Well I tried to change a MEL-CBR-SYD booking yesterday. It was like pulling teeth... through a wire fence... at night... with a pliers made of jello.
All I wanted to do was move the flights to an earlier time.
First agent told me that Velocity can't do this and transferred me to bookings.
That agent put me on hold for 15 mins then cold transferred me to Velocity.
The agent there was very nice and tried oh so hard to be helpful, but this was hampered by the fact that she seemed to have a memory buffer in her brain that could only store the current sentence, pushing all previous conversation out each time.
She initially said I could change to an earlier flight. Then after 10 mins on hold came back with new flight numbers, one arriving in CBR at 9:35am AND the next departing at 9:35 am. I pointed out that I probably wouldn't make the connection(!) and she "saw my point". More lengthy hold times and unworkable options. Then one that will work, albeit with a lengthy stay in the CBR lounge. One catch, there's no reward availability in J for my return SYD-MEL leg. I pointed out that I'm not changing that leg and even if they cancel the booking it should free up my seat and make it available. She said someone might take it in the time it takes to rebook, I accepted that risk.
We went ahead, more long hold times. Then I'm told that the booking can't be made. She offers an alternate where I leave Canberra BEFORE I arrive. It's been over an hour on the phone now so she offers to sort it out and call me back.
On the call back she tries a few more itineraries but can't get them to work, keeps getting the cities wrong, offering direct or PM flights instead of AM despite my saying multiple times it HAD to be an AM return and via CBR on the way out.
It becomes apparent that this isn't going to work so I ask her to back out and just give me my original itinerary. She says it's not available as she cancelled mine and can't rebook it.
After moving my return leg to a later time (which would make me late for work) she then told me that it would cost 50,000 points to rebook!! (originally was 27600 +$68). After I expressed surprise she asked if I prefer to just pay 27600 +$68. Obviously I said yes. More lengthy hold time. On return she advises that it'll be 41400 +$68 to rebook my original itinerary. I told her I could simply rebook it online for the original cost! She said that was all she could offer. At this point I asked for a supervisor. Another 15 mins on hold to have the supervisor tell me the same 41k nonsense. I explained how nonsensical this all was and eventually she caved and offered to rebook the original itinerary.
Almost 3 hours on the phone :/
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