QF Waitlist (domestic)

[reductionist]

My g/f is due back in town tomorrow. Her company sent her flight details through today.

Her booking actually has 2 flights listed in it, and both of them are CBR-MEL (a bit over an hour apart).

The earlier flight home currently has a status of "Waitlisted".

The later flight is "Confirmed".

Both are in the Y fare bucket.

Her current strategy is to just go to the airport prior to the waitlisted flight. But, I was wondering if QF usually phones you if you have a seat? Alternatively do they try sending an email or at least update the booking? I've never been waitlisted before so I have NFI what advice to give her.

Expert flyer shows zeros next to every fare bucket on both flights. Her status is only PS so I don't have high hopes of her making the earlier one.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

My g/f is due back in town tomorrow. Her company sent her flight details through today.

Her booking actually has 2 flights listed in it, and both of them are CBR-MEL (a bit over an hour apart).

The earlier flight home currently has a status of "Waitlisted".

The later flight is "Confirmed".

Both are in the Y fare bucket.

Her current strategy is to just go to the airport prior to the waitlisted flight. But, I was wondering if QF usually phones you if you have a seat? Alternatively do they try sending an email or at least update the booking? I've never been waitlisted before so I have NFI what advice to give her.

Expert flyer shows zeros next to every fare bucket on both flights. Her status is only PS so I don't have high hopes of her making the earlier one.

For waitlist clearance if a seat becomes available due to a cancellation the waitlist will clear so the status doesn't really play a part like it does with waitlisting for points upgrades etc.

The more people involved in the making of the booking, the less likely she is to get notification of the waitlist clearing ie if her company books via a travel agent & waitlist clears late at night it'll get queued back to the travel agent who probably won't look at their queues until the morning so by the time they get around to calling the company so they can call the employee (ie passenger) the flight has long gone.

Even if the company makes the booking direct on the airline website any email notification most likely will go to the email address the company supplied at the time of booking which is often not the email for the pax. I guess her best best would be to look at the pnr online via the QF website MMB (manage my booking) to view the latest update but definitely getting to the airport say 45 mins prior to departure of the waitlisted flight is a good idea in case the waitlisted flight has cleared.

If she has no checked luggage it's possible they would left her be a commercial standby passenger so if there are no shows when they closed the flight at T-15mins she would then get that seat.

 

[reductionist]

Thanks OBB. This is good to know.

 

[reductionist]

J0 C0 D0 I0 Y8 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 G0 E0

The earlier flight is now showing 8 seats available in Y (expert flyer), yet the manage booking page at qantas.com shows her still as waitlisted.

Weird, since her fare is in the Y bucket.

I sent her a message suggesting she call them and see what's up if she wants the earlier flight.

 

[serfty]

For waitlist clearance if a seat becomes available due to a cancellation the waitlist will clear so the status doesn't really play a part like it does with waitlisting for points upgrades etc.
...

Why does Status not play a part in waitlisting? It's a promoted bennie ...

Frequent Flyer - About the Program - Silver Benefits

Priority Waitlist/Airport Standby

You'll receive priority if you're waitlisted for a flight.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Why does Status not play a part in waitlisting? It's a promoted bennie ...

Frequent Flyer - About the Program - Silver Benefits

I had an afterthough after my post as at the time I was thinking in terms of the case where OP's g/f was the only one on the waitlist, being a QP member wouldn't help the waitlist clear as there would have to be a cancellation somewhere for a seat to become available.

However certainly if there was more than one person on the waitlist, status would come into it so a QP (silver) member would get a higher priority than a pax with nil status. You just don't hear much about people waitlisting domestic flights anymore.

What sometimes happens is when other pax cancel the seats go back into inventory rather than clear waitlists - not sure whether this is just a system glitch or not or by design as it would depend on the airline involved.

A remember once a colleauge was waitlisted on a CX flight & the TA asked CX how many were on the waitlist & the answer was 500! The funny thing is that the waitlist did clear as the airline felt there was more chance of him travelling on the flight rather than someone who
waitlisted a few months ago.

A lot of airlines would close the waitlist way before that pax pax were waitlisted on any flight.

I would still set up a flight alert on Expert Flyer in case seats are released back into inventory for sale which may have happened by the sounds of it.

 

[serfty]

I guess overall, not many Oz domestic travelers are on fares where waitlisting is possible these day.

However, it's fascinating to watch all the standbys/wait-listed PAX at the gates travelling out of CBR on a Thursday night after Parliament has been sitting ...

 

[Ewing]

I didn't even realise you could waitlist these days for domestic in Australia.

Not sure if I'd want to either. I'd personally rather wait for the next flight than get 29E on a 737 :mrgreen:

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I didn't even realise you could waitlist these days for domestic in Australia.

Not sure if I'd want to either. I'd personally rather wait for the next flight than get 29E on a 737 :mrgreen:

You can waitlist certain whY fare buckets via reservations. Then there's commercial standby at the airport if you're on a flexible fare which is not really a waitlist but means you have a chance of getting on the flight in the event of noshows & before subload staff would get on.

 

[reductionist]

The earlier flight is now showing 8 seats available in Y (expert flyer), yet the manage booking page at qantas.com shows her still as waitlisted.

Weird, since her fare is in the Y bucket.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I could get onto her until she'd already arrived at the airport. I don't know what the deal was with the extra 8 seats but she didn't manage to get one. Had to wait for the next flight.