Some interesting stories.
I spent several hours researching some flights from Oz to Europe this past two weeks. Few seats in both directions as one might expect, even for the return flights in September. However, I got there in the end and pressed the book button.....ERROR. As you will know, this means going back to the begining again and after a few more ERROR messages , called QF and waited in the queue for over 2 hours. The Agent I spoke with was average at best and told me that one of the flights did not exist even though I was looking at it at that time. She EVENTUALLY found it. Had I not done the research........!!
The problem with the QF booking site is that even after decades, it still does not work with other airlines, be they ONE WORLD or with EMIRATES.
A point recorded above about using the Pandemic as an excuse is quite right, because QF has always had an excuse for keep you on hold be it bush fires, floods, whatever. Two really gauling features of the wait time is the same piece of music over and over again and the interuption by someone telling you how many hundreds of ways there are to earn FF Points. It is all very well we can earn Points Alan, but we also want to be able to use them. The trouble with Alan and his buddies is that they do not have to use the system as we so called "Ordinary people" do.
This leads me to the point of no perks like Chaufreur drive being dropped for J and First class passengers on redemption tickets. EK was leap years ahead of QF in terms of service and perks and now, since tying up with QF, their service has dropped to the same low level, AVERAGE.
When I cash in 350,000 FF Points QF makes me feel as if I am getting somethignn for free. I spent nearly $350K to get those points. Booking flights and upgrades should be confirmed at the time of request, not the day before the flight with an Oh Sorry, but we managed to sell all the seats.