Rewards flight downgraded with no refund?

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shedboy

Junior Member
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Jul 7, 2019
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Hi,

In Dec last year I made a booking for a QFF rewards flight (ADL-LHR then BCN-ADL) and am scheduled to fly in Sept. It's actually all on Emirates apart from the very last internal leg (BNE-ADL) I specifically booked the dates as a First Class seat was available for the ADL-DXB leg on the way to London. On 28/12/18 I was notified that the First Class seat had been downgraded to Business Class. Clearly there is a difference in the number of points used as well as the additional carrier charges which I had to pay using my VISA.

(As an aside, I'd saved my points for 17 years for this as a post-PhD 'holiday of a lifetime'. I'll likely never have another chance at a 1st class flight as I'm rather poor and mature-age.)

I have made four attempts to enquire about having my points refunded and am having no luck. My last straw came yesterday when I called the QFF help desk, who told me I needed to speak to Reservations and transferred me. Reservations told me I needed the QFF help desk & transferred me back. The QFF help desk again told me I needed Reservations and transferred me again. Once again Reservations told me I needed the QFF helpdesk at which point I got rather firm and said no. She promised to get them on the line & give me a callback as soon as she did, but no callback happened. From the one person in that chain who actually tried to help, it was clear he had NFI what was happening with my booking, but did verbally guarantee I'd be refunded before transferring me on. (Can't remember which step of process they were on). He sounded genuinely perplexed about my situation, so I'm hoping I'm an outlier & this isn't business as usual for QFF. It's literally the first time I've ever tried to use my points. I have since sent a fairly furious complaint via email requesting only email communication so there is a paper trail in case I have to progress thing further.

A few questions for the more experienced:

- Am I correct in assuming that both points and carrier fees should be refunded? The QFF T&C seem to state this fairly clearly to my non-lawyer reading
- Is this a breach of Australian Consumer Law, given they are currently in breach (IMHO) their own T&C and this involved a financial transaction, not just points (which I understand are a grey area in Australia)
- Has anyone else had similar experiences with any successful resolution? I'm now at over 6 months of trying for a refund with no success
- Am I likely to receive any response to my email requesting only email communication? Previously I've either been completely ignored, or just told to call the support lines
- Given there is money involved which has been charged for a service I will not receive, is it worth calling in my VISA concierge service to at least try get something back?

Clearly it's casting a fairly large shadow over my 'holiday of a lifetime'

Thanks
 
Have you been downgraded on every segment, or just one?
And was it due to annaircraft change (ie. First no longer sold on route)?

If not all segments then there may not be any point refund due to the way points are calculated for multi-segment rewards.
Also wouldn't generally be a difference in $ costs between F and J.

Given you appear to have tried to resolve with the airline, next stop might be the ACA, although unsure if the fact that the flights are on EK would make this ineligible
 
Would you be happy if they shifted you to a different flight, say departing SYD, MEL PER etc if the internal flight was in J and the sector to DXB in F? That's what I would be pushing for if were me. You paid for F (doesn't matter how) so they need to make good on this.
 
Thanks for the responses. I'd be happy flying out of another city for sure. I've only been downgraded on one leg, as the rest was all business bar one economy leg. I'm nervous that given I have one economy leg, they'll just downgrade every remaining leg one at a time 'as flights become unavailable', and given I can't seem to get a refund that's a pretty cough prospect. I also tried mocking up a rebooked equivalent leg using the web interface & noticed that the difference in points between booking business & first for that journey was about 40,000 points. It wasn't totally comparable though as I couldn't quite replicate the same carrier & route.

And as I can't find anyone who knows anything within QFF, I have no idea why I was downgraded
 
I would definitely be pushing to try and get yourself an F seat on another flight, rather than worrying about points refunds as a first option. It’s what I would have done in December. They may or may not be able to do it at this point but try and get it.
 
Ignore the return sector if nothing has changed with that. Focus on ADL-DXB-LHR.

Firstly try getting F on another route.

If this fails, I note you should have originally been charged 176,000 pts. With downgrade from F to J, the points required for journey is 128,000 pts, so as a minimum you should be due a refund of 48,000 points. (Unless you are having stopover in DXB, in which case the points difference is only 42,000 pts).
 
Thanks @Flying mermaid & @dajpop. It's good to have an estimate of points so I know where I stand a bit better. As I said, this is my first ever use of points so I'm a bit unsure of myself & how this all works. As long as I get treated with respect by QFF I'll be happy, but that hasn't been my experience so far. I've been chasing this intermittently since Jan, but foolishly used email as my primary form of contact, which I find a far easier form of communication but seems to be easier to ignore. Guess I'll have to try calling again this week. Another important life lesson learned. :oops: Thanks again.
 
Which segment previously had First?

ADL-DXB is generally 772/773 so no F.

And there are I believe 6 daily A380 flights DXB-LHR.
 
ADL-DXB was sold to me as First. Does this mean that it didn't really exist when it was sold to me? I'm not sure what those numbers mean.

Sorry, I'm also a bit Aspy so am still struggling with the idea that there's a system that allows sale of things that don't exist, and then doesn't automatically allow for a simple refund when they're cancelled, unless it's intentionally fraudulent. As a software/big data person, a system that allows for cancellation of fares without providing a clear system for a refund or recompense literally makes no sense, as it would surely be the second thing you think of at the design stage (after the initial sale). I think that's a tangent, but I get hung up on these things. :confused:
 
What points were you charged initially? I take it was ADL-DXB(F)-LHR(J) then return was BCN-DXB-BNE(J)-ADL(Y), is that right? Are you stopping >24 hrs in Dubai in either direction?
 
Yeah, that's the flight route. If F = First, J = Business and Y = Economy, my booking was ADL-DXB(F)-LHR(J) then BCN-DXB(J)-BNE(Y)-ADL(J). I paid 295,000 points and $1123.78 in carrier fees. No stops in Dubai.

Really appreciating your help too. Thanks.
 
Oh sorry. The final leg is DXB-STN(J). Looks like the plane is a Boeing 777-200LR for both legs on the away journey.
 
ADL-DXB was sold to me as First. Does this mean that it didn't really exist when it was sold to me? I'm not sure what those numbers mean.

Sorry, I'm also a bit Aspy so am still struggling with the idea that there's a system that allows sale of things that don't exist, and then doesn't automatically allow for a simple refund when they're cancelled, unless it's intentionally fraudulent. As a software/big data person, a system that allows for cancellation of fares without providing a clear system for a refund or recompense literally makes no sense, as it would surely be the second thing you think of at the design stage (after the initial sale). I think that's a tangent, but I get hung up on these things. :confused:

You weren't sold seats that didn't exist. What happened is that Emirates changed their planes to ADL from a three-class (offering F) to a two-class (offering J only).

You just got got caught up in the plane change.

your options are to try and fly out of PER/SYD/MEL to catch F. Or to stay with ADL and try and get a refund of the points.
 
Thanks @MEL_Traveller. That makes a lot of sense. Until I asked on here I didn't even know I could ask for an alternate route, so this has been really helpful.
 
Thanks @Flying mermaid & @dajpop. It's good to have an estimate of points so I know where I stand a bit better. As I said, this is my first ever use of points so I'm a bit unsure of myself & how this all works. As long as I get treated with respect by QFF I'll be happy, but that hasn't been my experience so far. I've been chasing this intermittently since Jan, but foolishly used email as my primary form of contact, which I find a far easier form of communication but seems to be easier to ignore. Guess I'll have to try calling again this week. Another important life lesson learned. :oops: Thanks again.
Don’t expect airlines to be proactive, you need to be pushy but in a polite way. We once got downgraded from First to business from Lax to Syd, when they had major problems with an A380 and had to sub a 747 on some days. This was paid First as well, not an award. We had to phone them up and they just kept on saying no first was available for a couple of days. We were actually flying from SFO so we suggested changing the flight to SFO-DFW and picking up first out of DFW. That was fine and they were happy to do it, but we were the ones who had to work it out and suggest it, otherwise we would have been flying business.
 
Thanks @MEL_Traveller. That makes a lot of sense. Until I asked on here I didn't even know I could ask for an alternate route, so this has been really helpful.

Given the downgrade, any changes you make to your ticket should not incur the Qantas change fee (currently 5000 points). If they try to charge you this, just remind them this is an involuntary chage. Most agents are pretty good with this.

You should also be able to add the ADL-PER/SYD/MEL/BNE sector for no additional charge in points, because you have paid the full going rate.

What you might like to do is go back to the Qantas FF booking site, search for awards out of other major cities in F (either EK or QF), then try and find a connecting flight out of ADL to that city. Armed with that information, give Qantas reservations a call and say you need to change your booking due to an involunatry schedule change.
 
Thanks for the extra tips everyone. I've been back in to the site & can find flights that would work but the points they're charging are through the roof (>1,000,000). If I push are they likely to honour this?
 
Thanks for the extra tips everyone. I've been back in to the site & can find flights that would work but the points they're charging are through the roof (>1,000,000). If I push are they likely to honour this?

You need to be searching for CLASSIC awards - not points plus pay or 'use money and points'.

The prices you are seeing for 1,000,000 are converting a cash price into points. This means you can book any seat at any time and use your points. This is different to the classic award which is the one you are on, and is essentially an empty seat that they are willing to give away for a pre-determimed (and fixed) price.

In yuor search make sure you click the button that says 'use points'.
 
Thanks for the extra tips everyone. I've been back in to the site & can find flights that would work but the points they're charging are through the roof (>1,000,000). If I push are they likely to honour this?

You’re not looking at classic rewards. Those are points plus pay, these are essentially full fare flights just points instead of $$

Edit: MEL_Traveller just beat me to it!
 
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