Help on Changing Qantas Flights and Whinge

LBrissietex on 24/08/2023 - 10:33
Last edited 24/08/2023 - 14:59 by 1 other user

Good day everyone,

Just a general whinge and possibly some advice would be great.

Background: I booked flights to LA for myself and wife a few days ago with Qantas. The fares were classified as sale so I thought they were the best that I could hope for. According to Skyscanner, they were pretty good considering. I hated forking out $4.5k for something that would've been priced less than $3k pre-covid but I had my parents wanting an itinerary to plan for our holiday state-side so bit pressured for awhile to do so.

Anyway, this morning Qantas put out new sale price for more direct flights (our booked flights go thru Sydney) for dates that we have booked flights for. The flights now cost $2.5k total in the sale and they are direct. The "sale" fare as I now will put in quotes since Qantas wants you to now always think you get a "sale" price for the cheapest tier of flights tho it really isn't a "sale" price in fair terms.

As you can tell, I am not happy effectively losing $2k for essentially crappier flights especially when I thought the fares were best I could get since they were classed by Qantas as "sale" fares. Cancellation of "sale" fares is set to $500 per passenger. Not really sure if I can get refund or flight credit but Qantas is not very clear which can be given. I called Qantas customer service and could not get a clear enough answer though agent was pretty clear about the cancellation fee (must be a script thing).

Does anyone have any suggestions what to do at this point? I normally don't like travelling with Qantas on own coin so this has soured my opinion of them even further.

Thanks

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Comments

  • sumyungguy on 24/08/2023 - 10:48

    Date change looks like $225 per booking? You could move the dearer flights to 2024, look forward to a return visit?

  • randomusername2017 on 24/08/2023 - 10:52

    Wear the $1k cancellation and rebook $2k cheaper?

    Wait for the sale on "sale" sale tickets that are not available to book now but may be available at a lower price tomorrow?

  • boomramada on 24/08/2023 - 10:53

    Does anyone have any suggestions what to do at this point?

    Call customer center and ask them to charge, which will cost you cancellation fee + booking fee. Just ask them, how much does it cost you too change flights?

  • djkelly69 on 24/08/2023 - 10:56
    +1

    I'll be honest, I don't think you are going to get much sympathy here. You agreed to pay a price, it got cheaper not long after, it happens. Not sure if there are any price-drop guarantee credit cards which cover flights, but who knows.

    Having said that, if your BNE-SYD flights were connecting to QF11 at 10.20am, you may have some luck depending on your departure date. QF11 is apparently changing to a 5.15pm departure most days from late March 2024. If your flight is affected, you should be able to claim that the flight is no longer suitable and either switch to a more suitable flight (eg. a direct one) or get a refund.

  • TheMindsetTraveller on 24/08/2023 - 11:02
    +8

    If the fares went up, do you think it's OK for the airline to charge you the new increased fare?

    Timing is the issue here, if the sale happened two months later, you probably won't feel as whingey if you know what I mean.

  • jjjaar on 24/08/2023 - 11:38
    +16

    Yeah this is a good lesson in why you stop looking for flights after you’ve bought them.

  • skid on 24/08/2023 - 13:45

    Agree with the last two comments above. I would have said all of that and add that Qantas may sympathise at time of check-in and give you both a surprise seat upgrade. Happened to me pre-covid times.

  • Lunarboogie on 24/08/2023 - 19:22
    +2

    You're about to gallivant around California when many of us are struggling to pay rent and yet feel entitled to whinge. Get some perspective.

    • Brissietex on 30/08/2023 - 17:03

      Lol gallivanting around Cali would be great but since I haven't seen my family there since 2018 due to covid and my family hasn't met my wife (married in 2021) yet, gallivanting isn't really on the cards. My nephew getting married forced our usual more local holiday plans as well. I have lived on doing these international flights for almost thirty years as my primary holiday budget and the cost of such has definitely kept my other holidays to tents and other low budget options. Just a matter of priorities, I guess.

  • ifyareckon on 25/08/2023 - 12:59

    Feel free to check fares again closer to departure when they are much higher than yours. That will hopefully make you feel better about what you paid.

  • CuteWittleCorgi on 28/08/2023 - 10:59

    Whinge away. Misery loves company. A month ago, my family and friends and I (6 adults) booked for $2,600 each MEL > LAX > SYD (stopover) > MEL. The exact same dates today for MEL > LAX > MEL (direct) are $1,300 each. That's $7,800 into the void, for worse (stopover) tickets.

  • MELso on 28/08/2023 - 14:59

    You paid for a fare, presumably with change and/or cancellation fees - if the new fares are cheaper than your original ones even after paying the fee, then suck up the fee and change.

    You can probably cost out how much it will cost to change through Qantas' website under the manage booking function.

  • Brissietex on 28/08/2023 - 16:17

    Thanks everyone. I pretty much knew what ppl would say but needed to vent. $2k "loss" is no small amount of money nowadays after all.

    Wife talked me off the proverbial ledge. I am more disappointed that Qantas classifies something as a sale price when in reality it really isn't. Customer service representative wasn't helpful so am going to contact a few mates in the travel industry to see what my options are. Probably just reschedule the first leg so we can spend more time with our family before the wedding we are attending.

    Cheers

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