QR flight booked using velocity points cancelled

[Rebus]

I'm not in the position of having a QR flight cancelled but I have just noticed that I have been moved to a different service without notification.

This is a Velocity redemption booking MEL-DOH-MAN in December for 4 x pax. I booked in January on QR989 ex-MEL which is the 1610 departure. At that time VA7 was scheduled to depart at 1710 but I chose the earlier flight to allow a bit of extra time for transit as we are travelling with two kids.

Upon checking QR Manage Booking we have been switched to QR905 which now occupies the 1710 departure slot as VA7 has been moved to a 2340 departure. QR989, our original booking, is still scheduled to depart at 1610.

FWIW QR989 originates CBR and QR905 originates AKL.

Does anyone have a theory as to why we have been moved to a different QR service departing one hour later? And is it worth a call to QR to request that our original booking is honoured, given that the flight can still be booked?

 

[gibbo24]

It seems quite a few Velocity members who redeemed points for Qatar Airways flights that were subsequently cancelled have been unable to secure alternative flights.

We've covered the issue in this article:

Velocity Won't Rebook Cancelled Qatar Airways Reward Flights

Qatar Airways has understandably had to cancel many flights between Doha and Australia in recent months. Unfortunately, passengers who had booked using Velocity Points are not being offered alternative flights.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

Hi Matt,

I see I was quoted in the article. Just flagging that I did not get rebooked by Qatar, nor did I use Avios as the paragraph introducing my quote suggests. I used Velocity points.

To update any readers, I was successful in being rebooked by Virgin, on Qatar prime flights which were within policy for travelling with my firearms. Over 20 hours worth of mostly phone calls, some live chat and emails. The QR and VA hold tracks are pretty nightmare inducing at this point.

But in the end, none of that mattered as I was stonewalled by both carriers, only managing a resolution by escalating using industry connections that I have from my previous line of work. Not my style or my preference but it turned out to be the only way. I am extremely grateful for their assistance. Had I not reached out to them I'd have been forced to cancel and rebook an alternative (for upwards of $5k last minute).

I am really unlikely to ever book a QR itinerary through VA again, it's just not worth it. A real shame as I have a 7 figure Velocity balance which I seldom use.

 

[dbrt]

Received notification that I'd been moved back 24 hours on a return flight from Europe to Adelaide, due to a change in schedule next year. Was odd that I wasn't offered an option to accept the change, they just did it and issued the new ticket - without even so much as an email saying "call us to discuss if this doesn't work for you".

Ultimately this delay indeed didn't work for me (I need to be home the Tuesday, not late Wednesday afternoon) - so VA call centre it was.

4 phone calls, ~3 hours on the phone, 1 argument with a very incorrect agent, and I managed to get them to rebook me home via MEL, landing only 5 hours after I was originally meant to.

It shouldn't have been that hard, I shouldn't have had to fight that hard to have them rebook me on an available rewards seat from the same origin port to the same destination port on my original day of travel (albeit with an extra stop), and the repeated suggestion that I should be the one paying the extra points to fix their cancellation and rescheduling was ridiculous.

More generally, the capabilities and skills of the agents we're speaking to has taken a real dive recently. I used to get people in Australia who would understand what you were saying and, even if they said no, you trusted their response. Now we have overseas agents saying things like "You need to use the Qatar website to select your seats on VA1" (incorrect), "Your new flight is only 5mins later" on repeat (it was 24hrs 5mins later), and "You are responsible for paying the cancellation fees even though we cancelled your flight" (absolutely absurd) and other such nonsense. Anything that's more complicated than the most basic thing, they either don't comprehend or lack the skills and knowledge to help you. It's a shambles and VA would do well to fix it, especially for their top couple of tiers of frequent flyers.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Received notification that I'd been moved back 24 hours on a return flight from Europe to Adelaide, due to a change in schedule next year. Was odd that I wasn't offered an option to accept the change, they just did it and issued the new ticket - without even so much as an email saying "call us to discuss if this doesn't work for you".

Ultimately this delay indeed didn't work for me (I need to be home the Tuesday, not late Wednesday afternoon) - so VA call centre it was.

4 phone calls, ~3 hours on the phone, 1 argument with a very incorrect agent, and I managed to get them to rebook me home via MEL, landing only 5 hours after I was originally meant to.

It shouldn't have been that hard, I shouldn't have had to fight that hard to have them rebook me on an available rewards seat from the same origin port to the same destination port on my original day of travel (albeit with an extra stop), and the repeated suggestion that I should be the one paying the extra points to fix their cancellation and rescheduling was ridiculous.

More generally, the capabilities and skills of the agents we're speaking to has taken a real dive recently. I used to get people in Australia who would understand what you were saying and, even if they said no, you trusted their response. Now we have overseas agents saying things like "You need to use the Qatar website to select your seats on VA1" (incorrect), "Your new flight is only 5mins later" on repeat (it was 24hrs 5mins later), and "You are responsible for paying the cancellation fees even though we cancelled your flight" (absolutely absurd) and other such nonsense. Anything that's more complicated than the most basic thing, they either don't comprehend or lack the skills and knowledge to help you. It's a shambles and VA would do well to fix it, especially for their top couple of tiers of frequent flyers.

Also, as mentioned in another thread, this is protected by EU261. For flight cancellations - which this is treated as - you are entitled to re-routing, even on another carrier.

But also as mentioned, whether VA would even understand that would be 99.9% of the battle

Glad you didn’t have to go down that route given other award availability. But if there they had persisted in any charges, they would have been the path to go down

 

[dbrt]

Also, as mentioned in another thread, this is protected by EU261. For flight cancellations - which this is treated as - you are entitled to re-routing, even on another carrier.

But also as mentioned, whether VA would even understand that would be 99.9% of the battle

Glad you didn’t have to go down that route given other award availability. But if there they had persisted in any charges, they would have been the path to go down

This reminded me of another gem from that phone call - I did raise EU261, as justification for requesting to be moved onto the flight home via DOH & MEL as it saw me arrive the closest to my original arrival time at my destination port (that had Rewards J availability).

When I did, the (very incorrect) agent said the flight was cancelled due to safety reasons due to what was happening in the Middle East, and so it didn't apply.

I said that was a ridiculous suggestion, as the same flight is running the day before and after it (ie. QR have dropped frequency to less than 7 days a week) - did they have some specific reason for that one day being extra-dangerous? She ignored this and quickly moved back to telling me that they couldn't help me due to their "procedures".

This is the absolute garbage that we're dealing with when we call up. The total lack of competence and ability to comprehend and problem-solve is just mind-boggling.