Customer Care - does it exist
 

Does anyone know how to reach someone at Qantas who will respond to a customer complaint? I have completed the online form and faxed a letter, about an involuntary downgrade from F to J, but cannot get any response.

How Long have you given them to respond?

The phone number is 02 9691 3636

Dave

I waited 4 weeks after filing online and it has been another 2 weeks since I faxed them.

This is unusual. QF normally has a quick turnaround regarding those things. You must have been very unlucky. I only have good things to say about their customer service but then again, I am one of their Frequent Flyers.

The online form generally gets you a response fairly quickly.

If you sent a fax to the Customer Care fax number listed at:
http://www.qantas.com.au/needhelp/dy...Contacts#jump0
then I don't think anyone bothers to reply to those. I've sent a couple of detailed faxes to that number (after being bounced around by whoever answers the online form) and never got a single response whatsoever.

Well, after 7 weeks, 1 follow-up e-mail, 1 fax and 1 phone call, I finally received a response.

Regarding the time delay, the response was: "I am sorry that our reply took longer than you would have liked, but we do reply to each customer personally and have not outsourced customer care to another country or company. Replying to each and every customer can take some time and again, I apologize." My thought: perhaps it is time to outsource.

The real kicker in the response, however, was: "I have had our ticketing experts review your booking history and they advise that your British Airways ticket was issued on an AONE4 FARE - ROUND-THE WORLD. This discounted airfare does not provide any compensation for downgrades whatsoever." This is absolutely ridiculous, suggesting that Qantas can downgrade passengers from first to business class as they wish.

Any ideas on how I should pursue this further?

Send a letter personally addressed to Geoff Dixon stating that the response from QF CR is unacceptable.

Geoff Dixon
Managing Director
Qantas Airways Limited
Qantas Centre
203 Coward Street
Mascot NSW 2020
Australia

Its a bit hard to advise you without further details of what actually happened...

It would help to know on what flight you were downgraded.

If it was ex-Europe then you have every right to EU compensation of up to 75% of "the fare".

Maybe this is where a QF bashing journalist could come in handy...;)

I'm sure that someone from the media would be interested to know that Qantas downgraded you, refused to compensate you and then took 7 weeks to tell you that you won't be compensated "whatsoever".

Obviously my comments are very tongue in cheek. I would exhaust all options of trying to contact QF and getting a resolution from them before doing anything else. Maybe BA might be able to push QF into getting off their behinds and doing something?

compo
 

Here in the UK ( or can find any tenuous tie) there is something called Money Claim Online www.moneyclaim.gov.uk . You apply online to go to small claims court, the process is very automated and the total cost is about £35 and completing an online application form. I use it a lot when companies are unreasonable and from experience Qantas customer service is rubbish. When they receive the court papers they respond pretty fast and compensate you.

Be aware though that you cannot just go down this path without trying to get the issue first resolved through normal channels. If it does get to court and your seen to frequently use the moneyclaim option, the judge will likely classify you as a vexatious litigant and deny your claim. Something to think about before hitting the web.

FWIW, I recently went down this path with BA.

I'm not sure of legal proceedings in Australia (being a New Zealander), but we have a similar system here called the Disputes Tribunal.

As Traveloguy mentioned though, it is best to exhaust all other channels before taking legal proceedings. Although I do agree with Planetary that when a company receives a court summons then they generally get a bit of shock and, voila, your complaint is all of a sudden resolved in super quick time. In NZ, the court even advocates filing a claim just to get the other party moving on the issue.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I faxed a letter to the Qantas CEO and received a voice mail message the next day from someone in Qantas Executive Relations that they are looking into this.

Amazing how GD's section (soon to be AJ's section) can manage to do things which the rest of the airline says they can't do. Funny that....

Dave