Bad experience with Qantas for OWE ticketing
 

A fellow I respect (and likely has more experience than I) disagrees, but my first experience with Qantas pricing an OWE is hopefully going to be my last.

First, they took nearly a month, finally finishing so close to travel that I have little choice but to live with what they gave me.

Along the way, they squawked because they considered a direct flight CNS-GLT with two stops to be three segments; they denied a connection in country-of-origin because they considered it a third stop despite onward being booked <24 hours; and finally they asserted that when using more than four segments in a continent, the chronologically fifth and sixth were the ones that had to be paid for separately, not "any two". One of them was booked in biz so I got to pay $450 for that, instead of a puddle-jumper coach segment that came earlier.

Everything got straightened out but that last one - too near travel to mess with it. I guess I can ask for a $75 re-issue, or find someone to whimper to, but it's a dam*d nuisance.

I'm sorry to hear your experience. I have only dealt with QF directly and they were quite good and open to discussion as to what the rules were; it seems you were less lucky and seem to have been unfairly treated.
QF is overwhelmed with a large volume of transactions (combination of Ansett going out of business and changes in the QF frequent flyer plan). Also they may treat travel agents on commission differently than when they are dealing with the public. Did you ever speak to QF directly, or was it only through the travel agent? I can't blame the TA for going with QF to get the commission, but in the US the AA desk is the best choice. If it makes you feel better (or worse) I did have a complicated reroute with QF in Melbourne, so they can manage at times. The real problem is that Oneworld needs more integration before it functions as it should.

Having asked the TA to do the booking I didn't feel it appropriate to speak with QF directly. The errors QF made seem to comment on the skill (or lack thereof) of their agent who did my rate. My TA each time corrected the QF error promptly (except for the final issue about the fifth and sixth segments being absolutely the very ones that had to be paid for separately, because they had run us out of time).

Because we cannot expect TA's to work for free, AA is simply not a choice for anyone in the U.S. who needs the services of a Canadian TA because of the new SITI rules. That leaves CX - a perfect choice imho if your itinerary permits it - plus QF and BA. Anecdotally I hear that BA makes Qantas look like rocket scientists, but I don't have any personal experience with their rate desk. A couple of years ago their rtw folks seemed top notch, but the last time I talked with them they'd launched a cost-cutting program and I had the feeling they'd contracted out to the Greyhound bus company for services.

Anyway, 6, not to be discourteous - I really do believe you know much more about these matters than I ever will - but the singed fingies I got from this Qantas experience will keep me out of their camp for some time.

This is inexcusable - they should be able to do it within 24 hours.

Was there an overnight stay? In Australia, a stopover is if you fly in on one day and out the next - you can fly in at 2330 and fly out at 0500 the next day and it still counts as a stopover.

Agreed - the only drama I can see here is the length of time it took to get it sorted out initially. The rest could have been sorted if you had had sufficient time, but because they dragged their heels you did not have the time to find out why they did what they did.

Dave

.."In Australia, a stopover is if you fly in on one day and out the next - you can fly in at 2330 and fly out at 0500 the next day and it still counts as a stopover."

There was no stopover of any kind - it's a direct (milk-run) flight from CNS to GLT that happens to stop twice enroute, at least if a guy on the ground waves a flag at the pilot as he circles the field. Single plane, single flight number, single coupon. Single segment.

In any case the OWE rule is that a stopover is >24 hours. It's sad that some of the Qantas people assigned to sort these things out don't know the rules. There's a posting in the recent archives by a fellow who originated his OWE in Australia, and QF told him once he returned to Australia (or perhaps his originating city) he could fly no more segments, even though his continent-of-origin stopovers and segments remained unused. That can be a significant reduction in value of the OWE ticket and we should be able to absolutely depend on an airline's rate desk to understand the rules rather than have to sort them out ourselves.

In my case I'm out USD250 (x3 pax, which buys a really good bottle of practically anything legal) since I'm flying a coach segment that should have allowed as the extra segment, but the QF agent insisted on charging for the 6th chronological, a business-class booking.

(Of course maybe Qantas is right on that point - my experience with extra segments so far has been in Europe, where the booking carriers (CX, BA) have been happy to accept the segments I chose for the Y-fare.)

I think that QF would rectify these mistakes and refund your money if you contacted head office. They do appear to be the result of using the wrong rules (not the OWE fare rules). Even some of the OWE rules differ by country of origin so I can see how the mistake can be made. I suggest you write to Qantas explaining how you think the rules apply (and I think you are right). If you don't have a better address for QF, you can reach them at:
Customer Relations
Qantas Centre
203 Coward Street
Mascot NSW 2020

Thanks one more time, 6 - that's good advice and I'll do exactly that.

Perhaps if hit with the additional segments issue in the future, just include the ones you want on the OWE ticket and then book the extras separately via the web.

Seems the major problem (as noted by others) was the initial time to get back to you, and by then your options for resolution were severely restricted.

I have had many, many OWE tickets issued by TA's in Australia through QF and never had any problems. They normally validate the requested itinerary and quote the ticket price within a few hours. So something went severely wrong in your case and I also suggest you contact QF and bring it to their attention. They are normally very at resolving issues like this.

Hence the reason why I asked - which you snipped - if there was an overnight stay. Do not snip bits which do not fit your replies, it diminishes your credibility.

Then it should have been classed as one sector.

Is that a OWE rule? I thought each issuing airline was able to apply their own rules,. It is common knowledge that if BA's rules suit you better than AA's, you get it issued via BA - likewise with all the other OneWorld carriers. Isn't this just another example of this?

Dave

Sorry, Dave, I take issue with folks who copy entire messages into their reply when the original is available to the reader with a simple scroll up the page. So I try to limit the amount I repeat to the minimum needed to establish the talking point. I wasn't looking for "credibility", merely repeating a point I thought had been clear enough the first time I made it.

As to each airline making up their own OW rules, I think that is specifically not allowed. Of course, if we can, some of us try to do "agent shopping" when we get an answer we don't like the first time. Perhaps AA or CX has a greater number of agents willing to bend rules in the customer's favor; my feeling is that they're simply better trained.

I'm not the least bit happy with Qantas, in spite of the several defenders who've reported great track records with them.
Quite likely I got unlucky and my pnr got assigned to an ill-trained agent - who described it as a "very difficult itinerary".

Good grief - it was a simple OWE 4-continent with two extra segments in SWP. Nothing the least bit controversial about it.

True enough, with a lot of segments there were a lot of airport taxes and fees to add up, but I hope that's a lookup table that doesn't require advanced calculus to figure. (If it's not in the computer and requires any manual processing at all, they're living in the dinosaur era.)

So the process of pricing a (non-seasonal) OWE should really boil down to checking that the route conforms to the rules (and there really are only a dozen rules), counting the number of continents visited, counting the number of segments on each and charging extra if allowed/necessary, and adding the taxes. That it's normally done in 24 hours doesn't surprise me; that mine took a month most certainly does.

And in no case did I copy an "entire message" in any of my posts - I merely copied what I was replying to and deleted the rest.

Ad why is it not allowed? Happens on Star Alliance all the time, they are forever shopping to find the carrier which will ticket their itinerary at the cheapest cost.

My feeling is that the staff have discretion, wich they are told to use sparingly, based on the members status. SO I get somethign as a Gold which someone else as a Bronze won't get, but I miss out on something as a Gold which a Platinum gets.

(...snipped...)

And as I said in my original post, the only thing you have to complain about is the length of time it took to work this out.

Dave

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[This message has been edited by bruceb (edited 12-12-2002).]