Qantas cancelled flight - enforcing reward bucket availability on changes

[TripleB]

Hi there,

I was hoping that you might be able to tell me whether I should keep pushing or give up.

The story is this:

• I booked 3 x classic business reward seats SYD-BNE-CNS for Easter through the Qantas website many months ago (this was the only option for getting 3 reward seats on the same plane).
• A few months ago they cancelled the SYD-BNE flight and moved us to the one an hour later. Only problem is that it gets into Brisbane 30 mins after the BNE-CNS flight leaves.
• This happened when they were constantly changing their schedule and they sent me an email to say they were aware of the issue and to sit tight. Nothing happened for a couple of months. So I called and was told:
  • We can't be moved to an earlier SYD-BNE flight because there is no award availability (there are business class seats available - just not in the reward bucket)
  • There are no later BNE-CNS flights available (which gels with the fact that there don't seem to be any revenue seats available)
  • We can't be moved to any of the direct SYD-CNS flights - again there are revenue seats being sold on all of them but no reward seats
  • There are no options the day before or day after (other than swapping to Y class and copping a 12 hour connection in Brisbane the day before) - it's for Easter ... I'm not expecting any reward seats to open up.

Am I wasting my time trying to get them to move us? My alternative us to just give up and cancel the reward flights and book some revenue seats.

Triple B

 

[MEL_Traveller]

No - you're not wasting your time!

This is an issue for Qantas to sort out, as per their terms and conditions of carriage - see sections 9.1 and 9.2 (depending on whether the airline argues this is within their control, or not).

Even if it's true that there are no award seats, it's pretty easy - and standard - for Qantas to be able to 'create' additional award seats out of paid inventory and swap you in to the (newly created) award seats.

Ask for the issue to be escalated to the yield department.

 

[Must...Fly!]

A reschedule is not your fault. It is up to Qantas to fix this - you might have to be more forceful on the phone but you are right to continue insisting they fix it. Going away is clearly what Qantas wants you to do.

 

[astrosly]

No - you're not wasting your time!

This is an issue for Qantas to sort out, as per their terms and conditions of carriage - see sections 9.1 and 9.2 (depending on whether the airline argues this is within their control, or not).

Even if it's true that there are no award seats, it's pretty easy - and standard - for Qantas to be able to 'create' additional award seats out of paid inventory and swap you in to the (newly created) award seats.

Ask for the issue to be escalated to the yield department.

Agreed. I've had the same issue where a classic award itinerary became unworkable due to schedule changes by Qantas and they've easily opened up award seats on alternative QF flights. Do try again and hopefully you get a more responsive customer service agent.

 

[TripleB]

Thanks for the replies.

Update - called back and got the same answer.

After much polite backwards and forwards I asked 'so you're telling me that because you cancelled a flight and won't move me to one of the several other flights with seats on it - my only option is to either pay for a seat at the 6 week out price not 6 month out price or cancel?'. Answer: I cannot move you to another flight.

So HUCA and got through (well after the 40 minute callback wait time) to a helpful lady and the conversation went as follows:

QF: hmmm let me see what I can do
QF: would it be ok if you were to connect in Canberra rather than Brisbane
me: Errrr if the connection time is ok - yeah why not.
QF: It's [flight details]
Me: yes please let's do that.
QF: let me make a call and fix this up for you
[I jumped onto the website and realised that there were 2 U class seats on a connection via Canberra at much the same times as my original flights - so suspect that she was trying to have another seat opened up on that routing]
QF: Ok just to confirm it will be for the 3 of you on [the CBR connection] - is that ok?
Me: yes please
QF: Can I pop you on hold while I finalise that for you please?
[hold]
QF: all done - there will be an email coming out to you shortly. Is there anything else I can do to help?

It shouldn't have been that hard ...

FWIW - the first two people I spoke to had heavy South African accents. I know that there are lots of people in Australia (including many Australians) with South African accents so it may have just been a coincidence but I can't help but wonder if I got through to the South African callcentre on the first two calls. I thought that it only took calls to the UK number (made during the day UK time) and 'urgent' calls to the Australian number made overnight Australian time and never took BAU calls made to the Australian number during the day Australian time.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Glad you finally got there! While it’s true ‘they’ (call centre staff) can’t simply move you, they *can* send your booking to the yield department to do it for them.

 

[Aus ATC]

A friend recently had a similar issue. A BNE-SYD-HBA reward flight where the original (early evening) SYD-HBA flight was cancelled and she was moved to a flight that would only connect in SYD with the help of a time machine. After a 2+ hour wait to speak to someone, she was moved to a direct BNE-HBA flight - no award availability on that or any other flight that day, but it was sorted easily. Maybe less resistance to make the change as it was an economy booking.

 

[Danger]

I would expect Qantas to go into bat for me if a oneworld partner caused an issue like this. When Qantas itself does it, it should be a no brainer.

 

[madrooster]

The correct policy when there is a schedule change and the result is not acceptable to you:

You can change to any flight(s) with the same origin and destination +/- 1 day of your original date irrespective of availability as long as there are seats available in the same cabin. You can reroute via a different port too if your original flights involved a connection.

 

[serfty]

The correct policy when there is a schedule change and the result is not acceptable to you:

You can change to any flight(s) with the same origin and destination +/- 1 day of your original date irrespective of availability as long as there are seats available in the same cabin. You can reroute via a different port too if your original flights involved a connection.

This is born out in the following Qantas published policy:

Qantas and Other Airline Schedule Change Policy

A schedule change is an involuntary change to a flight more than 72 hours prior to flight departure. A disruption is an involuntary change inside 72 hours. This policy outlines options for managing and servicing your customer’s booking for Qantas and other airline tickets.

www.qantas.com

• Be in the same class as originally ticketed EXCEPT Qantas airline flights which can be rebooked to the lowest available class in the same cabin IF the original ticketed class is not available

This policy has NO special caveats for awards, so X goes up the chain to Y if necessary, U goes through I, D, C to J , etc.