with them.

 

[eminere]

Not entirely true. If you visit the manage my booking on the QFF website it will show you not only the fare code but the fare rules for your flight:
View attachment 359369

QF MMB is useless if the booking is cancelled (as is the case with the OP) or the flights have passed. QF just needs to add the booking class to the e-ticket.

 

[JohnK]

Was this subject of the airlines trying to hide their fare classes from the customers and then relying on the fare-classes for calculation of change fares, refunds etc all put into the AFF submission to the Federal Government? Its a longstanding bugbear that all these tricky T&Cs that airlines rely upon are not made easily available to customers to see.

It's not just airlines. Sites such as Webjet and Expedia are guilty as well.

I want to know the booking class before booking flights.

 

[dajop]

It's not just airlines. Sites such as Webjet and Expedia are guilty as well.

I want to know the booking class before booking flights.

This is not true for Expedia - which is my go to for finding our fare class information for particular price levels. You just need to click on show details as per below (from Expedia app):

 

[eastwest101]

This is not true for Expedia - which is my go to for finding our fare class information for particular price levels. You just need to click on show details as per below (from Expedia app):

View attachment 359420View attachment 359421

Indeed - thanks for that, I checked the Expedia web site and you can click on details and the full Expedia web site will also show your fare class so it seems that getting the fare class for a prospective booking is possible there as well. So not necessary to use the Expedia App.

So for prospective bookings/e.g. when you have not purchased the product yet - its pretty easy to find the fare class everywhere in the world except for the most common point of sale of the product (the Qantas.com.au web site). Going into a third party website and finding the price point of say $269 = Fare Class "S" for example. I would argue that if Expedia and other third party web sites can do it, then it should be no difficulty for Qantas IT to do it for their own customers on their own web site - like nearly most normal/transparent airlines in the world.

Once you have an existing booking, they have your money, and its a different situation, but there are ways of getting the fare class via several means, but this is predicated on MMB working properly, airline agents not stuffing up your ticketing/booking and/or the airline web site playing nice with other carriers like the OP in this thread.

As @kangarooflyer88 points out - there are a lot of revenue/refund/cabin downgrade, upgradeability, IIROPS, points and status credit earning & burning implications for these fare buckets or fare classes. May as well be transparent about them otherwise you are attracting the attention of consumer rights advocates and politicians/regulators.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Indeed - thanks for that, I checked the Expedia web site and you can click on details and the full Expedia web site will also show your fare class so it seems that getting the fare class for a prospective booking is possible there as well. So not necessary to use the Expedia App.

The issue with such a technique is that the inventory available to Expedia may be different than the inventory available when booking with Qantas direct. So, certainly you could see that a search for SYD > DFW books into say a V fare on Expedia but that same flight could ticket into a E fare on Qantas.

Going into a third party website and finding the price point of say $269 = Fare Class "S" for example. I would argue that if Expedia and other third party web sites can do it, then it should be no difficulty for Qantas IT to do it for their own customers on their own web site - like nearly most normal/transparent airlines in the world.

I think Qantas would make the argument that spelling out the fare code doesn't do passengers any favours and only confuses matters more (see the alphabet soup that Air Canada has with their family of fare classes and brands of fare classes for instance you could be on a Standard M fare or a Flex M fare both of which have different bundles of rights). In particular, I think they would say well if you are on a Sale fare it doesn't matter if you are on a S, V or M fare you are entitled to the same bundle of rights (even if the pricing might be slightly different).

Once you have an existing booking, they have your money, and its a different situation, but there are ways of getting the fare class via several means, but this is predicated on MMB working properly, airline agents not stuffing up your ticketing/booking and/or the airline web site playing nice with other carriers like the OP in this thread.

To get a specific fare code often times you need to book with a travel agent or directly with the airline to request the desired fare code. But again, I think Qantas would argue fare codes are irrelevant when it comes to bundles of rights, all that matters is what fare family you are in (i.e. red e-deal, Flex, etc.)

As @kangarooflyer88 points out - there are a lot of revenue/refund/cabin downgrade, upgradeability, IIROPS, points and status credit earning & burning implications for these fare buckets or fare classes. May as well be transparent about them otherwise you are attracting the attention of consumer rights advocates and politicians/regulators.

And there's the rub. Yes Qantas would love to claim that fares booked within the same fare family are the same, in practice I find that whilst these fare codes may be created equal, some may be more equal than others. The classic example being red e-deals on international routes. Some qualify for an upgrade, others do not. It depends on if your red e-deal tickets as a NEOQ fare or not.

-RooFlyer88

 

[Seat0B]

One day someone with a lot of time on their hands, and with all the right screenshots, and some misleading call center recordings/emails and a successful chargeback is going to go all the way in the court system and test all this in court

and very deep pockets....

 

[Seat0B]

With that being said, this is of little benefit for the traveller looking to book a QF flight who needs to know what fare they are actually booking into

And also of little value after you have flown your trips and the booking drops off MMB meaning that you cannot find out what fare bucket you actually flew. Very annoying and not helpful to the customer in a situation like OP. Actually, infuriating.

 

[Danger]

While we wait to hear back from RobStrong on the dispute, I'm curious about the rebooking conditions on Qantas "flex" fares, both domestic and international.

The rules of the fare I'm looking at state:

Penalties
CHANGES
ANY TIME
CHANGES PERMITTED FOR REISSUE.
...
INVOLUNTARY CHANGES
ANY TIME
INVOLUNTARY CHANGES PERMITTED FOR REISSUE.

I understand this to be changes can be made free of charge but, of course, any fare difference applies. I also believe the price of the ticket must be at least the same as the original ticket.

However, is there any requirement that my new booking be in the same or higher fare class? For example, if I book a B fare, can I only book a B or Y fare? Or could I book, say, a Q fare?

 

[RobStrong]

So after following up the bank several times about the transaction dispute I've just been advised that they can't proceed with disputing the transaction. Based on the fact that the booking confirmations from Qantas do not state that the fare was a flex, so there's no way for them to link my booking to the fare rules for a flex. Not a happy situation. I'll be sending a further report to the ACCC about this. And now considering again what my options for pursuing Qantas further are.

 

[opusman]

Anecdotally, small claims court usually results in a settlement.

 

[Port Power]

So after following up the bank several times about the transaction dispute I've just been advised that they can't proceed with disputing the transaction. Based on the fact that the booking confirmations from Qantas do not state that the fare was a flex, so there's no way for them to link my booking to the fare rules for a flex. Not a happy situation. I'll be sending a further report to the ACCC about this. And now considering again what my options for pursuing Qantas further are.

There is a lesson here for most of us.

Take a screen shot of the booking; print out your ticket (which I always do), but also keep and screen shot that covering email with the attached e-ticket if it shows fare class; take a screen shot of MMB where the fare class is shown. Maybe not usually needed, but invaluable if there is any change or need to claim. Good luck, @RobStrong.

 

[Ade]

However, is there any requirement that my new booking be in the same or higher fare class? For example, if I book a B fare, can I only book a B or Y fare? Or could I book, say, a Q fare?

From experience, no ... My understanding is below, happy to be corrected.

Say a pax has purchased a Sale ticket, goes in to make a change - change fee + fare difference + service fee (if any) is levied. Pax can choose to change to a Sale/Saver/Flex as available at the time of making the change. There is no requirement that pax with Sale ticket initiating a change should purchase a Saver or Flex.

The reason I chose to use the terminology "Sale/Saver/Flex" is because there is no difference between Y, B, H when it comes to a Flex fare - all these 3 codes are Flex. At the time of change, a pax can go from B to H or H to Y - no difference.