Qantas cars

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ajw373

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Am in London at the moment and went and pickup my Avis hire car I booked through Qantas.com. The car class I booked through Qantas was "premium" with the example car being a BMW3 series. Imagine my surprise when I was handed the keys to a Skoda Octiva. Now I understand hire car companies have caveats that you may get an equivalent car but no way is a Skoda Octiva equivalent to a BMW 3 series.

When I questioned the car I was given I was told I was booked in F class and the Skoda was a car in that class. I said to the women do you consider a Skoda to be a premium car to which she answered no it, and the whole F class are considered to be standard sized saloons. I showed her my Qantas booking where it said my booking was for a premium car and she said again I was booked in F class and I have an F class car and any issues talk to the manager.

I did just that and the manager said I was given a car from the correct class I was booked in. I asked him too if a Skoda was considered premium and he said no, so I showed him my booking and asked him to explain why my booking said premium but I was booked in a class that isn't considered premium.

As soon as he saw it was a Qantas booking he said that they have similar problems with Qantas and other 3rd party booking agents all the time in so far as the agents don't represent their correct example cars for a given class and that I should take the issue up with Qantas.

Now suffice to say I will do just that (provided I can find the correct number or email address the website doesn't really give one for cars). As far as I am concerned I have booked a car thinking I was getting one thing and paying accordingly when I have been given something totally different.

So be careful when booking cars through Qantas an other 3rd party agents. What you get may well not be what you think you have booked.
 
Wonder why Avis are the only provider that does not show group?
 
Wonder why Avis are the only provider that does not show group?

What do you mean? Avis clearly show the group on their website (for Australia at least)! I would actually say they are the only one that does, rather than does not!
 
What do you mean? Avis clearly show the group on their website (for Australia at least)! I would actually say they are the only one that does, rather than does not!

On the Qantas site as per the OPs booking method and thread title.
 
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I have to say that Qantas Cars is one of the better booking options on the QF website - I typically book Hertz in the UK through them (though have booked car hire at various points around Australia, too).

On each occasion I've *always* researched the individual Rental Company's websites too and found Qantas Cars to be consistently cheaper. Sometimes a little tricky reconciling the Qantas Cars description with the Rental Company's but have not yet hit a "surprise" when picking up the vehicle. (The condition of one particular vehicle when being picked up from Hobart airport was an entirely different matter!!)

Regards,

BD
 
Just made and cancelled another booking for Avis premium class for London and again the Qantas website shows the BMW3 series as an example of what you can get. I then put the Avis booking number into the Avis UK website and the group booked was F. Didn't do this before.

Group F shows Vauxhall Insignia and Ford Mondeo as example cars.

The BMW3 series is group K along with Mercedes C class. To me these are premium cars not a Skoda or any car in group F!

So really a miss representation of the group as a whole, group F is standard sedan not premium which is what Qantas says and the example car is a different class again.
 
This seems to be a total misrepresentation on the part of QF. Whether they are interested in fixing it (and quickly) is another question all together.
Have their work experience IT staff been at it again? It seems that they were not able to show the correct booking classes and so have linked into the wrong area of the database. I would be annoyed as well - Skoda is not exactly BMW class!
Have you had any response from QF?
 
This seems to be a total misrepresentation on the part of QF. Whether they are interested in fixing it (and quickly) is another question all together.
Have their work experience IT staff been at it again? It seems that they were not able to show the correct booking classes and so have linked into the wrong area of the database. I would be annoyed as well - Skoda is not exactly BMW class!
Have you had any response from QF?

No response because cannot find an email address for the cars section and not going to waste money or time calling whilst on holiday. Will let them know what I think when I get back in about 2 weeks time.

In the meantime enjoying the Skoda! Actually it isn't a bad car just not a premium car which is what I was told I was paying for.
 
Bit of an update. When I got home I wrote to both Qantas and Avis UK about this.

Avis UK responded within 2 days and basically said not their problem. I went back to them and said that yeah maybe that is true, but Qantas would appear to be miss representing YOUR product, and even if booking through Qantas they are YOUR customers and that maybe you should do something. They responded a few days later and said good point we will investigate further.

With Qantas waited well over their advertised 15 working day standard response time. Red Roo appeared to chase and then received an email saying they had passed the issue onto the web team. Haven't heard a thing since.

I was about to send off a letter to fair trading as I think the response from Qantas thus far is not really acceptable, but the wife noticed something odd on our credit card and got me to check. Sure enough it was a refund from Avis UK for about $160 AUD, which works out to be about 1/4 the cost of my hire car. No idea why, but no doubt related to this issue. Will be interesting to see who does eventually respond to me, though if Avis wrote to me by letter I won't get it, because they have my old UK address on file and they cannot updated my Avis Preferred details to a non UK address. Odd but true.
 
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Just saw this thread and glad that I did.
I have had exactly the same issue with Avis UK booking through the Avis website, so I think they are incorrect in telling you that it's only a third party booking issue.
Every time I have booked a standard group car, no problems. On the two occasions I've booked from the Select Series I have had to call them up and get them to manually adjust the car to the correct vehicle.
The problem first arose when I booked an Audi A1 Sportback and then looking online the reservation said Group B (eg Renault Clio). Same thing happened when I booked a Mercedes A180 last month (similar car group appeared online no mention of Mercedes). The telephone Agent could see that there was an issue with the booking and tried the old "We think it's a TA issue". I emailed them the screen shots from the original pre-paid rental and after a couple of days I received a true confirmation email from them and the reservation was updated.
I also find it crazy how you cannot use your Preferred details on an existing booking in the UK. I think I'm going to change mine to my US Address and get First to see if that's any better :)
 
Interesting, maybe it is an Avis issue hence why a partial refund. Will be interesting to see how it pans out. Though is 1/4 refund sufficent comensation for the let down of having a Skoda compared to a BMW 3 series or equivalent? Hmmm

Re my details in Avis preferred it seems like the UK uses a different system to Australia even to the point my membership isn't recognised by Avis Australia. I joined when I lived there for a few years, but as mentioned it won't let me change my address to Australia. I can change every field, just not country the drop down box is simply greyed out.
 
Finally got a reply out of Qantas, but only after chasing them up.

Thank you for your further correspondence about your Avis car booking.

Our Web Support Team has been in contact with Avis who have been made aware of the issue with the incorrect car codes displaying in the reservations system.

Avis in the United Kingdom have now updated the vehicle description codes for the Premium Group and this is now correctly displaying in the reservations system.

Our Web Support Team has also informed me that Avis will be in contact with you directly about this issue. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Thank you again and I do hope we have the opportunity to welcome you aboard Qantas again soon.

Interesting indeed, so Princess Fiona was on the right track.

Have now emailed Avis UK once again, they responded within a few hours, their response is they have forwarded my email to their Qantas partnership team. So lets see. Even an explanation of the partial refund they have given would help, ignoring a customer not good, especially this customer.
 
A refund would be nice but would not hit the mark for me when the whole concept about renting a certain class of vehicle is for the experience and not the cost savings. I realise that there isn't really any other type of remedy to solve your issue, just saying the reason we travel is about the experience.
 
Sorry a little off topic but is there any advantage booking via Qantas Cars? rather than Avis.com and entering your QFF no to get the points?
Is Qantas cars cheaper? more points via Qantas cars?
 
Am not sure what ¨Qantas cars¨ is, but if you mean booking car rentals via the Qantas website, they seem to do good deals, but WTF can´t they do bookings for 30+ days??
 
Sorry a little off topic but is there any advantage booking via Qantas Cars? rather than Avis.com and entering your QFF no to get the points?
Is Qantas cars cheaper? more points via Qantas cars?

There is not usually an advantage using Qantas, in my experience. If you use the Qantas AWD (P469100), the Avis website should spit out the same rates and give the same points, with the added advantage of dealing direct and being able to use Preferred (not sure if you can use Preferred with Qantas, but you often can't with third party websites). I had an experience a couple of years ago with Hertz where Qantas appeared cheaper, but didn't include the 'insurance', whereas the Hertz rate did! It always pays to cross check!

Am not sure what ¨Qantas cars¨ is, but if you mean booking car rentals via the Qantas website, they seem to do good deals, but WTF can´t they do bookings for 30+ days??

That's a car rental company limitation (at least Avis) - you can't book longer than 30 days on their own websites!
 
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