QF Agents Can’t see availability in any fare bucket, N available

[Captain Halliday]

Would someone kindly check my work and confirm I’m not going mad.

01OCT ZQNxMEL-BNE booked in X class.

Was booked MEL-BNE at 1920hrs <cancelled> and rebooked on QF636 at 2020hrs.

However, as we arrive from ZQN at 1500, I’ve requested a change to an earlier MEL-BNE.

I’ve had multiple agents tell me there’s no seats on earlier flights. I told them there’s plenty in revenue fare buckets and they claim they can’t see availability in any fare bucket and the flights are totally booked.

This is what I get on EF. Looks like plenty to me. What am I missing?

 

[JohnM]

Would someone kindly check my work and confirm I’m not going mad.

01OCT ZQNxMEL-BNE booked in X class.

Was booked MEL-BNE at 1920hrs <cancelled> and rebooked on QF636 at 2020hrs.

However, as we arrive from ZQN at 1500, I’ve requested a change to an earlier MEL-BNE.

I’ve had multiple agents tell me there’s no seats on earlier flights. I told them there’s plenty in revenue fare buckets and they claim they can’t see availability in any fare bucket and the flights are totally booked.

This is what I get on EF. Looks like plenty to me. What am I missing?

View attachment 284053

Strange.

This is what I see in EF with point-of-sale set to USA so as to pick up U bucket:

 

[Captain Halliday]

Strange.

This is what I see in EF with point-of-sale set to USA so as to pick up U bucket:

View attachment 284054

Thanks. Very odd. I’ll keep with the painful HUACA.

 

[serfty]

I’ve had multiple agents tell me there’s no seats on earlier flights. I told them there’s plenty in revenue fare buckets and they claim they can’t see availability in any fare bucket and the flights are totally booked.

See here:

Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

My understanding (from unofficial sources) is that there is a pool of priority phone numbers that airport staff give to passengers which rotates every few weeks. I will attempt to publish the currently active number(s) in this post: 1300 304 318 1300 659 161 1300 025 396 1300 659 116 1300 024...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

It seems many agents DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE AWARD bookings and will lie to avoid doing so.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Pleased to say this was resolved on call number 5 where I encountered an agent who seemed to know what he was doing.

But Murphy’s Law… within one hour of the change being made and ticketed, QF canceled that flight too.

And so the cycle begins again…

 

[oz_mark]

When you have connecting flights, there is much trickery in the sentence "When you retrieve a PNR you will see differences between general availabilty and PNR availability"

 

[Quickstatus]

many agents DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE AWARD

Pleased to say this was resolved on call number 5 where I encountered an agent who seemed to know what he was doing.

Or maybe this activity requires training that they have not /did not get, and so have been stopped from offering it at certain call centres. That then assumes that it is possible to get it changed but that it would require HUACA and lucky connection to a trained person at the Hobart CC??

 

[jpp42]

It's so anti-customer however to just lie about it - shouldn't they be saying something like, "sorry but I haven't received training for this particular type of booking" and transfer you to someone who can? I've certainly had that kind of thing happen with other airlines. The Qantas approach to this is appalling.

 

[Quickstatus]

shouldn't they be saying something like

Like all call centre agents, they are always restricted in what they can say. Note these are not QF employees, they are labour hires. What they can or cannot say/do is determined by their employment with the Call Centre employer and by extension QF

I also wonder if the QF and the CC company have a contract defining what the agents can/cannot do? So the functionality could be determined not only by level of training but also by contract. This protects the airline in mitigating agent error, but in other ways have exposed the airline in the ways we have seen.

 

[jpp42]

Like all call centre agents, they are always restricted in what they can say. Note these are not QF employees, they are labour hires. What they can or cannot say/do is determined by their employment with the Call Centre employer and by extension QF

Perhaps I wasn't clear, when I commented on what I felt they should be saying, I'm referring to the instructions from Qantas. I totally understand why the individual agent is beholden to their employer and the instructions Qantas. It's entirely a criticism of Qantas, not the agents in particular (although some of them in Cape Town could be nicer about it).

 

[Quickstatus]

I'm referring to the instructions from Qantas

Yes I understood. The evidence will be found in the restrictions placed by the CC employer and QF