Hi everyone,
Just wanting some advice on what my rights are and where I can go from here as I am quite frustrated and receiving no sympathy from the Qantas rep at all.
It's probably easier if I tell the story in dot points:
- in September, Qantas had a double ff points promotion for hotel bookings so I made a reservation for November at special 30 days advanced room rates, received a confirmation email from Qantas and the full amount was charged to my credit card (24 September).
- in November, before I was due to arrive at the hotel, I sent an email enquiry to which the hotel advised they had no booking under my name. After some email ping pong between the hotel, Qantas (and also Expedia because the Qantas rep incorrectly advised that I made the booking via Expedia), Qantas contacted me and admitted there was an error on their international system and therefore my booking was actually not successful at the time of booking. They had processed a full refund and offered no alternative solution.
- I responded advising that was not my desired outcome given that this was their systems fault and why they had not contacted me earlier to advise my booking was not successful (I had a confirmation email and money was taken from my account!!!!) - I requested compensation for the price difference based on current room rates, the double points I was entitled to and compensation for my inconvenience in the form of qff points. I felt that was a reasonable request given the circumstances, especially given they've had my money for the last 6 weeks… It could have been sitting in my account earning me interest :)
- Qantas just replied with an email repeating that it was due to the system, my booking was unsuccessful and that I am not entitled to any compensation.
Ok, so here I am, extremely pissed off, no hotel reservation and no double points.
I feel that Qantas should honour the booking as had I not contacted the hotel, they would not have found out about the error and had I been advised earlier that my reservation was not successful, I could have re attempted or made other arrangements.
I know the situation could have been much worst… I could have rocked up to the hotel to find out there was no booking etc but argh, I just feel so annoyed because they've admitted their systems stuffed up and have shown absolutely no compassion.
Basically, I'd like some advice on what my rights are? Can I escalate the issue? Is it worth taking to Fair Trading or something?
Thanks in advance :)
While you can bet that the Qantas hotels booking page has a wad of fine-print absolving them in advance of all sins and denying any liability whatsoever for errors and/or malfunctions, it has been my experience that polite, but nagging perseverance is the way to arrive at a successful conclusion in the face of Qantas intransigence. Keep writing and complaining and firmly but gently demand that the matter be escalated to supervisor level, or higher, at the very least.
For what it's worth, some years ago I was denied service of alcohol on a Qantas flight to London "because of your state". This knock-back was delivered loudly and stridently and overheard by dozens of other passengers.
I was initially taken aback and utterly gobsmacked, but eventually quizzed the flight attendant as to what he was taking about. He replied that the flight supervisor has told him that my name was "Mr X" and that I was an British citizen who was being deported and, of course, I was not allowed to consume alcohol. I ramped-up at this stage and waved my boarding pass into his smug face, advising him in my most vociferous and colourful strine that I neither was I "Mr X", nor was I a Brit. He immediately apologised (at least he had the decency to do so loudly) and served me a beer. At this stage I asked (quite politely) to speak to the flight supervisor and was told that this was not possible because he was too "frightened" to come down to the rear of the cattle truck to see me, so I copped it sweet at that time.
On my return to Oz, I bombarded Qantas with a series of "diplomatic" complaint emails - I met zero success for the first 3-4 emails, but finally I ended-up with a decent response, namely a formal apology and a business class upgrade for my next international flight.