Qantas flight change will result in misconnect

Viper6

Intern
Joined
Mar 26, 2022
Posts
77
Had a business classic reward flight from Perth to Brisbane booked on 6th July at 10:45AM.

Today Qantas has advised they are making 'changes to the flight', and have booked me on a flight at 8.45AM on that date.

I only arrive into Perth at 8.35AM on 6th July on another Qantas booking from Rome, therefore giving me 10 minutes to catch the connecting flight? How is that a viable option, especially since I have to transfer from the international to domestic terminal?

The next available flight from Perth to Brisbane is at 1:00PM. I can see that there are business class seats available for purchase, but Qantas have not allocated one of those seats even though my original booking was a business class seat. Call centre said those are 'commercial fares' and there are no more classic rewards business class seats for that day or the next day.

I booked all of these trips well in advance, arranged relevant leave dates with work, etc and is very disappointing that Qantas are now making these changes nearly 2 months out from travel. What are the chances of Qantas moving me to a business class seat if I make enough noise? (since that is what I originally booked, and they do have availability of those seats on the 1PM flight)
 
Hi @Viper6.

As you can see, I have moved this to a new thread in teh Qantas FF forum where its more likely to be seen and responded.

My first question to you is whether the PER-BNE classic award is on the same booking at the arrival flight in PER? If its the one booking (same PNR/Booking Reference) then you probably have a reasonable chance of having Qantas fix the problem for you. If they are separate bookings, then you may have problems convincing Qantas to resolve it in your favour.
 
As @NM notes, if your award flight is on the same PNR, no problem fixing your misconnect. The 0845 ex PER shows J availability as J4C4D0I0, while the 1300 shows J5C5D5I0, which kinda suggests it's in their commercial interest to shift you to the 1300 flight. I'd keep trying, but your biggest challenge is the QF CC.

Expertflyer also shows 1 J award seat available on the 7 July redeye out of PER, which is an A330.

cheers skip
 
The next available flight from Perth to Brisbane is at 1:00PM. I can see that there are business class seats available for purchase, but Qantas have not allocated one of those seats even though my original booking was a business class seat. Call centre said those are 'commercial fares' and there are no more classic rewards business class seats for that day or the next day.

Be very specific in saying "this was an involuntary change made by Qantas and the new flight does not suit my requirements". They can absolutely put you on the 1pm flight.

Edit: it reads like you have booked the domestic and international flights as separate PNRs, and this is the exact reason that's generally not a great idea.
 
Last edited:
As @NM notes, if your award flight is on the same PNR, no problem fixing your misconnect. The 0845 ex PER shows J availability as J4C4D0I0, while the 1300 shows J5C5D5I0, which kinda suggests it's in their commercial interest to shift you to the 1300 flight. I'd keep trying, but your biggest challenge is the QF CC.

Expertflyer also shows 1 J award seat available on the 7 July redeye out of PER, which is an A330.

cheers skip

As reported on many threads, this is a common issue and easily solved.

Once again: The system tends to only look at the altered flight. Look at your options and then call. You do not require award space for something like this, they can open revenue seats.
 
The Frequent Flyer Concierge team takes the hard work out of finding reward seat availability. Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, they'll help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

Be very specific in saying "this was an involuntary change made by Qantas and the new flight does not suit my requirements". They can absolutely put you on the 1pm flight.

Edit: it reads like you have booked the domestic and international flights as separate PNRs, and this is the exact reason that's generally not a great idea.
Even if they has booked these flights on separate PNRs (which I agree is not advisable should there be last minute delays that cause them to misconnect), surely they should be able to get a suitable flight on the day of departure, and perhaps even the day prior to departure if that suits them when QF changes their flight. After all, it is not their fault that the flights were changed, and they made their travel plans with the reliance that QF would be operating the flights as ticketed. A call to Qantas should be able to straighten this out, although I would advise them to also make a note of the flight they want to be on and make that clear to the agent rather than letting the agent figure it out for them. So long as there is availability in the cabin (i.e. business) there shouldn't be any issue.

-RooFlyer88
 
I booked all of these trips well in advance, arranged relevant leave dates with work, etc and is very disappointing that Qantas are now making these changes nearly 2 months out from travel. What are the chances of Qantas moving me to a business class seat if I make enough noise? (since that is what I originally booked, and they do have availability of those seats on the 1PM flight)
You can only try as indicated in earlier answers.

it is a shame you have separate bookings, as Qantas would have made award seats available to accommodate you as per their own policy:


When you booked the second award, you could have tried to protect yourself from such issues as this by calling and having the second award flight inserted into the original PNR as a connection. For over a year there have been no charges for changes to award bookings such as this.
 
Thank you all for the comments. One flight (Rome to Perth was Premium Economy), while the other (Perth to Brisbane) was Business. I recall there were some errors when trying to book them both at the same time on the Qantas website, so they were booked separately within minutes of each other.

First call centre I got was Fiji, who weren't much help and were looking at flights from Perth to Brisbane the previous day (when I explained to them I would still be flying in the air into Perth and provided them with the booking reference number for that flight), and the next day (which won't work, because I need to be back at work). They basically said I should accept the changes proposed or cancel and get a refund.

Cape Town were more helpful, apologetic, actually tried to find solutions, and after around 30 minutes on hold was told they would 'link' my two bookings and put in a request in to release a commercial seat for the 1PM flight. Agent said he would call me back in 48-72 hours with the outcome of that request as it needed to be escalated to Australia for review. Crossing fingers and toes and hoping for a good outcome.

The flight from Perth to Rome is 16 hours, now I have to wait another 4 hours in Perth Airport due to this delay (potentially without lounge access if I don't get the business class flight), and then another 4 hours to Brisbane. So that's 24 hours of travel at least :(

That 1:00PM flight in economy is now also nearly $500, whereas I paid $46 + points for the business rewards flight.

Love how Qantas spin it...

"As we start to emerge from COVID, we are making a number of changes to our schedule to meet growing travel demand as well as the ongoing impact of travel restrictions and operational requirements. As a result we've updated the details of your flight to Brisbane departing on 06 Jul 2022."
 
Last edited:
That 1:00PM flight in economy is now also nearly $500, whereas I paid $46 + points for the business rewards flight.

How is this relevant? Pricing and availability change all the time and the cancel of the 1045 flight probably caused cheaper seats to be gone in Y on the 1pm. You also can't compare a rewards booking in J to a revenue fare in another cabin tbh.

Love how Qantas spin it...

"As we start to emerge from COVID, we are making a number of changes to our schedule to meet growing travel demand as well as the ongoing impact of travel restrictions and operational requirements. As a result we've updated the details of your flight to Brisbane departing on 06 Jul 2022."

With respect, and I don't want to come across as too rude, but I think you've done fairly well so far given the separate bookings which was at the end of the day your choice to make. I'm sure now you understand why this was a risky idea, and unfortunately this change (and who knows if there will be further changes tbh) has impacted you but it's always risky off a long international flight to then book a separate ticket as a connection within just a couple of hours - I mean you would be in just as much strife on the day of travel if there was a delay in the flight ex-FCO (or it was cancelled, or whatever - not trying to tempt fate here!. I understand you had problems booking online and took the gamble.

So QF offering to link the bookings is something (though tbh I am uncertain how actually helpful this is in reality) and request the 1pm seat for you (and again as a request well who knows what will happen there) - these seem fairly reasonable given they could, in reality, tell you "tough luck" or just put you on that 10:20pm flight without even attempting to get you something more reasonable - because technically they don't have to.

Of course I hope this works out in your favour, though tbh I think you'd be VERY lucky to get a J reward seat released. Indeed I just looked and QF938 is only showing J4 D4 on a 737. Y looks OK and you could get that, or the 2315 flight on an A330 which is open in J and thus you may need to organise a day room or something in PER as a last resort and hope you can get some sleep.

I think you may need to aim for a Y seat on the 1300 so you get into BNE and have the night there before working the next day. Unfortunately these are the kind of gotchyas that happen from time to time that can be learning experiences and a reminder to us all (and just so I don't come across as a know-it-all jerk I can admit to having done something quite similar myself about 5 years ago where I figured a 4.5 hour connection at LAX was more than enough and I took the gamble - and I knew there was lots of protection on my onwards flight to DEN should things go south - which they did when QF was delayed 4 hours and I missed my flight) - so it happens. At least at this point you potentially have some options over the next si or so weeks. However hopefully they open something up for you on QF938. Probably in Y, but hopefully in J.

good luck
 
So, if you are willing to be flexible (which you probably will need to be) - you could ask to fly via SYD.

QF6, the continuation of your flight, whilst it doesn't have J award seats available, it has plenty of revenue J availability on the PER-SYD leg, including I9 (the class they will often release to WPs as award seats) - and that's much better value being an 787 business service transcon and no risk of missing the connection as its the same plane.

There is U availability on the 1805, 1835 and 1905 SYD-BNEs so you're set there.

It gets you home about 25 minutes later than the 1300 PER-BNE would, but IMO much better value - and much better chance getting a seat in J. It shouldn't cost any more points to go via SYD. Not sure about taxes though.
 
HBA-ADL direct flight on QF metal is one of the first to go. Now JetStar - all my booked direct flights now via MEL but that has advantages as I'll get more SCs etc than booked, and there is now J cabin available. :)

I wonder if the 'covid-new' direct flights between smaller capitals will bear the brunt of the cuts?
 
HBA-ADL direct flight on QF metal is one of the first to go. Now JetStar - all my booked direct flights now via MEL but that has advantages as I'll get more SCs etc than booked, and there is now J cabin available. :)
Somewhat confused here, did your Jétstar flights get cancelled due to this shake up and you're now booked onto QF metal? Hopefully that is the case so you can avail yourself of the lounges at HBA and MEL (albeit the HBA lounge isn't much to write home about albeit the views are pretty nice).

In any event, I have no qualms with schedule changes so long as they favour me (and typically they have). It's the one real equalizer in purchasing discount Y fares since it means your fare becomes fully flexible with free choice on what flight you really want (including routing and cabins as you pointed out).

Here's to hoping for many fortunate schedule changes!

-RooFlyer88
 
Somewhat confused here, did your Jétstar flights get cancelled due to this shake up and you're now booked onto QF metal? Hopefully that is the case so you can avail yourself of the lounges at HBA and MEL (albeit the HBA lounge isn't much to write home about albeit the views are pretty nice).

In any event, I have no qualms with schedule changes so long as they favour me (and typically they have). It's the one real equalizer in purchasing discount Y fares since it means your fare becomes fully flexible with free choice on what flight you really want (including routing and cabins as you pointed out).

Here's to hoping for many fortunate schedule changes!

-RooFlyer88
Sorry, badly worded. I had a number of Qantas direct return flights from Hobart to Adelaide which all got canned and replaced with Hobart Melbourne Adaide. I was then trying to say that the direct Hobart Adelaide flights are now Jetstar.
 

Enhance your AFF viewing experience!!

From just $6 we'll remove all advertisements so that you can enjoy a cleaner and uninterupted viewing experience.

And you'll be supporting us so that we can continue to provide this valuable resource :)


Sample AFF with no advertisements? More..

Recent Posts

Back
Top