Qantas Frequent Flyer - $2,300 lost by Qantas to Air NZ

Today (Sunday) I decided to go from MEL to AKL for a day & tried to book biz class on the QF website. Even though I'd have to go MEL-SYD-AKL-SYD-MEL, I was willing to do that as I do try to be loyal to QF if I can. Total fare $2,291. All ok, until I get to the end and it says that the MEL-SYD leg will have to be in economy as biz class is unavailable or full.

I rang the QF WP number and was told that there are plenty of biz seats available (being Sunday arvo I was sure that there would be) but no discounted biz class fares & I'd have to pay an additional $600+ to have the MEL-SYD leg in biz.

I said that I could do the same flights on Air NZ MEL-AKL-MEL (without the several hours wait in SYD each way) for the same amount and would they release one of the unused biz class seats? No, no way was the response. I said that it was $2,300 they could have or Air NZ could have.

Now in the Air NZ lounge at MEL typing this...

Did you talk to the Premium Desk?

It's more typical of QF's behaviour nowadays - look after themselves, screw the customers...

If D class is full, then c'est la vie;

If prepared to pay that price, I would suggest looking at EK for the next trip; their discounted 1st class fare would have come in at about price plus provided car transfers at each end

QF D Class - base $2084
EK A Class - base $2028

Dave

Paying 2k to cross the Tasman is pretty steep considering the flight time.

Did you talk to the Premium Desk?

It's more typical of QF's behaviour nowadays - look after themselves, screw the customers...

yup - now is their best chance to be creating goodwill while times are tough. History will repeat itself I guess. GG QF

All you can do is raise it.

At the end of the day a call centre, whether it be the Premium Desk or a normal one, can't do much to alter the fares which are set by yield management.