Qantas staff cancelled my flight and rebooked it to a new country!

[Milboo]

The bit I don’t understand is the outrage that they would turn up at the airport to the surprise.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t check their documentation - on receipt, in the intervening period and in the lead up to the flights!

Just out of interest - doesn’t QF website allow multi city bookings?

 

[Forg]

The bit I don’t understand is the outrage that they would turn up at the airport to the surprise.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t check their documentation - on receipt, in the intervening period and in the lead up to the flights!

While I agree that I'd check, and they obviously did too, I think their point is still valid.
It should be possible to book something, and have the booking retained unless YOU change it. Or at least be asked, and with the answer confirmed so you know what's going-on.

As an Optus customer, I can fully understand how something as described might happen with no fault on the customer's part ...

Just out of interest - doesn’t QF website allow multi city bookings?

It does, but I think this was two one-way airfares? Which of course it also allows.
What I'm wondering is whether a return is cheaper than two one-ways these days? Domestic is now all one-way fares & it makes no difference ... but I'm sure international flights are still often cheaper "return" than "2x one-way"?

 

[Lynda2475]

As they are leaving from and eventually returning to Sydney, it should always be cheaper to book as a multi-city return, than two one ways. Easy to do SYD-HKG + TPE-SYD on one PNR multi city booking.

Ive done quite a few open jaw multi-city/country bookings with various airlines, and they are treated as a return. The last one I did was with AA DFW-SJO + BOG-DFW (a lot cheaper than buying the flights separately, and AA didnt care about or have any visiblity of how I was getting from Costa Rica to Colombia).

 

[Forg]

As they are leaving from and eventually returning to Sydney, it should always be cheaper to book as a multi-city return, than two one ways. Easy to do SYD-HKG + TPE-SYD on one PNR multi city booking.

Ive done quite a few open jaw multi-city/country bookings with various airlines, and they are treated as a return. The last one I did was with AA DFW-SJO + BOG-DFW (a lot cheaper than buying the flights separately, and AA didnt care about or have any visiblity of how I was getting from Costa Rica to Colombia).

I haven't tried to use the Qantas multi-city option on booking for years ... you just prompted me to check, and yeah, it's a lot nicer than it used to be & that fare (Sydney to Heathrow, then Paris to Sydney) looks like a "return" price to me.
I must admit, I couldn't tell you when last I looked!
I guess it's possible you might not trust that it wasn't two single fares (but getting prices on one-way fares would tell you).

 

[Lynda2475]

I've used the Qantas multi-city a lot in the past 5 years or so and its always been cheaper than booking one ways, especially so where Qantas metal flies the route. You then just pick up LCC fares, rail, cruise, tour etc to fill in the gaps.

 

[chenny613]

Sorry I should of clarified the return flight is not direct as we are using frequent flight points and flying with Cathy Pacific. Also we tried to book our flights online like how we did peviously but for some reason “maybe due to we are only bronze status” we couldn’t see all the available award seats? Anyways when I called the lady was able to see the classic award seats for the date we wanted. Hence we had to book using the call Center. And I knew I have to be extra careful in case they make mistakes. So I literally wrote down the amount/points needed to be charged triple confirmed we only wanted one way flights, NOT return.

I even had my husband sitting next to me listerning to ensure everything is correct.

The return flight is from Taipei Taiwan to Sydney but the trip is broken up to Taipei to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Sydney.

Also the reason of my ourage was they changed my flight time which means I will be missing my connecting outbound flight. We have a connecting flight from Hong Kong to China as well. Not only the outbound flight was changed to a different country but the flight time also changed, meaning we will defiantly miss our connecting flight. And there is only one available connecting flight for our schedule on that day.

And I was upset Because when I called back at 11:30pm she said oh it looks like no more award seats are available on our original flight from Sydney to Hong Kong ?! So again if I checked later maybe a months later they probably wouldn’t have any award seats left? I am not sure how it works but I am just angry I already wait 1.5hr to book and they made this mistake. Then tell me I couldn’t have my original booking back.

Then the following days another 7 calls they finally admitted their mistake and gave our original booking back and offered the valet parking (which they are now not honouring). We were also surprised they already deposited 2000 pts to our account and closed the complaint case. We only found out this information when we called up to see where was our valet parking.

I even said to the operator does your notes state the customer was ever informed the valet parking was not honoured and 2000pts was offered? And she said no, we don’t have a record you were called..... anyways I give up as I don’t wish to keep calling them, put on hold and no solutions. I will just say qantas really provided horrible customer experience for me and my family.

While I agree that I'd check, and they obviously did too, I think their point is still valid.
It should be possible to book something, and have the booking retained unless YOU change it. Or at least be asked, and with the answer confirmed so you know what's going-on.

As an Optus customer, I can fully understand how something as described might happen with no fault on the customer's part ...


It does, but I think this was two one-way airfares? Which of course it also allows.
What I'm wondering is whether a return is cheaper than two one-ways these days? Domestic is now all one-way fares & it makes no difference ... but I'm sure international flights are still often cheaper "return" than "2x one-way"?

 

[jetpack]

I hope they at least charged you the correct number of points. SYD-HKG is 35,000 points but SYD-HKG-TPE is 42,000.

 

[Quickstatus]

So in the end the original booking was retained and nothing lost except some time?

 

[juddles]

...... And there is only one available connecting flight for our schedule on that day.....

Dear chenny613, what time of year is your booking for?

 

[mad_atta]

Original poster, I also had major issues with booking CX flights ex-TPE via HKG to SYD. I replied to your thread but the mods have moved it to here, if you're curious:
Qantas Ticketing Failure - Award booking cancelled

 

[serfty]

Original poster, I also had major issues with booking CX flights ex-TPE via HKG to SYD. I replied to your thread but the mods have moved it to here, if you're curious:
Qantas Ticketing Failure - Award booking cancelled

While we did move your posts, other than TPE and QF there was little connection with the topic of this thread.