I was on this flight this am. We departed AKL late for WLG and were close to Wellington when the crew reported a warning flight and decided to return to Auckland (further distance) to save maintenance costs. Whilst convenient for them not helpful to pax like me who had to be in meetings in WLG.

On arrival AKL they refused to refund tickets on the basis tickets were non refundable and would only issue future credits Never mind I'm going to loose my WLG-AKL return flight on the other guy!

This seems hardly reasonable since the flight was almost at Wellington and turned back to AKL rather than land at Wellington not for safety reasons but for QF's convenience and it was a mechanical problem not act of god.

When I can I try and fly QF domestically because they generally behave better than the other guy but this does not seem reasonable to me.

Any comments? I feel a refund should be made as they failed to deliver. If they won't refund as a matter of principle I'm inclined to go back to the other guy.