Qantas ruined our rewards booking 2 weeks before flying

[DrGear]

I am in tears right now. We booked last year flights to Japan via Taipei with points and got rewards flights on China Airlines in J. The partner needed to fly home earlier for work stuff. I had extra points and managed to score a rewards flight back a week early for her on Qantas.

I called up the bookings line on the 26/1 and heard horror stories about their incompetence so I was extremely clear in what we wanted. I said that we needed just the return leg of her flight cancelled, not for any other flights to be cancelled. I was at pains to repeat that several times. Got the operator to repeat it back to me.

She had to separate her flights onto a separate booking. She confirmed we’d get back 106k points for the cancelled leg. Got the flight booking reference for my partner. Checked the details online and the flights didn’t show up on my account. Entered the number in the bookings field, nothing. Called up QFF on 2/2 and checked on the status of the refund. THey said it was sent for processing and refunds take 2 weeks. I confirmed with them again that her flights were fine. They said they were still there and confirmed the details.

Called up today as I still hadn’t received the booking details or the points. Spoke with someone who kept putting me on hold. Couldn’t confirm anything. Then I got booted back to the main menu. Mind you, been on the phone for an hour. Another half hour later I get through to someone. I give them the details and they say there’s no flights there. I am panicking now and this person was completely useless. They say that China Airlines cancelled the flights. I ask them when and they said on the 26/1. I asked why, they weren’t supposed to cancel any of them except the one leg. They said that it was cancelled by China Airlines. I am barely holding it together at this point. I confirmed so many times that the flights were fine. They told me that the points were being processed and that I’d get the refund. If the flights were cancelled on the 26/1, why have I not received an email or update from Qantas and why did I not get my points back?

So I ask where my points are and they say it’s still with the booking. But the flights are cancelled? They’ve asked for a reinstatement of the flights but now I’m stuck with 2 weeks to go until we fly with no flights and no points to book the flights.

We’ve been waiting 5 years to finally take a holiday and for Qantas to mess this up so badly before we go has shaken me up so much.

The inability of the call center staff to put me onto anyone else or transfer me and give me so many conflicting messages is infuriating. I confirmed at least a dozen times over two calls that everything was fine and now I’m panicking because we can’t cancel any of our bookings as they’re past the refund window and we don’t have the spare money to just book new things.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I’m absolutely livid at these guys.

 

[RichardMEL]

Enail thus team with the situation

[email protected]

 

[DrGear]

So my partner just called them up and now we’ve been given ANOTHER story. Apparently they split the ticket off and proceeded to cancel the ENTIRE itinerary despite my clarifying with them several times that the cancellation should only be for the single leg of the journey.

I am about to lose my mind. How is this company so inept?!

 

[DrGear]

Enail thus team with the situation

[email protected]

Thanks, will do. I hold no great hopes for them rectifying this so I’m bracing myself to lose either thousands of dollars booking an extra flight, or cancelling the entire trip and losing so much money and points.

 

[ChrisMars]

Yet another horror story. Sorry you got unlucky.

Did you by any chance plan to land in Tokyo? Asking because as Qantas fly it's own aircraft there, they may be able to fix their stuff up more easily by putting you on their own service (still in J), which is easier than getting China Airlines award J flight reinstated.
Anyway, you need to talk to someone that agrees there was a stuff up, then they may be able to fix it. Will take some time, probably multiple call. The email shared above has done some good work in the past for other AFF members, if you can identify a Qantas flight you are happy with, you may propose this as a solution in your email.

 

[tdimdad]

Ouch, this is such a mightily disappointing bind to be in! No wonder if your frustration with QF is through the roof.

RichardMEL's advice to email the rewards ticketing team is the best way to solve this. They are usually effective in getting things moving again. when emailing them, try to be as precise in your description: initial bookings, change requested, what do you have now, and what's your desired end result (including which exact flights you want, plus an alternate or two)

Overall, this probably comes down to a QF system issue rather than the competence of agents. QF's ticketing system is notorious for lags and this causes partner airlines cancel reward seat bookings. The pending bookings are usually cleared out within a few days if QF does not confirm it to the partner airline (this is the bottleneck they have an causes many unintended cancellations).

Be prepared to end up on different flights than you initially booked. E.g. my last change was triggered MH cancelling a flight and the rewards team got me onto respective CI flights (i.e. they redid the whole itinerary). This is why it's good to have a few options in mind when you email the team.

Good luck and happy travels when you get there!

 

[elanshin]

So my partner just called them up and now we’ve been given ANOTHER story. Apparently they split the ticket off and proceeded to cancel the ENTIRE itinerary despite my clarifying with them several times that the cancellation should only be for the single leg of the journey.

I am about to lose my mind. How is this company so inept?!

As difficult as it is, the first thing to do is to calm down.
There's usually no good outcomes when you're highly emotionally charged in trying to problem solve a tough situation.

As for your specific problem. As @RichardMEL mentioned, email the escalation team with all the details.

With regards to call centres, Qantas overseas call centres often don't have full visibility on what has happened either unless they put you on hold for ages and investigate and thus they sometimes give you the incorrect answer just to palm you off.

It doesn't help your current situation, but if you want to try to call continuously to try and fix it via call centre as well that is an option. Just be prepared for lots of reexplaining. I would suggest that if you do go this route as well to calm down first. You won't get very far with call centres if they feel like you're being emotional and aggressive, even though Qantas as a whole is at fault.

The likely situation is that whilst they had the intention to do things correctly as per your instructions (or not), the reticketing may not have happened immediately which prompted the partner airline (CI) to cancel the ticket.

 

[DrGear]

Yet another horror story. Sorry you got unlucky.

Did you by any chance plan to land in Tokyo? Asking because as Qantas fly it's own aircraft there, they may be able to fix their stuff up more easily by putting you on their own service (still in J), which is easier than getting China Airlines award J flight reinstated.
Anyway, you need to talk to someone that agrees there was a stuff up, then they may be able to fix it. Will take some time, probably multiple call. The email shared above has done some good work in the past for other AFF members, if you can identify a Qantas flight you are happy with, you may propose this as a solution in your email.

Yeah the call center staff we’ve spoken to have each given up different stories and it’s stressing me out. My partner called up tonight and now the story is that the call center staff cancelled it, then it was China Airlines that canned it, then they said that they’ve been able to get her on the flight but not her original class seat but that may change and we have to call them in a week. The call center staff are a combination of powerless and useless and it’s infuriating.

Ouch, this is such a mightily disappointing bind to be in! No wonder if your frustration with QF is through the roof.

RichardMEL's advice to email the rewards ticketing team is the best way to solve this. They are usually effective in getting things moving again. when emailing them, try to be as precise in your description: initial bookings, change requested, what do you have now, and what's your desired end result (including which exact flights you want, plus an alternate or two)

Overall, this probably comes down to a QF system issue rather than the competence of agents. QF's ticketing system is notorious for lags and this causes partner airlines cancel reward seat bookings. The pending bookings are usually cleared out within a few days if QF does not confirm it to the partner airline (this is the bottleneck they have an causes many unintended cancellations).

Be prepared to end up on different flights than you initially booked. E.g. my last change was triggered MH cancelling a flight and the rewards team got me onto respective CI flights (i.e. they redid the whole itinerary). This is why it's good to have a few options in mind when you email the team.

Good luck and happy travels when you get there!

Thanks, I don’t mind if the itinerary changes. I don’t even care if we don’t do Taipei as it’s only a few days. It’s more so ensuring we can get to Tokyo by the 22/3 for our bookings as we’ve got a lot booked in that I had to book almost a year ago.

As difficult as it is, the first thing to do is to calm down.
There's usually no good outcomes when you're highly emotionally charged in trying to problem solve a tough situation.

As for your specific problem. As @RichardMEL mentioned, email the escalation team with all the details.

With regards to call centres, Qantas overseas call centres often don't have full visibility on what has happened either unless they put you on hold for ages and investigate and thus they sometimes give you the incorrect answer just to palm you off.

It doesn't help your current situation, but if you want to try to call continuously to try and fix it via call centre as well that is an option. Just be prepared for lots of reexplaining. I would suggest that if you do go this route as well to calm down first. You won't get very far with call centres if they feel like you're being emotional and aggressive, even though Qantas as a whole is at fault.

The likely situation is that whilst they had the intention to do things correctly as per your instructions (or not), the reticketing may not have happened immediately which prompted the partner airline (CI) to cancel the ticket.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I would never get aggressive with customer service staff. I’ve worked in the industry before and even in my greatest frustration I won’t take it out on them. My frustration may come out in my tone but I’m still clear headed and trying to get a resolution. It’s after the call that I have a break down and cry. The worst part is that I called up twice SPECIFICALLY to confirm that everything was still booked because I had heard of horror stories about Qantas messing up people’s bookings. So to be told on two separate calls that everything is ok is what just adds to the dread.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Contact the special team via the email provided above.

Perhaps the good news here is that qantas flies the route, so at a minimum, they should be able to recreate the whole booking for you on qantas flights, creating award inventory for you if necessary to complete the trip.

If flying qantas instead on china airlines is ok, i would suggest that as an option when you contact the special email team. Make sure you’d need that for both you and partner.

 

[I love to travel]

Yeah the call center staff we’ve spoken to have each given up different stories and it’s stressing me out. My partner called up tonight and now the story is that the call center staff cancelled it, then it was China Airlines that canned it, then they said that they’ve been able to get her on the flight but not her original class seat but that may change and we have to call them in a week. The call center staff are a combination of powerless and useless and it’s infuriating.

Thanks, I don’t mind if the itinerary changes. I don’t even care if we don’t do Taipei as it’s only a few days. It’s more so ensuring we can get to Tokyo by the 22/3 for our bookings as we’ve got a lot booked in that I had to book almost a year ago.


Oh don’t get me wrong, I would never get aggressive with customer service staff. I’ve worked in the industry before and even in my greatest frustration I won’t take it out on them. My frustration may come out in my tone but I’m still clear headed and trying to get a resolution. It’s after the call that I have a break down and cry. The worst part is that I called up twice SPECIFICALLY to confirm that everything was still booked because I had heard of horror stories about Qantas messing up people’s bookings. So to be told on two separate calls that everything is ok is what just adds to the dread.

Ignore the call in a week comment keep going. Maybe ring at 7am tomorrow morning, more likely to get NZ staff

 

[DrGear]

Contact the special team via the email provided above.

Perhaps the good news here is that qantas flies the route, so at a minimum, they should be able to recreate the whole booking for you on qantas flights, creating award inventory for you if necessary to complete the trip.

If flying qantas instead on china airlines is ok, i would suggest that as an option when you contact the special email team. Make sure you’d need that for both you and partner.

Certainly gonna try but given the people I’ve spoken to thus far have been completely useless and helpless at the same time, I’m just hoping the email I sent can resolve things somewhat. There’s 600K points tied up in this right now and that’s not including the 103K points for the flight that was meant to be refunded.

 

[RichardMEL]

I agree to ignore the rubbish to call in a week - that is them trying to push the problem down the track. Fingers crossed the rewards ticketing escalation team can sort this out reasonably quickly for you both.

When are you / partner supposed to fly?

 

[DrGear]

I agree to ignore the rubbish to call in a week - that is them trying to push the problem down the track. Fingers crossed the rewards ticketing escalation team can sort this out reasonably quickly for you both.

When are you / partner supposed to fly?

Were
Supposed to depart Sydney to Taipei on the 18/3, then Taipei to Tokyo 22/3. The main concern is the leg to Tokyo as we’ve got some very expensive places booked that I can’t cancel now and things booked that had to be done almost a year in advance.

I’m gonna call them every 2 days to get this dealt with and hope the squeaky wheel
Gets the grease.

 

[RichardMEL]

Oif only 3 or so weeks. That's getting close. Fingers crossed the escalation team can figure it out for you both.

 

[serfty]

I’m gonna call them every 2 days to get this dealt with and hope the squeaky wheel
Gets the grease.

I would not call over the next few days at least. Give the award escalations group the opportunity to cough/fix your issue.

See the main thread.

Qantas Promises to Fix Ongoing Reward Flight Ticketing Failures

Over the past year or so, many Qantas Frequent Flyer members have lost their Classic Flight Reward bookings for travel on partner airlines due to Qantas' failure to get the bookings ticketed (or re-issued) on time. This is something AFF has been in regular contact with Qantas about over recent...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[RichardMEL]

I would not call, at least over the next few days. Give the award escalations group the opportunity to cough/fix your issue.

See the main thread.

I was thinking the same thing tbh. More "cooks" can spoil the broth. New agents looking at a booking that may be in process without knowledge could make it worse

 

[MelbFlyer]

Wow, sorry to hear about your booking.

Long story short - you had :
- A return booking for 2 adults from Sydney to Tokyo via Taipei in business on CI with an intentional 4 day stopover in Taipei, then,
- Called to cancel only the return leg due to change of circumstances, but,
- The entire itinerary (both adults) was inadvertently cancelled 4 weeks ago and without any refund of points and / or taxes thus far?

That's horrendous.

Hopefully the reward escalations team can rectify it for you ASAP. If not already too, try calling 13 12 11, you may have more luck if you keep calling.

 

[Daver6]

I'm sorry this has happened to you. It's so frustrating and stressful.

I'd also be lodging a formal complaint and requesting a copy of the call recording when you rang to make the change.

Finally, if you have travel insurance, I wonder of that would be any help? I'm only speculating, but I wonder if this scenario is covered at all by insurance?

 

[encryptededdy]

The other option to try is to try DMing Qantas on Twitter/X or Facebook Messenger (but you have to deal with a bot first there IIRC). Anecdotally they are much more competent than most phone agents.

 

[ChrisMars]

Finally, if you have travel insurance, I wonder of that would be any help? I'm only speculating, but I wonder if this scenario is covered at all by insurance?

Makes me want to read the exclusion section of qantas travel insurance PDS.