Qantas Oneworld Award itinerary change - stuck overseas

[Lomandriel]

Hello all. I thought this didnt quite fit in the normal one world award planning thread... we have commenced our one world award itinerary and we have one last flight : zurich back to Perth via doh on Qatar. A great business clasa route albeit for current circumstances.

We are in Switzerland where things have now gone into lockdown and we want to get out asap. We have found it extremely frustrating to get ahold of either the Facebook chat staff or line up on gold for 3 or 4 hrs only to be hung up or disconnected.

We tried again for 4 hrs and got through and the agent would not change us to an earlier flight. Supposedly it cannot be done? Just wanting id anyone else had experienced this and changed a flight part way through their one world award flights?

We can clearly see qatar seats in business for all days from today until our original departure circa 23 march. I understand if reward seats are gone but surely in these pressing times we could be changed to an available business class seat to get us home asap? So far we have been flying through Scandinavia and europe and there are many spare and empty seats in business. Its ridiculous.

So we suggested rerouting through another city. Maybe back via london to perth from Zurich as this is run by emirates. This time we were told no as we'd begun our itinerary it cannot be changed? We alao cannot downgrade class to get out on same reasons. I just find this hard to believe that policies would be so rigid. If someone needed sudden travel changes i.e. loved one died at home surely they have thrown them on the next available flight?? There are plenty of economy seats let alone alternative routes out of Zurich to get back to aus ,yet they can't amend it once the itinerary commences?

The only option was to cancel - lose everything and they will slug us fees even, then rebook at our own cost?

I dont think this person was very "nice" to put it per se... but certainly he cannot be right? Prior to departing we were able to reroute from per to tokyo via hk due to coronavirus fears. There were no business class seats so next available classes were offered. As corona got worse we snagged business allcthe way for per via sg to tokyo to avoid hk. Arguably we had not started the trip but logically we have not gotten on this last flight?


Would anyone be able to confirm if they have done what we had hoped to do before?

So far the qantas experience has been far from pleasant - with an urgency to get the heck out of Switzerland's lockdown they don't seem to be very forthcoming at all. Considering free refunds and cancellations surely they could assist business travellers by rebooking an earlier flight on an in progress itinerary? This problem surely has been around for years??

Appreciate any help from back home and advice.. .

Could ringing qatar directly get my flight changed given the booking is via qantas initially?

 

[tizey]

Whilst it wasnt a oneworld award, i have had success with HUACA with regard to a classic award flight booked as a return journey, and changing remaining legs once the travel has commenced:

First change was date and destination, same carrier (EK)
Second change was departure city, date and carrier (to QF)
Third change was date and destination, same carrier (QF)

He's taken the first leg of the journey, so travel has commenced, and various staff have said award flights cant be changed once travel commences. At this point, dont argue just hang up and try again. I lost 5hrs Sunday with it.

Some webchat/callcentre staff have been incredibly helpful - others have said it cant be done. You need to try and get someone useful - I've found early mornings AU time is most successful so far having made 3 changes to the same itinerary.

Once you've found someone that can change it, ticketing is the other problem. It doesnt go through automatically, and needs to be followed up to get ticket issued. Its very frustrating, particularly at times like this when every avenue is jammed up (I'm still trying to get through to get yesterdays change ticketed.. god I hope it is or he's stuck in the UK).

Good luck!

 

[jeza]

@Lomandriel from reading the OWA Planning thread you are not alone with this issue.


I did ask a similar question regarding what you could change once you'd commenced travel and was provided a quote from the T&C's below. It does seem to be very limiting in what you can change unfortunately.

From the book of rules:
14.7.6 Subject to this clause 14.7, the following changes are permitted to a Classic Flight Reward flight before departure of that flight, provided the booking contains one or more Flight Segments that are not within Australia, and the Flight Segment(s) being changed do not include a partner airline that requires a ticket to be reissued for the change. Any such change will incur a Change Fee (see the Fee Schedule) per passenger:

(a) change to flight number; and
(b) change to date of travel.

The complete rule book can be found here: Frequent Flyer Terms and Conditions | Qantas

On searching for 2 adults with QR ZUR-PER I can see economy availability for the 23rd of March.There also appears to be Business availability with BA on the 24th, not sure if this would be allowed as it's ZUR-LHR-SYD-PER. If these are truly available or phantom availability I couldn't tell you I'm sorry.

If you search for 1 adult there was a few different options a day or 2 earlier.

The HUCA is always worth a try.

Good luck!

 

[madrooster]

In the past week, I have been able to change partly flown awards issued by QF and involuntarily re-route all of my pax flying on awards back home completely free of charge. It definitely is possible.

 

[dajop]

Are you far from ZRH airport? Can you turn up to Qatar counters and see if they will move you?

 

[jeza]

@madrooster thank you very much for the information.

May I ask if you know of or have managed to arrange for anyone with a partly flown OWA who was able to get fees & taxes or portion of points back if they will be unable to recommence the OWA in the coming few months.

 

[kevrosmith]

Would travel insurance cover the changes/fees to book your own ticket to get back to Australia?

Whatever you do, I’d do it quick-smart. Based on this article, reading between the lines it sounds like they’re about to close the borders Canada-style. May not end up with many commercial airline options left soon. YMMV

DFAT says Australian travellers who want to return home amid COVID-19 pandemic should do so ASAP

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issues advice recommending Australians abroad who wish to return home do so as soon as possible via commercial flights.

mobile.abc.net.au

 

[Lomandriel]

Sorry what is HUACA? We tried all night. First phone 2.5 hrs and bit hung up on. Second call to qantas we took the 3 hrs and got that rude guy as mentioned in OP. We tried on hold another 5 hrs to get another more helpful attendant.

Similar issue. In the end they said we could only find and reroute on Qatar business or economy seats.... no ability or offer to fly via london or on other airlines etc.

They could not find any flights before 23 March so thank you to whoever posted availability on qatar but it would be too late. We chose to book emirates economy. We fly off shortly. It is very disappointing. $2800 something. Robbery.

But very annoyed and angry at how useless the one world award is. Meanwhile flightd are so empty and i bet you today's Qatar flight which had no rewards seats will have plentiful of business seats empty.

In these times you would think getting people onto flights mattered more. So now we get taxes back but the points value of a q suites flight is immense.

The only other thing i was thinking is can we jusy change our flight to end of yr as you dont need to complete the round world trip right? If we leave the last leg open can we potentially come back to Zurich in a year's time one way out ig pocket when hopefully all is settled and finally try the q suites business flight on qatar?

Very disappointing boarding emirates and watching all the business class passengers board the a380... yet to experience!

 

[Lomandriel]

I doubt travel insurance will cover us.

Back in aus they only covered flights booked out of pocket when airlines did not provide a reroute and just cancelled. Pretty much sort it out with ur airlines. Otherwise given we've booked to get out on our own we're pretty much screwed.

Our interhome accommodation provider in switzerland also wouldvnot refund as we csn still tech get to the Zermatt mountains. The ERV travel insurancr to cover this will cover epidemics but as pandemics are not "included" per se they arent. Everyone worms out with the fine print. Very disappointing and costly. Going from alreasy paid business to forking out an extra 3k... accommodation 1k... i hatr to imagine those who saved every penny to holiday and cant afford to buy a new flight back

And as you mentioned we did really want to wait for q suites on 23rd march with qatar but there are people back in WA calling for border closers for interstate travel. Let alone if qatar curtail flights. Just so much Uncertainty. And as more airports close borders routing to get home is getting very difficult. I.e. cant use two carriers as collecting baggage meants entering customs.


QUOTE="kevrosmith, post: 2082923, member: 18104"]
Would travel insurance cover the changes/fees to book your own ticket to get back to Australia?

Whatever you do, I’d do it quick-smart. Based on this article, reading between the lines it sounds like they’re about to close the borders Canada-style. May not end up with many commercial airline options left soon. YMMV

DFAT says Australian travellers who want to return home amid COVID-19 pandemic should do so ASAP

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issues advice recommending Australians abroad who wish to return home do so as soon as possible via commercial flights.

mobile.abc.net.au

[/QUOTE]

 

[oirets]

Firstly, don't panic! It's best to approach this with a rational mind and not let the last leg of your journey destroy your entire journey

It's important to point out that whilst "fight or flight" is human instinct, you are not in imminent danger. It's very unlikely that you get COVID-19, even in Europe right now, and even in the very, very rare case that you do, Switzerland is not the worst place to be. They have one of the best medical systems in the world, you will receive the required care should you need it.

My advice right now is to get yourself to the UK. You'll have the benefit of the friendly ties between us and the poms, and also the Qantas flights that go directly to Perth. I'd say try to get Qantas to approve the change to go from the UK to Perth. Then book a cash fare to the UK if you have to.

The only reason why I would recommend this over going via Doha is that the Middle East is much less friendly to Australia in the very rare case that anything happens and I would honestly much rather be stuck in the UK than in the Middle East in the event of a crisis.

 

[33kft]

I would think their advice about a downgrade of seats from J to Y is dubious. If you were to book a F RTW award and they don't have that class on certain routes, they don't refuse the itinerary. In order to get out of the US ASAP I cancelled our J reward and rebooked Y which I understand you can't do in the same situation and I feel for your predicament but it seems like a simple approach and I'd be stunned if a call centre operator would refuse to voluntarily downgrade a ticket.

That said, if you wanted to retain your J seats the info above by others might help with rerouting.

 

[Expectans Expectavi]

I totally sympathise, having spent many, many hours trying to overcome BA strike cancellations last September on a paid QF First RTW. QF didn't help, but BA eventually did. This involved a harrowing tramp through SFO and LAX and losing a paid side trip business on LOT to Vilnius. BA only refunded 3 nights at SFO hotel. Nice, when I would have had to pay for 1 night anyway. BA transferred me to Etihad First for AUH - luxurious. Much anxiety waiting for the return BA to LHR because they kept cancelling post strike. F less good than QF 787 business LHR non stop ex PER.

Moral? I stuck to my guns and kept trying. What a pain, however. Excising BA from future plans as this wasn't the first time. Good luck.

Postscript - sadly, my partner of 50 years' duration died in Perth as I was leaving LHR for PER. I kept it to myself, but QF kind on the return lounge and F flight. I did get to Vilnius 3 months later via QF non stop to LHR/ LOT LCY to Vilnius, which was magical in the snow. Flight Vodka appreciated!

 

[justinbrett]

I second going to LHR - there's a good chance LHR-PER will stay open even if we close the borders (along with SYD-LAX) - and if worse comes to worst, we have a reciprocal agreement with the NHS for emergency medical treatment should you need it.

 

[madrooster]

@madrooster thank you very much for the information.

May I ask if you know of or have managed to arrange for anyone with a partly flown OWA who was able to get fees & taxes or portion of points back if they will be unable to recommence the OWA in the coming few months.

You can always refund taxes on any ticket coupon that is unused - this applies to any ticket on any airline.

You will be unable to get the points back though.

 

[Lomandriel]

Thanks oirets for the suggestion. LHR occured to us, and if we had to pay a flight from ZRH to LHR we would have. But again, none of the call service staff would entertain changing our route now that we commenced. So we wouldn't have gotten on a flight to LHR with our ZRH-DOH-PER route without knowing we could reroute. while we think it is unlikely we'll get stuck in Switzerland, however the thought of the expensive medical system and living expenses was a worry for being stuck there beyond our week's itinerary. Just a vietname casual dinner for 2 cost me nearly $70... which would be daylight robbery here. THe medical would be beyond us if it was serious - whereas in Australia we would be medicare covered, or at least private health.

To highlight how pitiful companies fine print are, I had two travel insurances via credit cards which were all valid in June or so last year when they became eligible through purchases, but the nature of Covid19 in Dec 19+ rendered any medical assistance relating to coronavirus ineligible. Again - daylight robbery and there needs to be more industry regulation to stamp out these fine print.

We have in fact gotten back to Perth now. We left that Tuesday afternoon whilst I was writing this. We had to book Emirates flights from ZRH -DUB-PER. Cost us a plum $3k for 2 of us on economy seats. Bloody ripoff.

I am extremely disappointed in Qantas to say the least. I find it absolutely ridiculous that given that current 'situation' around the world they have stuck so rigidly to "same route, same carrier, same class" for any changes. THe chances of us getting 2 x Qatar on business on that exact route earlier was near nil. Meanwhile the carrier had plenty of biz class and economy seats. SURELY some customer service could have seen the value of business be given up and get us on the economy seat? This has really opened my eyes up to the 'value' of points and business members, and really if you're willing to pay for it you can go anywhere, otherwise once you've paid you are a passing figure.

Even now we are on the phone for the last 3-5 hrs to qantas, hoping to change our original flights from monday 23rd out. I am going to give them an earful. Certainly expect or would hope they offer even some sort of consolation points . I know 'technically' you can get your taxes and fees refunded for cancelling but points are lost, but I think it's ridiculous the lack of help, and that we ended up forking out 3k to get home. Could they not have put us on an economy flight on any other route at a fraction of that?

For the record the emirates flight to dubai highlighted how empty it was. Rows and rows of the a380 empty. you could pick wherever you wanted. Dubai to Perth was packed, given everyone wanted home....

Anyway let's see how our 'phone call' goes. We were hoping to reschedule to December or next Jan-March 2021, but not a single Qatar seat on that route! So i don't think we can 'save' the flight that way. Still shaking my head at how rigid and unhelpful Qantas has been.

 

[Lomandriel]

Moral? I stuck to my guns and kept trying. What a pain, however. Excising BA from future plans as this wasn't the first time. Good luck.

Perhaps may be worth keeping BA in plans! After all at least they helped you and upgraded you on another airlines. Qantas on the other hand couldn't even downgrade us to economy, and wanted us to pay the points cancellation fee to cancel our flights and then rebook anotehr flight at our own costs or the difference in points etc. Their 'best' solution was the emirates via London i believe (could have been ZRH-DUB-PER too) for 55, 000 points plus another $500 in taxes - per person. Great swap for Qatar's q suites to paying that.

On chatting to emirates stewards on the flight to Dubai many were sympathetic but mentioned none of the middle eastern airlines will upgrade you to business, not even their own staff - as we had hoped our sob story would get an upgrade in Emirates at least? The best they gave us was the extra leg room emergency exit at the front of the cabin area.... the flight was empty anyway so you could have just moved there anyway. But the steward did say airlines like British Airways may have offered and do offer upgrades for honeymooners, people in these situation etc. (we were both honeymooners and in this horrid situation).

When we were checking into our Emirates flight on Tues it did occur to me to ask Qatar if they could change our flights to that day's business as they had availability. Alas the service counter had 20 mins to open - it was either check in our own emirates flight we paid for or hope to get Qatar on board (either way we'd paid for Emirates anyhow). It didn't help that Qatar's Switzerland number rang out and the local aus number was a no go for getting through.

Never felt like it was so hard to get assistance ... thankfully we were in a financial position to afford the outlay and get the heck out, however I am sure others would not have the cash available on that short notice.

 

[justinbrett]

I am surprised all airlines aren't adopting the "just get on the plane and we'll get you home somehow - don't worry about fare classes';" attitude. Even accepting each others tickets.

They could be doing a lot more.

 

[Franky]

Thanks oirets for the suggestion. LHR occured to us, and if we had to pay a flight from ZRH to LHR we would have. But again, none of the call service staff would entertain changing our route now that we commenced. So we wouldn't have gotten on a flight to LHR with our ZRH-DOH-PER route without knowing we could reroute. while we think it is unlikely we'll get stuck in Switzerland, however the thought of the expensive medical system and living expenses was a worry for being stuck there beyond our week's itinerary. Just a vietname casual dinner for 2 cost me nearly $70... which would be daylight robbery here. THe medical would be beyond us if it was serious - whereas in Australia we would be medicare covered, or at least private health.

To highlight how pitiful companies fine print are, I had two travel insurances via credit cards which were all valid in June or so last year when they became eligible through purchases, but the nature of Covid19 in Dec 19+ rendered any medical assistance relating to coronavirus ineligible. Again - daylight robbery and there needs to be more industry regulation to stamp out these fine print.

We have in fact gotten back to Perth now. We left that Tuesday afternoon whilst I was writing this. We had to book Emirates flights from ZRH -DUB-PER. Cost us a plum $3k for 2 of us on economy seats. Bloody ripoff.

I am extremely disappointed in Qantas to say the least. I find it absolutely ridiculous that given that current 'situation' around the world they have stuck so rigidly to "same route, same carrier, same class" for any changes. THe chances of us getting 2 x Qatar on business on that exact route earlier was near nil. Meanwhile the carrier had plenty of biz class and economy seats. SURELY some customer service could have seen the value of business be given up and get us on the economy seat? This has really opened my eyes up to the 'value' of points and business members, and really if you're willing to pay for it you can go anywhere, otherwise once you've paid you are a passing figure.

Even now we are on the phone for the last 3-5 hrs to qantas, hoping to change our original flights from monday 23rd out. I am going to give them an earful. Certainly expect or would hope they offer even some sort of consolation points . I know 'technically' you can get your taxes and fees refunded for cancelling but points are lost, but I think it's ridiculous the lack of help, and that we ended up forking out 3k to get home. Could they not have put us on an economy flight on any other route at a fraction of that?

For the record the emirates flight to dubai highlighted how empty it was. Rows and rows of the a380 empty. you could pick wherever you wanted. Dubai to Perth was packed, given everyone wanted home....

Anyway let's see how our 'phone call' goes. We were hoping to reschedule to December or next Jan-March 2021, but not a single Qatar seat on that route! So i don't think we can 'save' the flight that way. Still shaking my head at how rigid and unhelpful Qantas has been.

Know how you feel about QR and availability for this year. We had seats booked last July FCO-PER with them due to fly this Wednesday. The rest of our trip has been re-booked for December, but finding anything with them that month not possible, no matter what class. On top of that I read that Qatar was not letting foreigners into the country, though I assume only those who are not transiting would be in this category. Have had to cancel the ticket and look elsewhere.

 

[pottsy]

@madrooster thank you very much for the information.

May I ask if you know of or have managed to arrange for anyone with a partly flown OWA who was able to get fees & taxes or portion of points back if they will be unable to recommence the OWA in the coming few months.

Yes, I'd like to know the same thing as madroster, please!

Post automatically merged: Apr 11, 2020

May I ask if you know of or have managed to arrange for anyone with a partly flown OWA who was able to get fees & taxes or portion of points back if they will be unable to recommence the OWA in the coming few months.

 

[Lomandriel]

So up until 1 hr before flying off we finally got ahold of someone on the phone to work out what to do with our last flight home on Qatar....

At the early hours of sunday AM we were told they needed to calculate our flight refund and get manager approval as I believe to calculat ethe value of the forgone points/opportunity cost of losing the qatar flight (we didnt want to settle for just getting taxes and fees back as this made up a large value of the round the world fixed points paid).

Fast forward to sunday evening and no call back or mention of the compensation. So all throuhg Monday AM I kept trying to ring until 9pm our time i finally got someone on. Who promptly cancelled our flight, and said they would 'calculate' the refund within 14 business days. We didn't cancel online as we didn't want to just get a 'refund' of taxes but wanted the person to actually work out similar compensation as we aren't happy with the coughpy service. Frankly having to outlay for our own emirates flights when even if it is against their system policy that they couldn't downgrade our emirates flight to economy, is silly. In these times surely they could have cancelle dthe flight, recognised the 'value of the business flight and just put us on the same qatar flight in economy back then. Or at least another airline. The fact we go tneither and we paid $3k for our own domestic on emirtes - i sure want some sort of points or compensation back IN ADDITION to the taxes and surcharges we should be normally refunded.

Anyway that was 23rd march and i still haven't got any taxes and fees back, let alone points or compensation for the general loss of the flight. I am not sure how others are going - i presume all around no one is getting refunds and things processed? All one big mess...

that call back from Sunday still never happened. and i doubt anyone is even calculating our compensation. No doubt come May or June I will be following up "2 months ago" and arguing for our compensation.

When we changed our flight sin Feb the tax and fees came back straight away, so clearly they arne't coping. Surely with so many out of jobs they could hire more processing/call centre staff to just do basic tasks..... all about the $....