Rebooked on JQ - experiences?

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I have on occasion had Mel-Lst cancel on me. I've been switched over to Jetstar a couple of times, once to VA and once to a Qantas flight to Devonport. In the latter case, they took me home in a taxi.
My feeling is that it depends on how often it happens. The occasional failure I'll forgive and I'm grateful that they did whatever it took to get me home more or less on time. There is however the other sentiment when you're tired after a long week, comfortably ensconced in the lounge, relaxed in the knowledge that all you have to do is totter down to gate 30 and be taken home. Suddenly, you've got to retrieve luggage, convey it down to T4, check in again, go through security and then suffer a poor quality seat that you'd never have booked in the first place.
I think some compensation is in order, even if it's not cash. Points, SC's, bottle of wine; something to say "hey, we're really glad you chose to fork out the extra dollars for a comfortable experience and we're sorry it didn't work out". For me, the gesture would go a long way.
 
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ACCC don't care about individual cases, they are likely to refer you to office of fair trading or your state or territory, and / or to a specific industry ombudsman, which in this case would be the airline consumer advocate.
Thanks. I agree that if I went to the ACCC and complained about a refund they would likely send me off to the airline consumer advocate.

But if I wrote to the ACCC complaining about my opinion of breaches of Trade Practices law, well, that is there job - it is their reason for being. If they tried fobbing me off, I'd be writing to the Attorney General, info the Shadow Attorney General, asking why the government agency wasn't doing its job as required by statute.

Terms and Conditions in buying an airline ticket cannot over-write Australian Law. The situation as described in this thread I opine, is equivalent to paying for a BMW and being delivered a VW - without any refund.
Regards,
Renato
 
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But Qantas used (I am not sure if they still do) to advertise that on every Qantas Flight, you get food, luggage, entertainment etc. If QF were truly to hold their end of the deal, the OP would have received food as well.
The 2 carriers are chalk and cheese but this was a short flight. Would Qantas try to pull the same stunt with flights to SIN, BKK or HKT?
 
Thanks. I agree that if I went to the ACCC and complained about a refund they would likely send me off to the airline consumer advocate.

But if I wrote to the ACCC complaining about my opinion of breaches of Trade Practices law, well, that is there job - it is their reason for being. If they tried fobbing me off, I'd be writing to the Attorney General, info the Shadow Attorney General, asking why the government agency wasn't doing its job as required by statute.
Regards,
Renato

The ACCC's role is to enforce consumer law rather than deal with individual complaints. Whilst you can certainly bring things to their attention, they don't deal with a complaint in the same way. Someone like the ACA will be trying to come up with an amicable solution to a one off incident, you are likely to have a high level of interaction and you're likely to get some degree of refund if the ACA determines that is fair.

The ACCC on the other hand will take tipoffs and say thanks, but unless they want more information from you you're unlikely to hear from them again. They don't deal with individual cases, instead they are looking for general breaches of the law and for unfair T&C's. They may chose to investigate your tip off, and sometimes just the threat of referral is enough to make a company do something, but you're unlikely to get a refund or have an issue dealt with directly.

Speaking from experience when I referred booking.com to ACCC for false / misleading statements on their website. Got the "we don't deal with individual cases" response, however I noticed that the offending wording was removed from booking.com's website within a few weeks. Didn't solve my problem per-say, but it meant that others wouldn't suffer the same issue.
 
The ACCC's role is to enforce consumer law rather than deal with individual complaints. Whilst you can certainly bring things to their attention, they don't deal with a complaint in the same way. Someone like the ACA will be trying to come up with an amicable solution to a one off incident, you are likely to have a high level of interaction and you're likely to get some degree of refund if the ACA determines that is fair.

.
Was WLGFlyer who created this thread the ONLY person in Qantas Business Class on that flight who was sent to an Economy Jetstar flight (or any other economy flight) without a refund?

Was this the ONLY time in Australian history that a Qantas flight was cancelled, and Business Class passengers (or First Class passengers for that matter) were sent to Economy without a refund on their higher priced tickets?

If it was not the only time, I opine that any complaint lodged should be written not as an individual complaint, but as a general complaint that the ACCC investigate and enforce Trade Practice law in these and all other such cases.

Assuming that WLGFlyer was not fobbed off by some idiot at Qantas who doesn't understand that a refund is required, and that this is indeed the actual policy, then - taken to the extreme - such a measure could be used by airlines as a business model to increase revenue by deliberately cancelling planes as a matter of course for trivial reasons - and taking huge amounts of money from Business and First Class passengers, and sending them off in Economy class. I opine that such would be unambiguously illegal.

Regards,
Renato
 
Was WLGFlyer who created this thread the ONLY person in Qantas Business Class on that flight who was sent to an Economy Jetstar flight (or any other economy flight) without a refund?

Was this the ONLY time in Australian history that a Qantas flight was cancelled, and Business Class passengers (or First Class passengers for that matter) were sent to Economy without a refund on their higher priced tickets?

If it was not the only time, I opine that any complaint lodged should be written not as an individual complaint, but as a general complaint that the ACCC investigate and enforce Trade Practice law in these and all other such cases.

Assuming that WLGFlyer was not fobbed off by some idiot at Qantas who doesn't understand that a refund is required, and that this is indeed the actual policy, then - taken to the extreme - such a measure could be used by airlines as a business model to increase revenue by deliberately cancelling planes as a matter of course for trivial reasons - and taking huge amounts of money from Business and First Class passengers, and sending them off in Economy class. I opine that such would be unambiguously illegal.

Regards,
Renato

Agree completely that the ACCC should investigate airlines. The fact that they are happy to take your dollars for premium seats / service but don't feel that they should be giving refunds if that's not delivered as promised is certainly something that the ACCC should investigate, and much like the excluding taxes advertising, or the excessive CC fee's that airlines used to charge no doubt involuntary downgrades and compensation is one of the many area's of bad behaviour which I expect will end up being fixed.

However in the context of this thread, the OP was looking for an immediate solution for their issue, and the ACCC will not be providing that.
 
Was WLGFlyer who created this thread the ONLY person in Qantas Business Class on that flight who was sent to an Economy Jetstar flight (or any other economy flight) without a refund?

Was this the ONLY time in Australian history that a Qantas flight was cancelled, and Business Class passengers (or First Class passengers for that matter) were sent to Economy without a refund on their higher priced tickets?

If it was not the only time, I opine that any complaint lodged should be written not as an individual complaint, but as a general complaint that the ACCC investigate and enforce Trade Practice law in these and all other such cases.

Assuming that WLGFlyer was not fobbed off by some idiot at Qantas who doesn't understand that a refund is required, and that this is indeed the actual policy, then - taken to the extreme - such a measure could be used by airlines as a business model to increase revenue by deliberately cancelling planes as a matter of course for trivial reasons - and taking huge amounts of money from Business and First Class passengers, and sending them off in Economy class. I opine that such would be unambiguously illegal.

Regards,
Renato

A point of correction, the OP was in Y.
 
A point of correction, the OP was in Y.

Correct. In any case I probably would have been more upset if they would have refused to rebook me on JQ, given that this was the obvious solution (direct flight, getting me home around the same time).

I think nutwood describes my sentiment pretty well, I made a conscious choice against a budget airline and yet ended up on one. Some sort of gesture is appropriate and I will relay this to QF.
 
A point of correction, the OP was in Y.
Ooops - getting confused with the various unfortunates and what was said on the AFF email link to this page,
"In one case, AFF member tea&coffee was downgraded from Qantas Business class to a middle seat in Jetstar Economy. This member received no food and drinks - an advertised benefit of all Qantas fares - on their replacement Jetstar flight from Gold Coast to Sydney. They even had to pay extra for water. Despite the downgrade, Qantas refused to refund the fare difference."

Doesn't affect anything I wrote - a more expensive ticket with more services attached to it, is replaced with a much cheaper ticket with less services in each case. One isn't getting what one paid for. And it makes any complaint to the ACCC of an even more general nature.
Regards,
Renato
 
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I wonder what would happen , at least on a transcon flight, you bought a meal and drink on JQ, kept the receipts and submitted a claim to re-imburse them? (I think I know the answer to that question). If they didn't then surely there would be a claim around not providing advertised service, it is the least subjective of all offerings, especially on transcontinental flights.

Personally, if it's was MEL-SYD flights, it's probably not worth worrying about, but once you start looking at 4 hr flights, it's a different matter.
 
Qantas is not very good with refunds. Happy to take money for premium cabins but when downgrading using the excuse that they met their obligation by getting passenger from A to B.

What utter rubbish.
 
I think nutwood describes my sentiment pretty well, I made a conscious choice against a budget airline and yet ended up on one. Some sort of gesture is appropriate and I will relay this to QF.

Got a fairly generic reply from QF, they're obviously very sorry but "do not compensate for flight disruptions".

Received 5k points as a gesture of goodwill, which I think is in the low but acceptable range.

Now if I had received all this without having to ask I would have been impressed...
 
Got a fairly generic reply from QF, they're obviously very sorry but "do not compensate for flight disruptions".

Received 5k points as a gesture of goodwill, which I think is in the low but acceptable range.

Now if I had received all this without having to ask I would have been impressed...
Good to hear, sad it took so long, and so much effort on your part. Also disappointing that they sent a generic response after your complaint.
 
Not making any excuses for QF, or any other airline for that matter, but from personal experience "gestures of goodwill" are generally a given however not automatic. As per harvyk's suggestion, I find a non-emotive letter detailing the facts and requesting compensation often yields a result. EY once offered me compensation in the form of miles which more than doubled my balance at the time, and I was at entry-level status then! My complaint: they had run out of the breakfast option I preferred.

Ask and you shall receive.
 
It only happened to me once flying NTL-BNE. They booked me on the QF codeshare so I got the same number of points and SCs.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s standard practice around the world for carriers to rebook you on any available service, including competitors. I have heard of qantas rebooking people on virgin and vice versa particularly on daily or less services (eg SYD-DRW).

In these circumstances, as much as you want to moan about the loss of your free “meal”, most people would rather get to their holiday or business meeting on time. I’m pretty sure you have the option to wait for another QF service.
 
Looks like a whole flight got rebooked on JQ tonight.

QF1794 BNE-TSV and QF1795 TSV-BNE tonight have been replaced by Jetstar JQ7794 and JQ7795. TSV-BNE is still for sale $230 in Economy or $825 in Business. I wonder if you book it what kind of service you'd get and if you'd even be notified.

Interestingly the flights also for sale on the JQ website but $443 instead of QF's $230.
 
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