Qantas (or Jetstar) cancels holiday booked on classic rewards points

[jaztech99]

Just wanted to share my experience with others. For the past decade I've been promising my daughter a trip to Thailand. Never been able to afford it during school hols when we could go. About a month ago, however, I swooped on some classic rewards points flights from Adl to BKK on JQ, for myself, wife and daughter. Flights were ticketed, confirmation email received.

Yesterday, I received an email from Qantas saying there'd been a change to the booking. Long story short, our entire booking had been cancelled. 6hrs of phone calls, 6 to Qantas, 2 to Jetstar, was unhelpful with Qantas saying nothing to do with them, Jetstar cancelled the tickets, Jetstar saying nothing to do with them, Qantas cancelled the tickets. Call centre staff were a joke for both Q and JS.

Obviously, time had gone on and there are now no classic rewards flights available. I get a points and $ refund but that doesn't assuage my heartbroken daughter. And I still have no idea who cancelled our tickets. I assume someone, somewhere, thought it was better to just still the tickets to someone else (currently costing a highly inflated about 12K). The same flights are still available on Jetstars website.

Not sure what the point of classic rewards flights are now. Not sure what the point of tickets are. Someone can just cancel them for an unknown reason and you can't do cough about it. Thanks Qantas and Jetstar.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Sadly been other reports like this. Were there any schedule changes?
Can lodge a dispute with Airline Customer Advocate (ACA) But do not expect a positive result.
And try the SA Consumer affairs (or what ever called in SA).

 

[jaztech99]

Sadly been other reports like this. Were there any schedule changes?
Can lodge a dispute with Airline Customer Advocate (ACA) But do not expect a positive result.
And try the SA Consumer affairs (or what ever called in SA).

Thanks, Mwenenzi. ACA requires a response from the Airlines to a lodged complaint. Last complaint I lodged 8 months ago with Qantas still hasn't been responded to. So, I hold no hope there. Even less hope if they just continue to say it was Jetstars fault (after waiting several months for a response). I'll see if consumer affairs is an option.

 

[jaztech99]

Thanks, Mwenenzi. ACA requires a response from the Airlines to a lodged complaint. Last complaint I lodged 8 months ago with Qantas still hasn't been responded to. So, I hold no hope there. Even less hope if they just continue to say it was Jetstars fault (after waiting several months for a response). I'll see if consumer affairs is an option.

Oh, day after ticketing, departure time on 1 flight (Adl-Mel) was changed by 5 mins. Same flight number though. Email received was that I didn't have to take any action.

 

[encryptededdy]

Oh, day after ticketing, departure time on 1 flight (Adl-Mel) was changed by 5 mins. Same flight number though. Email received was that I didn't have to take any action.

Ah jeez, this sounds all too familiar . Did you receive a new e-ticket after this change?

I don't know if this is a case of Qantas not re-ticketing on time (beacuse I think sometimes a small date change doesn't require reticketing). I also am unsure if JQ is one to cancel flights if not ticketed on time.

 

[RooFlyer]

As a last resort, if its not too late e-mail [email protected] She's the 'Chief Customer Officer' for Qantas and some here have reported 'miraculous' results. Although a JQ booking, it appears that Qantas communicated the change, so there must be some linkage there.

Make the e-mail factual, unemotional and state the circumstances clearly, including Qantas' involvement. Say what you want (ie a replacement Award seat released). If you have received refunds, obviously say you'll re-instate the payments.

 

[jaztech99]

Ah jeez, this sounds all too familiar . Did you receive a new e-ticket after this change?

I don't know if this is a case of Qantas not re-ticketing on time (beacuse I think sometimes a small date change doesn't require reticketing). I also am unsure if JQ is one to cancel flights if not ticketed on time.

No, no new ticket received afterwards. I wasn't aware I was supposed to get one though as flights were identical. You suggesting I lost all my tickets because of a 5 min schedule change in the 1st outbound leg that Qantas then stuffed up by not reticketing? Good God!

Post automatically merged: Aug 24, 2022

As a last resort, if its not too late e-mail [email protected] She's the 'Chief Customer Officer' for Qantas and some here have reported 'miraculous' results. Although a JQ booking, it appears that Qantas communicated the change, so there must be some linkage there.

Make the e-mail factual, unemotional and state the circumstances clearly, including Qantas' involvement. Say what you want (ie a replacement Award seat released). If you have received refunds, obviously say you'll re-instate the payments.

Thanks, RooFlyer. Will do.

 

[encryptededdy]

No, no new ticket received afterwards. I wasn't aware I was supposed to get one though as flights were identical. You suggesting I lost all my tickets because of a 5 min schedule change in the 1st outbound leg that Qantas then stuffed up by not reticketing? Good God!

Yeah. It usually happens with some carriers (Qatar, Malaysian) on this forum where a user will book a Award flight with them through Qantas, then a flight is changed, but Qantas doesn't issue a new ticket before the ticketing deadline set by the carrier, triggering all the flights on that carrier on the ticket to be cancelled.

Not all carriers do this, and I'm unsure if Jetstar is one of them, but I think it's quite likely that's how you lost your seats.

 

[Anna]

Or maybe the ADL MEL schedule change meant that the 90 minute MCT in MEL would no longer be met?

 

[jaztech99]

Or maybe the ADL MEL schedule change meant that the 90 minute MCT in MEL would no longer be met?

No, 3hr 40m transit in Melb, Anna.

 

[jaztech99]

No, no new ticket received afterwards. I wasn't aware I was supposed to get one though as flights were identical. You suggesting I lost all my tickets because of a 5 min schedule change in the 1st outbound leg that Qantas then stuffed up by not reticketing? Good God!

Post automatically merged: Aug 24, 2022

Thanks, RooFlyer. Will do.

I've now contacted Stepanie. Thankyou for the advice. I hold little to no hope of anything coming from this, however. We're all very upset by this.

 

[Kerrodt]

Has anyone ever taken a case like this to the state based consumer affairs bodies? This behaviour seems completely reprehensible and would hardly stand any test of fairness.

I’ve had flight departure times changed in the past with no need for re-ticketing as the flight numbers remained unchanged - for that now to be the reason/excuse seems entirely illogical.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Has anyone ever taken a case like this to the state based consumer affairs bodies? This behaviour seems completely reprehensible and would hardly stand any test of fairness.

I’ve had flight departure times changed in the past with no need for re-ticketing as the flight numbers remained unchanged - for that now to be the reason/excuse seems entirely illogical.

Yeah… dunno what happened here. It seems unlikely the time change would have caused the cancellation. Something else must have scrapped up. But that should be able to be worked out by looking at the booking.

This again highlights the problem in the airline industry of the ‘agent’ system. Qantas is agent for jetstar, but refuses to help. And jetstar won’t talk to the passenger because qantas is the agent.

And this issue isn’t unique to qantas or jetstar, almost all airlines work on the same principle.

Time we got rid of this silly practice in 2022.

 

[encryptededdy]

Something else must have scrapped up. But that should be able to be worked out by looking at the booking.

I wonder if it's some sort of mess up in the integration between Navitaire and the GDS. After all, the integration has always been a bit janky - for instance, booking Qantas Award JQ flights doesn't add baggage to the booking "properly", it just adds a remark to the booking for your baggage allowance, and even then that doesn't come through automatically with the booking, you need to wait a bit for what seems like a scheduled job to run and put it in

 

[JohnK]

Time we got rid of this silly practice in 2022.

This happens so often that it's scary to be holding any type of award on Qantas.

Qantas or any other airline need to be entirely open regarding the reason this occurred even if it is an employees fault.

 

[Happy Dude]

How can QF say it's not their problem when they called you?

 

[ricco]

Again, appalling treatment by both airlines. As you've discovered, the ACA is a waste of time. It's a shonk. Can I suggest you email Stepahnie again and say you are taking this to consumer affaires. To give you an idea of just what a clownshow Qantas management is these days, for some reason and despite my often derogatory feedback about how Qantas is being run, I am one of those that the Qantas survey subsidiary - Red Planet - surveys on a regular basis. The latest I completed last night was how would I respond to Q points being used to by tickets to the NRL grand final, buy Qantas curated art( What the hell is that?), or buy back stage access to international performing artists.... yes, that's how silly it's getting there. Instead of concentrating on restoring value to Q points for flights, they are looking at getting rid of any many points as they can through other means. These points are a liability on the Qantas books. Not good if you want to spin off QFF.
All I can say is don't give up. Keep at them until you get what you want.

 

[jaztech99]

Again, appalling treatment by both airlines. As you've discovered, the ACA is a waste of time. It's a shonk. Can I suggest you email Stepahnie again and say you are taking this to consumer affaires. To give you an idea of just what a clownshow Qantas management is these days, for some reason and despite my often derogatory feedback about how Qantas is being run, I am one of those that the Qantas survey subsidiary - Red Planet - surveys on a regular basis. The latest I completed last night was how would I respond to Q points being used to by tickets to the NRL grand final, buy Qantas curated art( What the hell is that?), or buy back stage access to international performing artists.... yes, that's how silly it's getting there. Instead of concentrating on restoring value to Q points for flights, they are looking at getting rid of any many points as they can through other means. These points are a liability on the Qantas books. Not good if you want to spin off QFF.
All I can say is don't give up. Keep at them until you get what you want.

Thanks, Ricco. I've sent another email to Stephanie this morning after being riled by an email from Qantas Customer Care stating: "In the event of a significant time change we will always offer to re-book you to the next available flight (or combination of flights) at no additional cost, or we can arrange a refund of your fare, if you no longer wish to travel." At no point was I ever offered by any of the half dozen people I spoke to the option of re-booking on to another available flight. Even worse was that the original email to me from Qantas just stated that it was my Adl-MEL flight that had been cancelled. That would have been an easy matter to work around if that was all there was. Instead, we had the whole booking just cancelled on us.

 

[Anna]

If a full refund was given, consumer affairs bodies are highly unlikely to do anything.

 

[jaztech99]

Just a follow-up, nothing heard from Stephanie from Qantas since submitting my first email 2 days ago.