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

 

[Infrequent]

Good luck to anyone who tries calling anywhere today!

 

[djkelly69]

Good luck to anyone who tries calling anywhere today!

I can't log in on website either?

 

[BriarFlyer]

Pretty when you can see the reward seats you want but can't log in to book them.

 

[Port Power]

I can't log in on website either?

With the announcement by AJ, too many people are trying to log into their accounts at the same time to either accept their offer or check their status. There’s no need to do that immediately, but the FF system has clogged up and failed as a result. Naturally the call centre system has also crashed. Sorry, @BriarFlyer but no bookings for you today!

 

[encryptededdy]

Called 12.30pm, 45 min wait answered by 'Premium line@ (I am QF Bronze.)

From another thread^

Seems like with the login system broken, this is a chance to get through to maybe Hobart as a non-WP.

 

[encryptededdy]

Hmm. Made two calls to QF in the past day and had to wait 5-10 minutes on hold both times, but got Hobart both times. I wonder if the WP Phone Queue is back to the old standard where it's almost always Hobart? Anyone other WPs call Qantas in the past day who can chime in? Or maybe I'm just very lucky...

If this is true then this is a welcome improvement. Waiting a few minutes for Hobart is almost always better than being answered immediately by Fiji or SA.

 

[Port Power]

I just called to book a multicity flight that would not go through payment on line. Entered FF number and PIN, was on hold only five minutes and was answered in AKL. (I asked, as the lady as she had a slight Pakistani accent.) She booked the itinerary almost as I wanted, but could not book the sale fares, as well as BNE-PER showed full! Plus now all flex instead of sale, so costing $668 more, but I intend to request upgrade to J anyway. Main thing was very short hold time, and answered in Auckland. Phone queue seems to be working again.

Edit: The QF lady rang back to reconfirm passport details. E-ticket arrived a few minutes later.

 

[ChrisMars]

I made 5 calls on Sunday, short wait time but all offshore, after a few minutes chatting it became clear the operators I spoke too never requestd award seat release for WP. Fair enough, wp is meant to be routed to Hobart/Auckland.
Disnt call yesterday consider the whole login failure madness, but this morning call was finally a success!

 

[dylarr]

Hmm. Made two calls to QF in the past day and had to wait 5-10 minutes on hold both times, but got Hobart both times. I wonder if the WP Phone Queue is back to the old standard where it's almost always Hobart? Anyone other WPs call Qantas in the past day who can chime in? Or maybe I'm just very lucky...

If this is true then this is a welcome improvement. Waiting a few minutes for Hobart is almost always better than being answered immediately by Fiji or SA.

Totally agree with this - I'd be absolutely happy to wait 5-10 mins if it meant getting through to Hobart or Auckland, vs a 0 second wait for Mindpearl. Fingers crossed they've adjusted the queue logic.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

So a query from the lowest of the low - any clues on best time / best number for a serious pleb to attempt to call QF FF to try to get a couple of Lounge passes linked to a JQ flt? I am happy to sit and wait but even I have limits

 

[encryptededdy]

So a query from the lowest of the low - any clues on best time / best number for a serious pleb to attempt to call QF FF to try to get a couple of Lounge passes linked to a JQ flt? I am happy to sit and wait but even I have limits

The Frequent Flyer line (13 11 13) usually doesn't have long hold times

 

[Isaac]

Hi guys! I’m going to attempt to call and get a hold of Hobart tomorrow to fix my oneworld award ticket that has lost 4 business legs with Qatar airways due to the 1 min schedule change by qantas last week. I’m currently flightless and ticketless for half my honeymoon booking.

I’ve called 1300 659 116 plenty of times and get the premium on hold music but it always seems to go to South Africa. I usually get a slightly better trained but still mostly incompetent agent. Any suggestions for a bronze to get to Hobart?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

 

[Captain Halliday]

I wonder if the WP Phone Queue is back to the old standard where it's almost always Hobart?

I think you’re just lucky. I’m one from four in the past few days.

 

[Nitro6333]

Hi guys! I’m going to attempt to call and get a hold of Hobart tomorrow to fix my oneworld award ticket that has lost 4 business legs with Qatar airways due to the 1 min schedule change by qantas last week. I’m currently flightless and ticketless for half my honeymoon booking.

I’ve called 1300 659 116 plenty of times and get the premium on hold music but it always seems to go to South Africa. I usually get a slightly better trained but still mostly incompetent agent. Any suggestions for a bronze to get to Hobart?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Your best bet is to email [email protected] and explain your situation and hope they call you. Go check out captaincurtis post on page 145.

 

[Port Power]

So a query from the lowest of the low - any clues on best time / best number for a serious pleb to attempt to call QF FF to try to get a couple of Lounge passes linked to a JQ flt? I am happy to sit and wait but even I have limits

Just this week I linked two lounge passes to JQ flights for a friend. I did it myself online. We were confused when the wife's showed up as already linked, but I realised that is because they were both on the same PNR. Do you really need the call centre for that?

 

[Port Power]

I think you’re just lucky. I’m one from four in the past few days.

I reached Auckland this morning (as posted above), so I think we are back to normal for WP.

 

[Isaac]

Your best bet is to email [email protected] and explain your situation and hope they call you. Go check out captaincurtis post on page 145.

Thank you, I’ll get onto this today!

 

[Melburnian1]

Why is anyone complaining?

In its investor presentation this morning filed with the ASX re its big FY 22 loss, QF claims that median waiting times for the answering of calls in August 2022 (to 23 August 2022) was just 'seven minutes', compared to '129' and '54' respectively in March and April 2022.

To be fair, this is a median across all types of calls, from simple queries re domestic flights to complex ones involving multi-city international itineraries, but hey, none of you have any cause for worry according to QF.

(QF later goes into detail about the latter calls and explains how they took far longer to resolve).

 

[Scarlett]

Yes, but unfortunately we live in the real world.

The callcentres outside of Aust need to specialise, as it's been clearly shown that the off-shore units can't provide quality advice across the range of international services.

Or, I could be less diplomatic...

You don’t need to be less diplomatic, as the appropriate phrase is well known: pay peanuts, get monkeys.

But, this is the same QF that has lost what,

two years running now, so maybe we should just relax a little more and be happy the airline still exists. If you can get three people working in a call centre in Kraplakistan, for the same price as one agent on Australian wages, it’s not hard to see what’s going to happen. More so when, I suspect, the majority of calls are not the more complex types read about here and can generally be solved by the ‘quantity over quality’ call centre.

 

[JohnM]

I phoned the WP line today at 0840WST. About 5 minutes on hold. Answered pretty obviously offshore by very polite but obviously from the outset (just the way she repetitively asked security questions) very inexperienced Mary.

I had an aircraft change DRW-PER, with my partner's (NB) separate booking supposedly linked to mine but the system had defaulted my seating way back to her row.

When I moved myself forward in MMB, her seating failed to move with mine. So it seemed liked there was still some sort of linkage, but it was not functioning properly. Only option was to call.

Anyway, Mary was in Fiji. She had no idea about status and wanted to move me back, rather than PJM forward. Errr, Mary, allow me to assure that it does not work like that.

She puts me on hold to check with higher authority. Comes back after about 10 minutes saying she'd call me back when she could get through to the higher authority.

Yeah, sure...

Well, blow me down, 1 hour later, just as I was going to call again in the hope of getting Hobart, Mary calls back. She had moved PJM forward.

Hopefully Mary will learn something from this and only take a couple of minutes instead of over an hour faffing around over something so simple next time.