rbwpi

Used AAdvantage miles for the following flights in business class.

80,000 miles for travel from PDX to DRW with connections in LAX and BNE, departing on 12/9 and arriving on 12/11. The LAX-BNE and BNE-DRW segments were with QF. 20,00 miles for travel from DRW to PER on 12/14 with QF.

The flight from LAX departed 4 hours late due to a mechanical, resulting in a missed connection for the BNE-DRW segment. Was informed that the next flight would be the next day 12/12. I did not wish to waste a day in BNE or limit my stay in DRW to two days instead of three. To mitigate my inconvenience, I inquired of QF in there was a BNE -PER flight that day. They did place me on a flight to PER that day 12/11.

I contacted AA about redepositing the 20,000 miles for the DRW-PER trip which I did not take. Their response after contacting QF was that QF utilized the 20,000 miles paid for the DRW-PER flight to pay for the BNE-PER flight. Apparently QF did not treat PER as an alternate destination/alternate segment in lieu of DRW due to the missed.connection. Instead they treated it as a stand alone flight with the subsequent cost of 20,000 miles. At no time did QF advise me that they were intending to use the DRW-PER miles to pay for the BNE-PER flight.

What are your thoughts?

LondonElite

I can't comment on the workings of their mileage programme, but I will prepare you for the onslaught of comments you'll get from spelling the name of the airline, QANTAS, incorrectly.

nancypants

Quite genuinely it’s like nails on a blackboard to me

m0hamed

This is very confusing.

And as above, QUANTAS does not exist. And if you're going to post in an Australian forum, use Australian date formats.

You asked QF to reaccommodate you to PER as your final destination which they did due to a misconnect. You did not contact AA to alter your booking to PDX-LAX-BNE-PER which would remain within the 80,000 limit with connections <24 hours. QF would not advise you on the use of your AA miles.

Blackcloud

As you were changing the itinerary/ticketed segments I think that should have been done through AA, noting that QF may not have had an award seat for the BNE-PER flight that you took. Just because there was a seat available does not mean that QF would have had it available on that flight, so QF did do you a favour for getting you on that flight.
Can you ask AA for a refund of the BNE-DRW flight that you did not take or was that considered part of the 80K you paid to get to Australia?
It seems that you voluntarily changed your itinerary, yes it was due to a mechanical disruption, but you had already commenced your ticketed journey and QF offered you an alternative to get you to DRW but you turned it down.
I do not know enough about the current AA programme but I think you may be out of luck.
Also I know from your perspective that is bad customer service but you are dealing with an airline that is not known for its consistent level of customer service.

1fullhouse

We are talking about an Australian company but this is NOT an Australian forum. It is flyertalk.com no au attached. As long as we are clear on that can you start driving on the other side? I promise to learn the metrics if you do, oh and the other temperature thing too

rbwpi

I can deal with the onslaught of comments just so long as they are done in a civil manner.

nancypants

I’ve asked the mods to correct the spelling 😉

minz56

This seems to me to be a matter for AA and not QF. QF helped you out when your flight was delayed, but it is up to AA whether any reimbursement of points is due.

Dave Noble

It seems perfectly correct

You had a journey consisting of LAX-DRW and DRW-PER - you asked to skip DRW and the airline accommodated you

If you had wanted to save the miles you would have had to go to AA and make the change with it subject to award availability and paying the change fee to change DRW-PER to be BNE-PER

DownUnderFlyer

[mod hat] And I have complied with the request. On a separate note, there is no "right" date format and certainly any format is welcome in this forum and on Flyertalk. It is however helpful if one uses something which is clear such as "10 Dec 2019". [/mod hat]

number_6

Interesting that on FT an airline helping you out results in a "was I screwed?" question. Kind of trains airlines to NOT be so helptul next time
As mentioned, this is entirely an issue for Aadvantage (the FF program and not AA the airline) to resolve and determine. I would presume that Aadvantage did pay QF for both awards, and almost certainly no J award seats would have been available on BNE-PER for the flight you took -- it is not easy to get long-haul awards on QF and they often fly with empty J seats or filled by staff rather than making available for awards, as a matter of policy.

rbwpi

I appreciate the many valid and informative points made by many posters to my thread. I have learned much.

However, one point has not been addressed. QANTAS did not advise me that I would charged for the BNE-PER flight. When requesting a service, the service provider should inform the consumer that there will be a charge and the amount. QANTAS failed to do so. If I had known there would be a charge of 20,000 miles my course of action would have been different. Also, QANTAS used self help by applying, without my authorization, the 20.000 miles I paid for the DRW-PER flight to the BNE-PER flight.

nancypants

as always, much appreciated


forgive me I may not be following here- did QF charge you a further 20k miles? Did they actively cancel you off the DRW-PER flights? I suspect the person at the desk doing this rebooking wasn’t aware of the intricacies of the AAdvantage scheme as relates to QF and thus wasn’t best placed to advise you (you did pay with AAdvantage miles right?)

my only experience with rerouting to skip a destination (MEL-CBR-BNE became MEL-BNE) was on a cash ticket, I was rerouted but was not refunded the cost of CBR-BNE even though the rerouting was cheaper. I did get ORC but of course that doesn’t apply with award tickets

if this was me I would be pursuing AA for the points refund. Qantas don’t exactly trade in AA points so seems like they wouldn’t have any vested interest in keeping them, but may have charged AA cash for the reservation and therefore AA are reluctant to refund?

rbwpi

The flights were booked with AAdvantage miles. 80,000 for PDX-LAX-BNE-DRW and 20,000 for DRW-PER. QANTAS did cancel the DRW-PER flight. QANTAS did not charge me an additional 20,000 miles, total cost was 100,000 miles. I did contact AA for a points refund. While on the phone they contacted QANTAS. AA then related QANTAS position which I described in my OP. AA indicated that they could not provide a refund of the 20,000 miles. My only recourse appears to be filing a small claims suit, against AA, for the value of the miles.