Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

My understanding (from unofficial sources) is that there is a pool of priority phone numbers that airport staff give to passengers which rotates every few weeks.

I will attempt to publish the currently active number(s) in this post:

1300 304 318
1300 659 161
1300 025 396
1300 659 116

1300 024 715
1300 025 390
1300 659 115
1300 659 134
1300 659 502

 

[ffflyer11]

Gert from Manila did the magic. She put me on Domestic Business as well!

 

[dylarr]

Day of week	Fri 30 Sep 2022
Time of call	09:10pm
Number used	13 13 13
Status	Platinum
Hold time	0 seconds
Call Centre (if known)	Cape Town
Matter resolved	Yes
Details	Had an exceptionally good experience with the Cape Town call centre just then. Called to change an existing domestic Classic Flight Reward booking, but the flight I wanted to move to had no reward availability so the agent would have to request a seat be released for my desired flight for the existing booking through the droid. I've done this through Hobart no worries before (where the seat is released for an existing booking rather than creating a new one) but never through Cape Town. The agent asked if she could pop me on hold whilst she set up the request. I came off hold 3 minutes later and she advised me it had "already come back right away as approved" and did I want to continue with the change, I advised yes, she quickly cleaned up the booking and removed the old sector and sent an updated eTicket to my inbox. All up, took about 7 minutes to do. Turns out Cape Town can put requests through to the droid in a manner that doesn't require you to call back to check the status. Put through to survey - gave full marks.

 

[levelnine]

Cape Town were useless for me yesterday as usual. Trying to book a domestic JAL flight. Returns an error when trying to book online, presumably due to $0 taxes/fees. Cape Town agent says they can't book the flight at their end, but happy to walk me through booking it myself online even after I told him I can't do that.

Called back and got Hobart. They were able to do it for me, though the eticket has no actual ticket numbers! May need to call back to double check everything is okay. Seems like domestic JAL flights are quite tricky to book — need to be manually processed.

 

[Synnergy07]

I had a booking made in May with Qantas to fly Haneda - Bkk / Bkk - Kul / Kul - Syd (Kul - Syd was on Business). Paid with points and was charged the taxes in Yen. By early september, Japan Border still not open to gen public and I had called Qantas (Capetown) who assured me that I can canx HND - Bkk and maintain the rest. 2 weeks later, I noticed my whole booking disappeared fm my Qantas app and since then have been going back and forth with them as my ticket had been cancelled as when the change was made, the ticket apparently needed to be reissued within 3 hrs. No fault of mine but I now have a booking with no ticket issued. Obviously the ticket prices hv gone up and points needed as well.
Finally after abt 7 calls (total 10 hours), I decided to just canx the whole booking and get my refund. Qantas Fiji said no problem but I need to call Qantas Japan to do the refund and gave me a number 03- 68330700. Here comes the best part, when u call that number and select English... it goes back to Qantas Fiji and after explaining what happened for the 10th time, the consultant asked me to ring 03-68330700.....
Despite telling him that was the number I had rang and it transferred me to him so now I am like a Hamster running on a damn wheel going nowhere....
Damn Alan Joyce....Never will I fly Qantas again.

 

[Viper6]

Gert from Manila did the magic. She put me on Domestic Business as well!

So they converted a revenue seat to classic rewards business for you?

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF @Synnergy07 , sorry to hear the circumstances.

 

[encryptededdy]

Day of week	Tue 4 Oct 2022
Time of call	10:30am
Number used	13 13 13
Status	Platinum
Hold time	0 seconds
Call Centre (if known)	Cape Town
Matter resolved	Not yet
Details	Called up because my award ticket QF11 was cancelled, and replaced with QF17 (both SYD-LAX, but QF17 is much later in the day). This breaks my connection onto an AA flight (connection time -7h). The website was no help as per usual, spitting out lovely errors such as Agent suggested I contact AA to fix the connection (no.... this is a QF ticket....). Anyway, I suggested to her a valid routing SYD-xMEL-LAX on QF93 that would connect to my AA flight. She seemed to agree this was a good idea, and said she would see if she could get this changed. The option she came up with had a 1h30m transit in MEL, I told her I wanted longer (i.e. take an earlier SYD-MEL domestic flight). This seemed to confuse her as she said this was the only option, which doesn't really make sense, but I had to end up taking it since she wasn't able to see the earlier domestic flights I was suggesting(???). After 15 minutes on hold she came back to me and told me she couldn't change me to QF93 since there were no award seats available. I told her that since it was an involuntary change, that they should open them up for me. She said she would check with her supervisor and call me back alter. I do suspect had I talked to Hobart my new ticket would be in my inbox by now...

 

[RealtimeY]

no award seats available. I told her that since it was an involuntary change, that they should open them up for me. She said she would check with her supervisor

I've also heard this one before for disrupted flights, except the agent was able to get it opened up straight away, but insisted that the needed to follow "the process" to release award seats.

 

[encryptededdy]

I do suspect had I talked to Hobart my new ticket would be in my inbox by now...

Well, I decided I'd call again since I hadn't received a call back, and thankfully got Hobart this time. New ticket issued after 7 minutes on the phone, and I managed to get an earlier domestic flight like I originally wanted too

 

[djkelly69]

I managed to get an earlier domestic flight like I originally wanted too

Any explanation as to why Hobart can do that and not the O/S call centres?

 

[encryptededdy]

Any explanation as to why Hobart can do that and not the O/S call centres?

I have no idea to be honest. Hobart also proposed to me the 7:45am domestic flight only, but when I asked for an earlier one she was able to do it after a bit of typing away on the computer.

I can only assume it's not one of the options suggested by the computer for the full route (SYD-LAX), and so something manual has to be done to get it. Similarly on the website I can't actually book a layover >2h at MEL connecting to QF93 unless I use the multi-city tool, so I'd imagine it's something similar that the agents have to do.

As to whether the different computer system used by offshore call centers don't let them do it, or maybe they just don't know how to do it, I don't know.

 

[jpp42]

Based on other explanations in this and related threads, I think the issue is that agents by default will only see flights that are approved for that particular booking class (fare bucket) and fare basis. The reason this can differ between classic rewards available for individual booking when you check ExpertFlyer or the Qantas web site, is explained well by Mel_Traveller in the following thread: "No award flights available" - Really??? (see posts #7 and #8). Most outsourced agents seem to be only trained to do a basic search in their system that shows options where everything is already available.

It looks like what insourced agents (Hobart/Auckland) are doing when asked, is to see if they can open up availability on a flight that has seats available but otherwise not approved for this particular fare basis (i.e., a connection to an international classic reward). I am not sure if this is the same "bot" referred to in this thread ( QFF Platinum requesting release of extra Classic award seats?) , but it sounds like a similar process. It seems the insourced call centres are trained to understand that an involuntary change is a valid reason to request opening up a seat, whereas outsourced ones refuse to accept that justification, or are not trained on, the process for requesting a seat. The basic customer service problem seems to be that outsourced call agents are motivated to just say "it's not available" or "sorry can't help" rather than being empowered to truly solve the problem in a customer friendly way. The mysterious bit is why Qantas continues to train their agents so differently - we can only hope they don't respond by dumbing down Hobart's access and approach to this lower bar.

This is just educated conjecture based on summarizing information presented in a few threads here.

 

[encryptededdy]

is to see if they can open up availability on a flight that has seats available but otherwise not approved for this particular fare basis (i.e., a connection to an international classic reward).

It's possible, although in my case I required award seats being opened up regardless of the domestic leg used. There was zero availability on the international sector I wanted. The Cape Town agent evidently understood this since she said she had to talk to her manager to attempt to get the award seats opened.

I'm more inclined it's a difference in IT or training as to how to put together these more "custom" connections.

 

[N860CR]

For what it’s worth, I’ve had the same issue with SQs outsourced Filipino call centre pulling the “no award seats available” line when there’s an involuntary schedule change. It’s been fixed (after escalating) but I get the impression that very basic training is provided to these outsourced operators in regards to award tickets.

 

[clifford]

I get the impression that very basic training is provided to these outsourced operators in regards to award tickets.

I think you're being quite generous with that comment.

 

[N860CR]

I think you're being quite generous with that comment.

Probably yes. Dealing with Optus via the TIO of late has taught me that pointing out issues with their outsourced call centres leaves one labeled a “racist”, so I’m treading more carefully than usual.

 

[Port Power]

Based on other explanations in this and related threads, I think the issue is that agents by default will only see flights that are approved for that particular booking class (fare bucket) and fare basis. The reason this can differ between classic rewards available for individual booking when you check ExpertFlyer or the Qantas web site, is explained well by Mel_Traveller in the following thread: "No award flights available" - Really??? (see posts #7 and #8). Most outsourced agents seem to be only trained to do a basic search in their system that shows options where everything is already available.

It looks like what insourced agents (Hobart/Auckland) are doing when asked, is to see if they can open up availability on a flight that has seats available but otherwise not approved for this particular fare basis (i.e., a connection to an international classic reward). I am not sure if this is the same "bot" referred to in this thread ( QFF Platinum requesting release of extra Classic award seats?) , but it sounds like a similar process. It seems the insourced call centres are trained to understand that an involuntary change is a valid reason to request opening up a seat, whereas outsourced ones refuse to accept that justification, or are not trained on, the process for requesting a seat. The basic customer service problem seems to be that outsourced call agents are motivated to just say "it's not available" or "sorry can't help" rather than being empowered to truly solve the problem in a customer friendly way. The mysterious bit is why Qantas continues to train their agents so differently - we can only hope they don't respond by dumbing down Hobart's access and approach to this lower bar.

This is just educated conjecture based on summarizing information presented in a few threads here.

I understand that only HBA, AKL and Manila are able to ticket. Capetown and Fiji are not, and have not been trained to do so. You can imagine if there was a number to select for ticketing that went to Hobart, everyone would use it for any and every reason! Unfortunately, therein lies one of the problems. Why Qantas doesn't just train every call centre to do all jobs properly is a question that will never be answered.

 

[TheInsider]

You can imagine if there was a number to select for ticketing that went to Hobart, everyone would use it for any and every reason!

Honestly majority of people wouldn't even know that something needs to be 'ticketed'.

 

[RooFlyer]

Honestly majority of people wouldn't even know that something needs to be 'ticketed'.

So the majority who need to be reticketed probably get screwed, yes?

 

[N860CR]

Does make you wonder... 99% of people would have absolutely no idea what "ticketing" means, so how many are showing up at the airport and not actually getting on flights? Surely people are booking award seats with OneWorld airlines, and the current strike rate would suggest probably half aren't being ticketed properly.