Which suggests that 100GBP was too low an offer. ;)

Dave Noble - in your case CX offered an alternative that was acceptable to you. However, where airlines don't offer an reasonable alternative, if they have involuntarily downgraded pax then there should be some compensation/refund for that.

An analogy would be buying a new 4 bedroom house with decent sized section, only to be told the developer has changed his/her mind and built an apartment complex instead and you have a little 2 bedroom apartment. They haven't delivered on what you bought, and the same applies to the invol downgrade situation.

Not exactly acceptable. The choices I could choose were to travel J on that flight or , as I did, find another flight where F was being offered. The OP had the same options. The only difference is that I happened to spot it in advance rather than not having checked the booking and finding out at the airport

With an AONEx there is explictly no refund for lack of 1st class. There would have been no compensation that I would expect with recalculation of the fare taking into account the mixed class on that 1 leg.

If I had been using that ticket and travelled the whole 1 way in J there would have been a refund between J and F since the fare would then have been cheaper. This would not apply to the OW flight

It may seem unfair, but as far as I can see, QF was correct in their response to the poster

Dave

So Dave Noble, the way I see things is that you are saying that if a person has a confirmed seat in F on a 3-class 744 and QF has an a/c change at the last minute to a 2-class 744 then that person must accept a downgrade with no compensation because they are still being offered the highest cabin available on the aircraft?

They have a choice to rebook on another flight that offers F or to accept travel in J. The would get any appropriate fare difference back - on an AONEx , there would be no fare difference to refund. On a full F ticket, if downgraded for a whole one way trip, then you could get refunded the appropiate difference between F and J

From the Qantas conditions of carriage

Dave

however... I wonder whether this section of the CoC actually constitute a valid contractual term?

obviously one of the material matters when buying a ticket is the travel itself, getting from A to B. Not getting the specific seat you want is fine, from a contractual standpoint (that is, any seat in the class for which you had paid would not be materially in breach of the contract).

However, the second part of the clause, which says you must accept a downgrade, or take the next flight... I wonder if that would be considered an unfair clause?

I'm not sure if it has ever been tested in a court.

If pressing the matter legally, the compensation due for a downgrade should be the fare applicable to the sector on which you were downgraded, less cost of the lower fare on the sector you travelled.

So if you booked SYD-SIN-LHR-SIN-SYD in business, but were involuntarily downgraded on the very last SIN-SYD sector to economy class, then I would be asking for compensation based on the difference between the business class and economy class fares for that single SIN-SYD sector (you could calculate that in which ever way would satisfy a test of reasonableness).

I would be seeking this compensation regardless of what the CoC says, because I'm not sure whether that part of the CoC could be relied on by QF.

Regards

lme ff

Does QF specifically exclude in the CoC that they do not have to re-book you on another carrier?

In the OP's case, could he successfully have argued with QF and got them to re-book him say SYD-HKG-JNB on CX or SYD-SIN-JNB on SQ? Or would QF have only allowed a re-book on other QF services?

Interestingly enough - with the OP's segment in question, QF does fly a mixture of 2-class, 3-class and 4-class flights.

I assume the obvious idea of the two-class flight being scheduled as normal has been discounted...

Resolution
 

Thanks for the comments above. It never occurred to me that the AONE4 fare rule could be applied to avoid compensation for a downgrade after ticketing. I have now received confirmation that such an interpretation of the rules is false.

According to QF Executive Relations in Australia, compensation is payable as this was an involuntary downgrade and since I was originally ticketed in F. She confirmed that the inaptly titled "Customer Relations Manager" in L.A. had erred in applying a fare rule in this case. Compensation of $1100 has been paid, apparently based on the fare difference between F and C on the SYD-JNB route.

I also received an apology for the way that the entire episode had been handled, and a voucher for $400.

Great to hear that you got the reimbursement that you were entitled too.

Very good of QF to offer the compensation voucher as well for the muck around from customer relations...although if they had sorted their stuff out in the first place you would have received the $1100 7 weeks ago!

Great news.^ It seems LHR/MEL/Europe FF was correct.

I guess it really depends upon whom within an organisation you communicate with. I will take note of the information in this thread should the need arise in the future.

The current involuntary downgrade ploicy is here: http://www.qantas.com.au/agents/dyn/qf/news/200809/0947

According to the refund table $1100 is indeed the fare adustment offered for a downgrade from first to business on that sector.