Welcome to the new qantas call centre

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Sounds like they've finalised the held booking (under a new pnr) rather than creating a new booking.
Exactly, which is the crutch of everything I have been saying, but 4 hours to attempt to rectify the problem for a domestic flight.
Having worked and lived in Asia for the last 40 years I do realise that if you lose your cool you don’t get anywhere, so I conducted myself accordingly in the conversation, unlike what has been suggested.
 
Exactly, which is the crutch of everything I have been saying, but 4 hours to attempt to rectify the problem for a domestic flight.
Having worked and lived in Asia for the last 40 years I do realise that if you lose your cool you don’t get anywhere, so I conducted myself accordingly in the conversation, unlike what has been suggested.
Just use SMS chat next time then or in app chat.
 
@onemore, as mentioned by others I was booking flights last week and wasn't happy with the connections so abandoned the booking but noticed that the booking showed under my bookings.

Called up and made a new booking over the phone to get the desired connections and for a time I had 2 bookings under my bookings. The first booking eventually dropped off.

But I do understand your frustration regarding call centres. I struggle to understand Kiwi accents and they struggle to understand me.
 
Ive had enough of that awful Qantas call centre, I waited and waited to be answered by a human, but after an hour I gave up, only wanting to find out on a QF partner airline how to select 2 x J award seat booking as it could not be achieved on QF site.

So tried a Qantas text message, received a reply, back and forth we went explaining it over and over in clear english, in the end about 2 hours later it said contact China Airlines!, Allan you said Qantas is a first class airline MY FOOT!. Anyways, I used the booking No. I had on China Airlines and bingo selected seats, I mean really Qantas get your act together.
 
Ive had enough of that awful Qantas call centre, I waited and waited to be answered by a human, but after an hour I gave up, only wanting to find out on a QF partner airline how to select 2 x J award seat booking as it could not be achieved on QF site.

So tried a Qantas text message, received a reply, back and forth we went explaining it over and over in clear english, in the end about 2 hours later it said contact China Airlines!, Allan you said Qantas is a first class airline MY FOOT!. Anyways, I used the booking No. I had on China Airlines and bingo selected seats, I mean really Qantas get your act together.

I mean this in a friendly way - but isn't this causing a bit of unneccessary angst? If you have a booking on a partner ailine, simply go to their website and select the seats. Why the need to wait for an hour on the blower QF? My advice is to never use a third party airline site to select seats unless there is no other option. The QF site for example may show available seats on a flight which are ordinarily blocked by the operating airline (say for elites). You don't want to risk getting kicked out of those. (There are some exceptions to this but in the main, using the perating airline's manage booking function is preferable.)
 
Every time I ring the QF call centre lately I get the one in South Africa instead of Hobart and so I have to explain real basic things like that the domestic terminal is on the opposite side of the airport to the international terminal in Sydney and so a decent transit time is needed.

I'm hoping that my transit in Sydney goes smoothly tomorrow morning but I would have preferred more than 70 minutes to get from domestic onto QF7 - especially given all of the delays in Sydney lately.
 
- Then the penny dropped with me, as I travel a lot in Asia I recognised the accent, so asked the consultant was she in Manila “How did you know” the reply.
I don't understand the issue here. I call the call centre regularly in my job as AFF Support and have no issues understanding the staff, be they based in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or the Philippines.
 
I don't understand the issue here. I call the call centre regularly in my job as AFF Support and have no issues understanding the staff, be they based in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or the Philippines.

Agree. They don't always grasp the concepts, but that's not necessarily down to language issues (rather, product knowledge).

I'm hoping that my transit in Sydney goes smoothly tomorrow morning but I would have preferred more than 70 minutes to get from domestic onto QF7 - especially given all of the delays in Sydney lately.

you can arrive early at the airport and ask them to be put on an earlier flight. They are usually very accommodating, provided there are seats available (so far a 100% success rate).
 
you can arrive early at the airport and ask them to be put on an earlier flight. They are usually very accommodating, provided there are seats available (so far a 100% success rate).
I will give that a go MEL_T - fingers crossed that will take some of the risk out of it which then just leaves the 1 hour 39 minute connection in DFW.
 
....which then just leaves the 1 hour 39 minute connection in DFW.

:eek:

This might be ok if you have an ESTA and entry via an automated kiosk. My last trip to New York I was out in 15 minutes from arrival at the gate. (There seems to be confusion around who is eligible to use the automated kiosks... some airlines still say you had to have entered on the ESTA previously, while i think the official line is that you just have to have entered the USA on that passport previously, even if it's a new ESTA this time.)
 
:eek:

This might be ok if you have an ESTA and entry via an automated kiosk. My last trip to New York I was out in 15 minutes from arrival at the gate. (There seems to be confusion around who is eligible to use the automated kiosks... some airlines still say you had to have entered on the ESTA previously, while i think the official line is that you just have to have entered the USA on that passport previously, even if it's a new ESTA this time.)
Cheers MEL_T - I'm on same ESTA as last trip so fingers crossed for a quick smooth trip through then on to Chicago.
 
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In other threads there is discussion about training standards. The times I have spoken to QF offshore teams they seem to be hopelessly undertrained.

TPG Internet has done offshore well for many years.

Having worked setting up offshore centres, my impression from outside is that it's been rushed, undertrained and poorly equipped. When I say 'equipped' I'm thinking about smart innovative collaboration tools.
 
:eek:

This might be ok if you have an ESTA and entry via an automated kiosk. My last trip to New York I was out in 15 minutes from arrival at the gate. (There seems to be confusion around who is eligible to use the automated kiosks... some airlines still say you had to have entered on the ESTA previously, while i think the official line is that you just have to have entered the USA on that passport previously, even if it's a new ESTA this time.)
You can also use the kiosk on a new passport.
 
Call centre roulette. Sometimes a competent operator, sometimes not. My gripe with QF call centre is a general tone of rudeness with some of the upstarts in TAS. I haven’t been routed to off shore call centres yet - perhaps WP gets Aus operators, along with much shorter wait times thankfully.

As for the OP’s mix up, I suggest always asking for an email or sms confirmation to be sent, and check it for accuracy before terminating the call. A worthy strategy with telcos, utility providers et al.
 
Call centre roulette. Sometimes a competent operator, sometimes not. My gripe with QF call centre is a general tone of rudeness with some of the upstarts in TAS. I haven’t been routed to off shore call centres yet - perhaps WP gets Aus operators, along with much shorter wait times thankfully.

77 Hobart staff (can't confirm - just from what their call centre has said) have recently taken VR's far exceeding expectations. Just goes to show that no one really wants to be there. Once again a Qantas management issue, like they give a cough about the call centre issues. If they did it would've been fixed many years ago and not getting rid of the Melbourne contact centre.
 
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77 Hobart staff (can't confirm - just from what their call centre has said) have recently taken VR's far exceeding expectations. Just goes to show that no one really wants to be there. Once again a Qantas management issue, like they give a **** about the call centre issues. If they did it would've been fixed many years ago and not getting rid of the Melbourne contact centre.

I'll generally support QF strategic decisions in the majority of cases but the offshoring (ie. outside of Australia and NZ) of call centres is nothing but blatant, naked profiteering and not giving two hoots about customer service. The underfunding of existing centres causing even a Gold to wait 30 to 60 minutes on hold is no different.
 
Cheers MEL_T - I'm on same ESTA as last trip so fingers crossed for a quick smooth trip through then on to Chicago.
Well after 24 hours or so of silliness I've finally made it as far as Chicago 7 hours late. Did as MEL_T suggested and turned up at the airport early and asked to be put on an earlier flight - that bit worked, but from there things went off track. The operating cabin crew arrived late on another flight so we lost 30 minutes there, then MEL switched to single runway operations due to the strong northerlies so even with the throttles against the stops we arrived in Sydney well late. Just made it onto QF7 in time as it departed 30 mins late, landed in DFW just a few minutes late only to find out that Homeland Security wanted to board the aircraft and do something - no idea what was going on as we weren't allowed to even stand up and I was back in row 82 but I suspect someone got a "Welcome to the United States" experience that they weren't expecting - another 30 minutes gone. Got to passport control/immigration and ran into the often problem of RSD's fingerprints don't read very well so had to go through the manual process. Made it through the skytrain thing to the correct terminal and then gate as they were trying to call and find me - got on board. Got to Chicago but couldn't land so did lots of circles before diverting to St Louis, Missouri. Pilots timed out there so eventually some more pilots were found, the weather in Chicago cleared and made it!
 
Well after 24 hours or so of silliness I've finally made it as far as Chicago 7 hours late. Did as MEL_T suggested and turned up at the airport early and asked to be put on an earlier flight - that bit worked, but from there things went off track. The operating cabin crew arrived late on another flight so we lost 30 minutes there, then MEL switched to single runway operations due to the strong northerlies so even with the throttles against the stops we arrived in Sydney well late. Just made it onto QF7 in time as it departed 30 mins late, landed in DFW just a few minutes late only to find out that Homeland Security wanted to board the aircraft and do something - no idea what was going on as we weren't allowed to even stand up and I was back in row 82 but I suspect someone got a "Welcome to the United States" experience that they weren't expecting - another 30 minutes gone. Got to passport control/immigration and ran into the often problem of RSD's fingerprints don't read very well so had to go through the manual process. Made it through the skytrain thing to the correct terminal and then gate as they were trying to call and find me - got on board. Got to Chicago but couldn't land so did lots of circles before diverting to St Louis, Missouri. Pilots timed out there so eventually some more pilots were found, the weather in Chicago cleared and made it!

Wow! Did your original flight to SYD beat the new, earlier one?
 
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Wow! Did your original flight to SYD beat the new, earlier one?
I honestly don't know! It was certainly one of those trips! Just been a massive thunderstorm this morning in Chicago that went for about 2 hours so scheduling will have taken another hit here.

I'm not sure of the timing of the planned QF flights direct to Chicago but I'm starting to get mental pictures of QF Dreamliners spread all over the midwest!
 
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