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Award ticket to FCO cancelled after few hours, options?

Award ticket to FCO cancelled after few hours, options?

Old Mar 20, 2020, 12:16 am
  #1  
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Award ticket to FCO cancelled after few hours, options?

Few hours ago I booked an award ticket to FCO from SGN, the booking status was confirmed and both flights SGN DOH and DOH FCO were confirmed. After 5-6 hours checking online my booking I noticed the status was changed to partially confirmed without any notification. Checking availability online QR 115 on 6th April is not anymore bookable, searching further they cancelled all flights to FCO expect one on 31-3.
What are my rights? Will they move me to 31-3 or they will leave me stranded in Vietnam? Awards on 31-3 are double miles, my booking was singles miles, since the flights was cancelled I will not have to pay anything, right? EU didn't ban incoming flights but incoming foreigners.
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Old Mar 20, 2020, 3:06 am
  #2  
 
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Call your privilege club membership line as soon as possible and ask them if they can get you on an earlier flight. Be completely flexible on dates and destination, maybe even from tomorrow if they are flying.

All airlines are cancelling huge chunks of their schedules as is being widely reported. Partly due to no passengers wanting or being allowed to fly, partly because they can't crew many destinations now due to entry restrictions at those and subsequent destinations.

It's not really a question of rights in the current climate. If you want to get back you may need to travel asap or face sitting it out where you are, as many governments are now advising their citizens. Otherwise you may only be due a refund or future travel voucher, as would be the case even on a EU airline, since your booking appears to be outside of 14 days and thus EU261 would not apply (even if force majeure wasn't in place). If QR can't carry you you may have to stay put or pay another carrier who can.
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Old Mar 20, 2020, 4:05 am
  #3  
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Originally Posted by Johnnieboy
Call your privilege club membership line as soon as possible and ask them if they can get you on an earlier flight. Be completely flexible on dates and destination, maybe even from tomorrow if they are flying.

All airlines are cancelling huge chunks of their schedules as is being widely reported. Partly due to no passengers wanting or being allowed to fly, partly because they can't crew many destinations now due to entry restrictions at those and subsequent destinations.

It's not really a question of rights in the current climate. If you want to get back you may need to travel asap or face sitting it out where you are, as many governments are now advising their citizens. Otherwise you may only be due a refund or future travel voucher, as would be the case even on a EU airline, since your booking appears to be outside of 14 days and thus EU261 would not apply (even if force majeure wasn't in place). If QR can't carry you you may have to stay put or pay another carrier who can.
I fully agree.
Because you are in Vietnam you might not realize that we are in a global crisis of unprecedented magnitude, at least in the airline industry. International longhaul is coming to a near halt.
I have enough friends stranded far from home to know that it is extremely difficult to get home.
If Rome is your home, try to get back ASAP and forget about your rights. QR might still have a couple of flights to regroup all their existing pax to FCO and try to get on them. Otherwise the only alternative is to get somewhere to catch an AZ flight. As AZ is the national airline and should be renationalized, there is hope they will continue flying even if going back to Italy is not a wonderful prospect.
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Old Mar 20, 2020, 5:15 am
  #4  
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Originally Posted by brunos
I fully agree.
Because you are in Vietnam you might not realize that we are in a global crisis of unprecedented magnitude, at least in the airline industry. International longhaul is coming to a near halt.
I have enough friends stranded far from home to know that it is extremely difficult to get home.
If Rome is your home, try to get back ASAP and forget about your rights. QR might still have a couple of flights to regroup all their existing pax to FCO and try to get on them. Otherwise the only alternative is to get somewhere to catch an AZ flight. As AZ is the national airline and should be renationalized, there is hope they will continue flying even if going back to Italy is not a wonderful prospect.
Hi, AZ has no flights to South est Asia, anyway I found two alternative dates with QR in the next days and I sent them an email asking to change the date free of charge to any date they want. One date has no award availability and the other has 2x miles, since the flight got cancelled I hope they will not ask for additional miles since I dont have or cash, I hope to be moved to a new flight for free.
Contact center is very busy, I wait for the email and I will keep you updated. They have two days availability so they should give me that option.
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Old Mar 20, 2020, 12:13 pm
  #5  
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Originally Posted by Luca Suomi
Hi, AZ has no flights to South est Asia, anyway I found two alternative dates with QR in the next days and I sent them an email asking to change the date free of charge to any date they want. One date has no award availability and the other has 2x miles, since the flight got cancelled I hope they will not ask for additional miles since I don’t have or cash, I hope to be moved to a new flight for free.
Contact center is very busy, I wait for the email and I will keep you updated. They have two days availability so they should give me that option.
AZ lies from HND and that would be a possibility with total flight duration no much longer than via DOH. But doubt that QR will reroute this way.

You are talking ten days from now and lots of things happen every day
QR seems to offer a solution on 31 March and I would take it whaever the cost. You can always claim some refund later. The other is the 22 March, but is awfully full, and unclear they would accommodate a recent award booking rather than to revenue pax booked on enarby days.

On the other days, they usually offer you 2-stops via another Europe gateway such as LHR, CDG or BRU. But quite a few of those fights are already not open for sale (zeroed). The EU-FCO flight is operated by AZ as other airlines a stopping their flights to Italy and AZ, the Italy national carrier, would be more reliable, But betting that three flights will be oerating 12 days from now is a big gamble,
My suggestion, try to get from QR the earliest possible date, even if shortens your holiday. From all local sources, the official statistics of SEA countries are a joke. Hence staying in VN might be a risk. And the risk of getting covid on board is not insignificant as mentioned by CX who closely followed the recent return of HK students from Many countries.

Last edited by brunos; Mar 23, 2020 at 7:23 am
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Old Mar 22, 2020, 10:00 pm
  #6  
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Updating the situation I am very disappointed with QR, the contact center is not working, I only managed to exchange 3 messages and got very unprofessional responses, I asked what happened to my flights and whether they could move me to any other available date of their choice.
First answer: You need to cancel four flights and everything will be refunded except non refundable award fees, so according to them they cancelled my flight and I should lose 75 usb.
Second answer: One of my flight is in economy class and they don't have award availability in economy
Third answer: they have no flights to FCO but the truth is that they are still selling flights on 29 and 31 march and 7th april. They wrote that my flights has been cancelled and I need to cancel my booking 3 days earlier or I am entitled to no refund. If they cancelled my flights why should I ask a refund 3 days earlier to departure date if there is no departure. How can I be charged a no show if my flight has been cancelled? According to this insane reply if they cancel your flight 3 days before departure you are doing a no show. Furthermore my cancellation have never been notified, I just noticed it checking with manage my booking, my flights were cancelled few hours after booking it.

I understand the situation with covid but QR is behaving in a very bad way, now I don't know if I should cancel now or wait for a miracle, my flight is on 5th April.
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Old Mar 23, 2020, 7:17 am
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Originally Posted by Luca Suomi
Updating the situation I am very disappointed with QR, the contact center is not working, I only managed to exchange 3 messages and got very unprofessional responses, I asked what happened to my flights and whether they could move me to any other available date of their choice.
First answer: You need to cancel four flights and everything will be refunded except non refundable award fees, so according to them they cancelled my flight and I should lose 75 usb.
Second answer: One of my flight is in economy class and they don't have award availability in economy
Third answer: they have no flights to FCO but the truth is that they are still selling flights on 29 and 31 march and 7th april. They wrote that my flights has been cancelled and I need to cancel my booking 3 days earlier or I am entitled to no refund. If they cancelled my flights why should I ask a refund 3 days earlier to departure date if there is no departure. How can I be charged a no show if my flight has been cancelled? According to this insane reply if they cancel your flight 3 days before departure you are doing a no show. Furthermore my cancellation have never been notified, I just noticed it checking with manage my booking, my flights were cancelled few hours after booking it.

I understand the situation with covid but QR is behaving in a very bad way, now I don't know if I should cancel now or wait for a miracle, my flight is on 5th April.
If you are somewhere close to a physical QR ticketing desk you might try your luck there, might be a better option than calling.
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Old Mar 23, 2020, 8:28 am
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Originally Posted by Freddorick
If you are somewhere close to a physical QR ticketing desk you might try your luck there, might be a better option than calling.
I wrote to the SGN ticketing office, they replied that since its an award ticket they cannot make any chance, its up to privilege club customer service. Clearly they have few flights but they dont want to honor award tickets, this is unacceptable, once they cancel a flight they should you move to another flight whatever is the award availability. I cannot believe this is the treatment after 5-6 years of stats
us with QR, Platinum for two years and now Silver after the enhancements. If they will not honor my award ticket and force me to buy a revenue ticket I will not fly QR anymore, but honestly after the 50% devaluation of the qmiles without notice I understood they couldnt be trusted, because a devaluation can be understood but without notice is a fraud, and this cancellation of an award ticket when they still have availability is another fraud.
I trusted you so much QR, for 4 years I fought you were the best airline.....now you leave me stranded in Vietnam forcing to come back with Aeroflot, because forget I buy a revenue ticket with you, that is a huge chance you will cancel the flight again and giving me a voucher......
From now in I will trust only EU airlines since they have to obey to European rules.
I will file a claim to the European authorities and to Iata, I will make a screen shoot of the flights availability and to the cancellation of my flight, that actually has never been notified officially, I had to write them to check the status.
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Old Mar 23, 2020, 9:38 am
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You need to call the privilege club number in Doha for your tier. You can find that under contact centre after logging in. Buy a local sim and suck up the cost.

I was in this very same position last week, called and it was all sorted after 5 minutes.

If you wait for written replies you will be missing the diminishing opportunities to fly.

But as your flight was cancelled more than 14 days in advance, you have no automatic rights to be reaccommodated. You are relying on goodwill and are more likely to get that by some phone schmoozing.

If you wait you will likely have to pay another airline to transport you, or stay where you are. Sorry to be blunt.
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Old Mar 23, 2020, 9:57 am
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Originally Posted by Johnnieboy
You need to call the privilege club number in Doha for your tier. You can find that under contact centre after logging in. Buy a local sim and suck up the cost.

I was in this very same position last week, called and it was all sorted after 5 minutes.

If you wait for written replies you will be missing the diminishing opportunities to fly.

But as your flight was cancelled more than 14 days in advance, you have no automatic rights to be reaccommodated. You are relying on goodwill and are more likely to get that by some phone schmoozing.

If you wait you will likely have to pay another airline to transport you, or stay where you are. Sorry to be blunt.
I have already contacted them via contact center by writing, they said they have no award seats. Anyway the cancellation has never been notified and departure is now in 11 days. But since is not originating from EU and QR is not European guess there is no compensation
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Old Mar 23, 2020, 9:17 pm
  #11  
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Originally Posted by Luca Suomi
I wrote to the SGN ticketing office, they replied that since it’s an award ticket they cannot make any chance, it’s up to privilege club customer service. Clearly they have few flights but they don’t want to honor award tickets, this is unacceptable, once they cancel a flight they should you move to another flight whatever is the award availability. I cannot believe this is the treatment after 5-6 years of stats
us with QR, Platinum for two years and now Silver after the enhancements. If they will not honor my award ticket and force me to buy a revenue ticket I will not fly QR anymore, but honestly after the 50% devaluation of the qmiles without notice I understood they couldn’t be trusted, because a devaluation can be understood but without notice is a fraud, and this cancellation of an award ticket when they still have availability is another fraud.
I trusted you so much QR, for 4 years I fought you were the best airline.....now you leave me stranded in Vietnam forcing to come back with Aeroflot, because forget I buy a revenue ticket with you, that is a huge chance you will cancel the flight again and giving me a voucher......
From now in I will trust only EU airlines since they have to obey to European rules.
I will file a claim to the European authorities and to Iata, I will make a screen shoot of the flights availability and to the cancellation of my flight, that actually has never been notified officially, I had to write them to check the status.
I fully understand your frustration. But your rant does not take into account the current total chaos. You have to decide where you want to be in the near future. If you wish to go back to Rome, do it today despite the heavy cost. Singapore and Hong Kong are now closed to transit. It is likely that other airports will also close down transit and only allow their nationals to enter.
PS: EU airlines would be forced to legally refund you the miles and whatever fee you paid. But that's it. And most EU airlines are currently not even abiding and simply giving a voucher for revenue tickets.
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Old Mar 23, 2020, 9:49 pm
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Originally Posted by brunos
I fully understand your frustration. But your rant does not take into account the current total chaos. You have to decide where you want to be in the near future. If you wish to go back to Rome, do it today despite the heavy cost. Singapore and Hong Kong are now closed to transit. It is likely that other airports will also close down transit and only allow their nationals to enter.
PS: EU airlines would be forced to legally refund you the miles and whatever fee you paid. But that's it. And most EU airlines are currently not even abiding and simply giving a voucher for revenue tickets.
I agree I have to find other ways to get home, to only alternative from SGN is Aeroflot unless the lazy Italian government organizes special flights like Germany did, bring 120k citizens back with charter flights.
I have been traveling only with QR for long haul in the last 6 years, I feel so much betrayed that they are treating my award ticket early in Business class with a much lower priority than revenue tickets.
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Old Mar 27, 2020, 6:59 am
  #13  
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Last update, after many message to PC customer service now in my ticket there are 4 different flights SGN DOH FCO in 4 different dates all not confirmed what does it mean? I didn’t get any notification about this new ticket.
5-4 status not confirmed (the originally booked flight), these segments are officially cancelled
31-3, 4-4, 7-4 status not confirmed but the flights exists, not cancelled for now.
What’s does it mean that they are working on it and they will hopefully confirm one of this date? If nothing is confirmed on 31-3 should I go to the airport? The booking office in SGN cannot deal with award tickets and PC customer care doesn’t reply or answer the phone.
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Old Mar 27, 2020, 9:16 am
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Try the Privilege Club Greater China contact centre. If the situation is not getting better, I advise you to book any ticket to get home ASAP and perhaps deal with your award ticket later.
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Old Mar 27, 2020, 9:23 am
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Like other airlines, QR has no precise vision of what flights they will operate in a week time.
But what you see on your booking would indicate that they are working on your case. They have tentatively put you on all the days they are planning to operate.

QR is doing a great job of continuing operations despite all the travel restrictions.
The flights to SGN are mostly empty, but it looks like you get a good chance to fly SGN-DOH-FCO on 31/3. I would try hard to get on this one.
But a lot of things can happen in 3 days time.
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