Query on Qantas cancellation and refund policy

[arejayhaitch]

Hi - first post so apologies if it sounds a little negative...

My family and I recently flew Qantas premium economy from Canberra to Japan (via Sydney) for a two week holiday (economy on Australia domestic legs).

While we were in Kyoto, Qantas sent me an SMS telling me that my return domestic leg (Sydney to Canberra) had been changed and I should call a 1300 number. The 1300 number could not be called from overseas, the Qantas Tokyo office would not answer their phone, and there seemed no way to contact Qantas. I logged into the "manage my flight" facility and saw Qantas had cancelled our flight and rebooked us on another flight 4.5 hours later. This gave us a 6.5 hour wait in Sydney, which is twice the time it would take us to drive home to Canberra. Given I could not contact Qantas, I raised a customer care complaint at that time we were notified of the change.

When I arrived at Haneda airport for the return trip, JAL representatives checked with Qantas and told us there was no other options. They advised a Qantas rep would meet us in Sydney to discuss options. Of course, no-one met us in Sydney. When we arrived in Sydney (with one of our party unwell), we hired a car and drove to Canberra rather than wait 6.5 hours for our 55 minute trip to Canberra. We rang Qantas and told them we did not need the rescheduled tickets, which did not suit us, and they could be offered to other passengers. Given that this was 23 December, we thought that they might be useful. Qantas told us it was too late for us to cancel and if we had issues we needed to contact customer care.

I contacted customer care again, noting that Qantas had not provided us with acceptable alternative flights after cancelling our scheduled flight, and that they had not given us an effective way of contacting them to discuss the issue or the options. I suggested a refund of the Sydney - Canberra leg would be appropriate - there is no way I would have booked these flights with Qantas if we were facing a 6.5 hour wait in Sydney - I would have taken my car / a bus / a rental car for much the same cost and with less inconvenience.

I realise that, on the scale of the inconvenience suffered by many travellers, this level of inconvenience is relatively minor - but I am very disappointed by how Qantas handled the cancellation and how they have responded to my queries (e.g. with pro forma responses "very sorry but such is life").

Does anyone have any advice / experience on how to get a refund or credit from Qantas for this? It seems odd that airlines are not obliged to offer the option of a refund when they cancel your flight and are unable to provide a satisfactory alternative.

 

[kermatu]

Unfortunately cancellations on the CBR-SYD-CBR routes are all too common these days. Then the remaining flights get fully loaded quickly and I guess that's why yours was another 4+ hours later.

I suspect Qantas would deem another flight a few hours later to be a satisfactory alternative. It's not an outrageous amount of time for an International-Domestic transfer.

That said, customer care an always be improved. Did you go to the domestic transfer desk or other service desk on arrival in Sydney? You mentioned phoning but I would have thought the best thing was the direct face-to-face query.

 

[arejayhaitch]

For just about any other transfer, I agree an additional 4.5 hours would probably still have been an acceptable (if unpleasant) option - for Sydney to Canberra, it less acceptable - in the end we were home several hours before our revised flight was due to leave Sydney.

Unfortunately we did not head to the service desk - the terminal was packed, one of our party was sick, the promised meeting by a Qantas rep had not eventuated, and a one-way hire car was just outside the door, so we took the path of least resistance (possibly to our detriment).

 

[kermatu]

Unfortunately we did not head to the service desk - the terminal was packed, one of our party was sick, the promised meeting by a Qantas rep had not eventuated, and a one-way hire car was just outside the door, so we took the path of least resistance (possibly to our detriment).

I suspect so, unfortunately. At the transfer desk they've always been very good at looking at alternative flights and changing things around for me and others. In the time your flight from Japan took other seats may well have opened up so it woul,d have been worth a shot.

Hopefully you'll still get some satisfactory outcome, but my gut feel (and that's all it is) is not optimistic.

 

[opusman]

The 1300 number could not be called from overseas, the Qantas Tokyo office would not answer their phone, and there seemed no way to contact Qantas.

For future reference, there's a non-1300 number (+612...) shown on the back of your QFF card. And you can also call the 1300 number using Skype as another option.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Does anyone have any advice / experience on how to get a refund or credit from Qantas for this? It seems odd that airlines are not obliged to offer the option of a refund when they cancel your flight and are unable to provide a satisfactory alternative.

You enter a bit of a tricky situation here. Was this all on one ticket? If so, the remaining SYD-CBR portion of the ticket probably had little - if any - residual value. If you purchased a separate ticket to cover CBR-SYD-CBR you would probably be right to seek a full refund of the unflown sector.

I think it's worth asking QF to cover the cost of your car hire. I would submit the bill along with your original notification of a cancelled flight.

 

[arejayhaitch]

For future reference, there's a non-1300 number (+612...) shown on the back of your QFF card. And you can also call the 1300 number using Skype as another option.

Thanks for this - will try to remember in future

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF arejayhaitch. Sorry to hear of your experience.

I would pursue customer care with your complaint but I wouldn't expect much in return. Customer care appears not to care too much at the moment. Perhaps Red Roo can assist when they return from leave in New Year.