Originally Posted by
busman7
Another problem was Qantas insisting on charging $80 to put a date on the open segment (saying it was a change) when I had changed the date going to Australia twice with AA in Thailand at no cost.
The whole experience, along with a few minor issues, has left me with a not very high opinion of Australia in general & Qantas in particular. It's really sad when a customer & visitor to a country knows more about the travel options available than the Qantas employees & is treated with contempt for having that knowledge!
I have also found Qantas to be very annoying when it levies service charges and other nuisance fees on xONExs; unfortunately this is permitted in the rules:
VOLUNTARY CHANGES/REROUTING/PENALTIES
...Local service fees may apply on rebooking, rerouting, reissue or refund.
One question I had - if you had to go to Hawaii, why didn't you just get a reissue, fly to LAX or SFO, then buy a separate ticket to Hawaii and back? $1034 for the upcharge (is that AUD, CAD or USD?) is an awful lot compared to $400 - $500 (US) for a return flight from LAX to HNL/KOA/OGG etc. Even adding the $125 change fee and a Qantas nuisance charge, you'd still have been ahead; in fact you'd have lots more miles in your FF account. Just a thought for next time - there are a number of OW routes where L inventory is notoriously hard to come by; AKL-SCL is legendary.