Cancelled/changed flight
 

Hi all - I am meant to be flying from Auckland to Sydney today via Brisbane. I booked like this because I have time to kill and need 4 flights (the other two are to SIN and LHR), plus double status points. I've just found out 3 hours before the flight that I've been moved onto a direct 737 service to Sydney. The AKL - BNE leg is on an A330 and I'm in J so it is a massive downgrade in terms of comfort. QF are saying that the QF126 is cancelled but I can see it is just delayed until 5pm, but they won't keep me on that flight - there is a later BNE to SYD flight I could make. Can I do anything? Will I still get the status points and the counting of two flights even though I'm just doing direct to Sydney? So annoying!

You would have to ask for ORC = original routing credit. Not automatic.

Most passengers would prefer getting SYD on time or close to time instead of a very long delay. We on FT are not normal passengers. ;)
Worth phoning QF and ask to kept on the delayed QF126 and a later BNE-SYD. But a risk if QF126 is extremely late/cancelled or being caught by the SYD 23:00 curfew.
Or ask to fly tomorrow? Anything via MEL?

If you have a ticket for AKL-SYD rather than 2 tickets for AKL-BNE and BNE-SYD, it is quite valid for it to rebook you on the direct service

if you don't want to fly business class on that service, then take the refund and rebook in economy class

I got through to them on the phone and the agent said that QF126 was cancelled and that the only option was to go directly to Sydney.

I’m at the airport and QF126 isn’t cancelled it’s just delayed 2 hours 40 mins. I didn’t push any further about going on that flight on the phone as I was told point blank it was cancelled.

She did say that since QF “cancelled” the flights I would still get the full status points and points as if I was doing the AKL to SYD via BNE. Will have to see if that’s the case.

Thanks for your help!

I did look at cancelling that but as it would have been booking on the day it was horrendously expensive. I’m just disappointed I wasted points on an upgrade.

With the flight being cancelled, you could have cancelled the upgrade and got the miles back for the upgrade

You never know, you may have been rebooked into a revenue business class and earn points as for business class

I asked about that but she said that I’d been put in business on this new flight so they’d have to cancel and rebook if I wanted a points refund and go in economy.

Will see what happens if I do get business points!

Meant to depart at 16:05, it’s now 17:35… we are delayed because there is an issue with the plane. I can see my original flight. Wish I’d pushed the call centre agent on the fact I could see via Flight Aware that it wasn’t cancelled. Such a nightmare!

Maybe the reason you were moved to the Sydney flight was due to the Brisbane flight being oversold and moving a Sydney bound passenger to the Sydney flight helped address the issue without a negative impact

Departure was moved to 19:30 and then again to 20:30…apparently waiting for the paperwork. Getting close to the curfew.

There was a guy in the lounge earlier who was moved from the same Brisbane flight to a Melbourne flight then onto Adelaide. Same as me, wanted the A330! Maybe it was oversold but seemed to have a load of free seats in business when I looked this morning.

EK lounge was open when we disembarked so was good to visit that.

With a 20:30 departure and estimated 21:35 arrival, not getting close to a curfew issue

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...bc5ba51c66.jpg

We are on the same flight.

It was a full flight.

But they had to offload a couple of positioning pilots/cabin crew or else they would have missed their SYD flight. Looks like you got one of their spots.

The tech problem (as explained by the pilot) was that the overhead instrument panel had come loose. The fix was about 30 minutes but the simple repair had to be filled at SYD with Boeing.

That paperwork (Boeing response that the fix = ok) was the 3+ hour paperwork part.

QF in my experience of rebooking are notorious good at keeping the original booking class when rebooking is done by the robot or back office. I can be rebooked on a flight with very little inventory left and still rebooked in a discount fare class that is not available for sale. Same with upgrades, it rarely goes through as the upgraded class. I guess it is the way it should be versus other airlines where you are just rebooked into whatever is left.

always curious to me where QF chose to invest their “smarts”. Aspects that help QF bottom line vs customer experience ;-)

It doesn't require much on the airline's part to have it be able to overbook the discount booking class. I wouldn't expect it to happen normally but with the upgrade too, thought that it might have done

I have found in limited occasions of disruption that Qantas is good at rebooking - which is good for customer experience

I was next to one of the pilots who offloaded himself to QF148 when the problem was first detected.

I went to the lounge so didn’t wait for the voucher. Plus side was EK lounge was open.

I thought arrivals at SYD was super poor. Loads of people who were overnighting ended up making their own way to the hotel. I had to get a cab as the person picking me up couldn’t as I’d made them change plans to accommodate me coming earlier.