Yet another Qantas DISASTER!!

[hmmm]

Isn't Matthew Fleming not Andrew Head of Aviation and Corporate Security?

My apologies. Matthew Fleming.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I'm mainly appalled by the ban though. It sounds heavy-handed in the extreme

I think there is possibly some more to the events than we know so far.
Getting the first name wrong of QF head of security being just one of them .

EDIT: I see OP has corrected this. Ignore second sentence.

 

[hmmm]

This appears to be nothing do with QF.
The fare was booked through Skyscanner via an OTA.

We didn’t find out this info until several posts in.

It has EVERYTHING to do with Qantas. The email came from the head of security via customer care. The agent had nothing to do with the reservation for over 4 months until they were contacted by Qantas at roughly the same time I was. Unless they’re fraudulently creating emails and sending them from Qantas customer care, I just don’t see how do hey can possibly be responsible, especially given they’re the ones that refused to cancel the booking at Qantas’s direction and I ultimately flew on it.

 

[Princess Fiona]

It has EVERYTHING to do with Qantas. The email came from the head of security via customer care. The agent had nothing to do with the reservation for over 4 months until they were contacted by Qantas at roughly the same time I was. Unless they’re fraudulently creating emails and sending them from Qantas customer care, I just don’t see how do hey can possibly be responsible, especially given they’re the ones that refused to cancel the booking at Qantas’s direction and I ultimately flew on it.

Who did you contact to change the booking initially ?

 

[hmmm]

I can’t imagine that the head of ‘Aviation and Corporate Security’ would email an individual passenger. And yes, it’s Matthew Fleming not Andrew

Well he did. Indirectly via Qantas customer care. Make of it what you will

 

[MelMel]

This is what the bottom of all my emails from Qantas look like including those from Customer Care

 

[Austman]

From the OP's posts over the years, it seems they were previously banned by Qantas.

Could the ban have somehow still been current?

The letter seems to imply that. It states it's a reminder of the ban.

 

[justinbrett]

The letter implies the ban was already in place, not imposing it.

Either OP hasn’t told us the full story or the ban is with the OTA itself.

Or the original theory is correct and this is fraudulent. Why would Qantas request to cancel the booking when its trying to enforce a ban? Its a QF ticket.

 

[Daver6]

From the OP's posts over the years, it seems they were previously banned by Qantas.

Could the ban have somehow still been current?

The letter seems to imply that. It states it's a reminder of the ban.

Re-reading the old thread it all seems much clearer now to me. What isn't clear is why someone who has such disdain and poor past experiences with QF continues booking QF ticketed flights.

 

[hmmm]

Who did you contact to change the booking initially ?

Let me clarify…..

This entire thread was started to initially to discuss my partners booking made directly with Qantas that was date changed 2 months ago directly with Qantas. They contacted us to discuss an error with the fare difference and that the ticket wasn’t successfully reissued and that we would now need to pay significantly more as fares have naturally increased over the last two months. This was the initial problem I had to force Qantas to fix. It was their ticket, booked directly with them and calls made to their cape town call centre.

After that ticket was successfully reissued, the very next morning, I received the ban letter addressing my personal reservation which is the one that was booked with the OTA. Nothing was ever wrong with that reservation and no changes were ever made. The two bookings were linked by me so that we could use my LTG status to get preferred seats together. The OTA was contacted by Qantas to cancel the reservation, presumably because Qantas Couldn’t do it themselves.

Hope this makes more sense now.

 

[justinbrett]

Yes, the answer is here. Banned from QF (for a few months)

I feel like I owe the OTA an apology.

It was at best misleading and at worst deceitful to imply you “are now on a Qantas Group ban list” where the letter says nothing of the sort and clearly references an existing ban.

So if the ban was supposed to be temporary this is clearly an admin error and you should have contacted them to correct the issue. Or else you know you are still banned.

 

[hmmm]

Re-reading the old thread it all seems much clearer now to me. What isn't clear is why someone who has such disdain and poor past experiences with QF continues booking QF ticketed flights.

I didn’t know which airline is going to ticket the booking. I chose the outbound flights to match those of my partner who booked a week or so before I did. In hindsight, I should have just booked the emirates flight numbers directly instead of involving this despicable airline. However, I make my plans and I stick to them. I rarely, if ever, need to change my flights which is why I don’t mind using OTA’s. If something goes wrong from the airline, they take over and usually fix whatever they need to. But in this case, booking with an OTA actually worked in my favour as QF was unable to touch the booking themselves. But the cheek of them….. to demand cancellation with full penalties, when it’s them wanting the cancellation. The least they could do is waive all the fees. At the end of the day, they had no leg to stand on. Either EU241 and/or Australian Consumer Law prevents this kind egregious conduct!

 

[BAM1748]

I don't think i need to ready any more, looks like part of the story might be missing and I can't work out who is doing what.

As a rule, whenever you speak to someone, get their name! Much easier to sort when you are across the facts including people spoken to and what they said they would do and you can read of the order of events with agent and airline staff names. I've rarely 'lost' a discussion when I have my diary notes with me.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I didn’t know which airline is going to ticket the booking. I chose the outbound flights to match those of my partner who booked a week or so before I did. In hindsight, I should have just booked the emirates flight numbers directly instead of involving this despicable airline.

, it was an error on my part in booking the codeshares rather than the equivalent EK flight numbers directly for no material benefit other than 25,000 points and a few status credits that I don’t even need. Dealing with them just isn’t worth it!

So you didn’t know that your booking was ticketed via QF with QF codeshare flight numbers and you would get points and SC?

 

[Franky]

Omg. You wouldn’t believe it.

Qantas admitted to THEIR error and I told them in no uncertain terms that we had a binding contract and I expected it to be honoured. After hours and hours of backwards and forwards they finally agreed to charge us the original amount (which they took payment for 2 months prior) and pay the balance on their ‘charge card’ to finally reissue the ticket. Which they did and the problem was solved.

Or so we thought…….. because then the REAL drama started.

36 hours before departure, I received an email from Qantas customer care. I open it and find a letter from ‘Andrew Fleming, Head of Aviation and Corporate Security’ advising me that I am now on a Qantas Group ban list and the ban includes flying on codeshare flights. He went on to say ‘they may disclose this to Emirates’ and they request that I cancel my reservation and book directly with Emirates.

I spent the best part of the next ten hours trying to get hold of someone at Qantas to confirm what the hell was going on. No one could verify anything. Emirates weren’t advised of anything and the agent had no advice either. On the morning of (12 hours before) departure, the agent calls me to advise they’ve been contacted by Qantas directly and instructed to cancel the ticket with normal penalties and asked if I was ok with that. I told them I most certainly was NOT and he was nice enough to keep it active. However, he advised to book a back up ticket just in case Qantas take over the ticket and cancel it themselves close to departure. So I was forced to pay $3,119.99 for the last economy seat on the same flight to Dubai to ensure I travelled as planned. Emirates issued the ticket but immediately flagged it as a duplicate booking but didn’t cancel it automatically.

At the airport, Emirates knew nothing of the ban (despite me explaining everything to the duty manager, as I did not want there to be an issue) and checked me in on the original ticket and I’m replying from blisteringly hot Dubai.

The new ticket is in for a full refund and we wait and see what happens on Tuesday when we try to fly to Paris on the original ticket Qantas tried to cancel.

As a final ‘F@$! You’, Qantas unlinked the two bookings so we lost our joint seat allocations and were separated by 40 or so rows and the best emirates could do was put us together in row 88 with a spare seat between us.

Looks like I’ll need to issue my own ‘travel ban’ to Qantas!!

A certain Andrew Fleming needs to be fronted and asked what the hell he was doing, and based on what grounds.

 

[ChrisMars]

Woo complicated story. Old ban still active, OTA with terrible credentials and behaviours, Qantas doing some weird stuff too.

Once the trip is fully completed, and hopefully some refund processed, it would make sense to try to understand why the ban is still active as it seems like it s a very old story that was meant to be just for a few months. Maybe Qantas used it as an excuse to stop the conversation, or maybe it hasnt been processed to be lifted as expected. In any case, considering that OP could not expect the ban from years ago could be still active (right?) maybe there is some ground to go to court again?

Hopfully OP enjoy his trip this coming days/weeks.

 

[Princess Fiona]

A certain Andrew Fleming needs to be fronted and asked what the hell he was doing, and based on what grounds.

Reading This might give you some context

 

[hmmm]

Yes, the answer is here. Banned from QF (for a few months)

I feel like I owe the OTA an apology.

It was at best misleading and at worst deceitful to imply you “are now on a Qantas Group ban list” where the letter says nothing of the sort and clearly references an existing ban.

So if the ban was supposed to be temporary this is clearly an admin error and you should have contacted them to correct the issue. Or else you know you are still banned.

I was aware of a temporary ban after an issue in Singapore in 2016 which, after further investigation, was downgraded to a warning. I have this in writing. I flew Qantas sporadically after this, and really now fly best fare/schedule of the day, rather than blindly supporting an airline, that time and again, showed it had no respect or loyalty to me. I was not aware of any current ban, until I read the email shortly after I received it at 9;46am on 6 July. I spent HOURS on the phone to Qantas seeking clarification but there was nothing that reservations could see to indicate a ban or restriction. Their advice was to email customer care, which I knew wouldn’t even be received, let alone acted upon, within 36 hours so I genuinely did all I could in the limited time available. I have received nothing further from Qantas since and quite frankly, don’t care to. If the handling of the date change on my partners ticket wasn’t bad enough, this most certainly is. I have zero need or desire to ever fly with this company again. EVER. They aren’t unique, they don’t offer anything particular interesting or exclusive. You can get anywhere and everywhere you need to get to, often in more comfort, speed and value than anything they will ever offer. It appears more and more Australians are finally seeing the light and realising that Qantas is indeed the spirit of Australia. Because the body and mind died a long time ago!

 

[hmmm]

Woo complicated story. Old ban still active, OTA with terrible credentials and behaviours, Qantas doing some weird stuff too.

Once the trip is fully completed, and hopefully some refund processed, it would make sense to try to understand why the ban is still active as it seems like it s a very old story that was meant to be just for a few months. Maybe Qantas used it as an excuse to stop the conversation, or maybe it hasnt been processed to be lifted as expected. In any case, considering that OP could not expect the ban from years ago could be still active (right?) maybe there is some ground to go to court again?

Hopfully OP enjoy his trip this coming days/weeks.

I was furious at the time, expecting to have to fork out $10,000 to replace flights I already had. But as it currently stands, I couldn’t care less. I’m not flying them on this trip and this ‘ban’ doesn’t impact me in anyway, given I have made the decision to never fly them or to even book a codeshare flight operated by another airline, like emirates.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but there was no real reason to even book the codeshares. Had I known of the ban, I’d have booked the EK coded flights and been done with it. But either way, i fail to understand how they can tell another airline who to deny travel to based on some vindictive ban.

 

[JohnK]

Reading This might give you some context

That link is not working if pointing back to 2018 thread.

The behaviour from Qantas for this latest booking as reported by @hmmm is appalling. Asking for more money, bringing up old travel bans, cancelling bookings etc. Sounds exactly the same as the rest of the Qantas issues right now.

FWIW I was with the OP on the old thread.

Yes there is a way to deal with issues but we all deal with them differently.

If I pre-allocate a seat I do not expect to be moved unless the seat is broken or a medical emergency. Talking nice to lounge staff gets you absolutely nowhere. You need to be firm. You need to insist.

Oh and I'd forgotten how badly Qantas was treating me as a Platinum in 2018. Awful.