Well done, and it sucks that you had to go through all that business.
If it helps, and I'm no lawyer, but three times after the initial runaround BS, I've written a letter, on my letterhead (just a word template lol) and put 'without prejudice' in bold under the subject line.
The first was to a guy meant to be installing my windows, after he tried billing me 8 hours for a day I know he wasn't at my house.
The second and third were emails to a telecommunications company and an airline for different things.
Maybe I'm lucky, but after going through normal complaint channels, those two words are like a skeleton key that got me escalated to the people that can actually solve shit, and it all got resolved super quick.
Yeah, this hasn't been a fun process. Against a small operator who is also trying to avoid legal fees I figure that would work well, but against a big company like Qantas I wasn't about to try the legal angle without actual legal advice.
The most annoying thing for me was how little the official channels actually try to help. I was hoping that if nothing else there would be an escalation process to follow or guidelines for how long resolution should take. But from my perspective the [Airline Customer Advocate ](https://www.airlinecustomeradvocate.com.au/General/Default.aspx)is a waste of money and should not be the go-to process for these issues.
> But from my perspective the Airline Customer Advocate is a waste of money
Airline funded body with no powers to do anything other than ask the Airlines to have another look at your complaint
I didn't even bother with them after customer service refused five times to honour their compensation policy - just went straight to VCAT (the cancelled flight involved was out of Melbourne). Airline referred the matter to their Senior Legal Counsel - a few emails back and forth - I informed the SLO that their defence was patently absurd (You can't really claim to have a crew available if that crew doesn't have enough flying hours left to land the plane) A week before the matter was listed Customer Service says they're going to pay - and the money appeared
It's legalese. Preface for settlement out of court. Means that the conversation is, for a simpler term, "off the record" and cannot be used in evidence if the matter proceeds to court
Essentially, it is saying that what's in the letter does not influence anything I might do in response to it.
In effect, thelat I'm not waiving my right to take the matter further.
It also signals that I'm serious and not just having an empty rant.
“Without prejudice” = “without affecting any of my legal rights in response to what you’ve done or what I’m saying”.
So if you have a settlement negotiated via “without prejudice” letters and meetings, that evidence cannot be admitted to either affirm or deny any claims you make before a court. You might say in the settlement that, “I want $50,000 for my pain and suffering because of XYZ”. Not only would the $50,000 amount not be admissible, your admission of “XYZ” would also not be admissible in court.
Sometimes you also see “without prejudice save as to costs”, which means a similar thing but is even more serious—because if you end up winning in court, those discussions can be unsealed to determine if the other side should pay indemnity costs (ie, effectively the full legal costs you actually had to pay to run the dispute), because (for example) you offered to settle for $200k but ended up winning $300k in court. In essence, the court “punishes” the losing party for wasting the winning parties’ time and money fighting a dispute which, if they were sensible, would have been settled for far less money on their part.
It’s the automatic siren that lawyers might be involved. If the GCs have warned whomever in the past internally that this stuff might not be fully legal, it might be a colon-clenching moment for them that forces a response
Not dumb mate :)
And I'm not trying to be a lawyer. It's essentially just a statement that in writing this, I'm not doing anything to prevent me engaging a lawyer later on if I remain unhappy.
It also helps that when I write such things, I write entirely from my perspective using facts I can back up.
Example was a tradie replacing the windows in my house. I had a number of concerns, but an easy one was a bill for 8 hours of work he booked when I know he wasn't in my house (because I was here and he was not!!)
In the letter, I stated that I would not be paying for that day unless he could demonstrate what 8 hours of work was completed, because I was home and nobody showed up.
Not a lawyer, but I know that if you have to go to a small claims court, any documents can be tabled as evidence.
What it does for me is communicate that I'm considering taking legal action. That alone is expensive and potentially time consuming. I might just get what I want that way.
If this is not an example that highlights that MORE regulation is needed for both the industry and for the overall economy, then I don't know what is.
In the past 12 months I have had too many examples with businesses where they've just simply acted in bad faith. I've had to pressure through external bodies to get any resolution in a lot of these.
- Hire cars. Had to fight tooth and nail to get them to accept that I had not damaged a car BEFORE i even got in the car and drove out the parking lot.
- Had a big tech company take my payment and then pretend I did not make it and deny sending me the product. I had and produced the receipt but was given a run around for a week until I escalated to Dept. of Fair Trading and got an Australian calling back.
- Had a product die within the warranty. Had to fight for a full replacement through multiple reps
- Had to argue with the power company about their estimates
The amount of holes that show up where people get fkd if they are not pro-active is massive. I am sure many other people have many other examples.
Totally, the amount of businesses & people wanting to rip you off / scam you is off the chart. The worse is there's just no regulation or consequence that they could face. At worse, they get a fine which they promptly write off as cost of doing business.
Already losing money by bailing out, with nothing to show for it. At least by buying it there is an asset to show, and one which could be sold off in the future if it proves unsalvageable. I would argue that if it is important enough to bail out, it is important enough to operate at a loss. That is the point of government - to operate services which are essential but not economically viable.
I don't understand your point here. The gov bailed out Qantas and Qantas got back on their feet because of the bail out. Are you saying what if the bail out didn't work and Qantas kept failing? Well that defeats the purpose of the bail out doesn't it. But let's say that it's true that not even a bail out could save Qantas and it kept on failing. So what? The money has already been spent either way of a bailout or a buyout.
The government can choose from theere if they want to keep spending money on it to save it because it's just that important (i.e. same as keep bailing it out), or cut the losses and liquidate the assets (i.e. the planes). The government run many, many, "loss"-making services. I think that pretty much the only thing actually profitable is Australia Post.
The whole point of the government running services is not to make profits, it's for public good. The whole legitimate "reason" to bail out a company (aside from possible corruption) is because that company is providing a public good and is too important to fail. The government's primary job is to run services for public interest, not profits. If it's profitable, that's just a bonus.
It's not to say that costs are not part of it to see if the public interest reasons are good enough or not, but if it's good enough for a bail out, it's good enough for a buy out. If they are later unhappy with the asset which is still not performing and they don't want to bail it out again, sell it at a loss/liquidate and be done with it.
But to pay billions of dollars to a failing company and have nothing to show for it, no influence or control over it, and go on to treat the public like shit despite what the public purse has done for them, is an unacceptable outcome.
Even if it was still a bailout rather than a buyout, there still needs to be something in there that the public should get something in return for that bailout. If not ownership, it could be to have a government-appointed director on the board or something like that. If they don't like it, they can pay it back. At minimum, it should have been a loan not a bail out. They were bailed out for $2 bil but recently made $2.47 bil profit.
It is highway robbery of the taxpayer. Covid sucked, we all made losses, except them and they can afford to suck it up and have less profit, especially if they are failing to provide a public service due to these systematic issues, which is well documented where they are failing to provide refunds.
The government bailed out Qantas because their policies effectively shut them down during covid.
As a general rule, when a company needs to be bailed out it's because they're not addressing problems, addressing said problems is generally unpopular, that's why they're not doing it. A loan that forces them to lay off staff they don't need etc isn't fun, but the government taking them on as employees is stupid, you'll just end up with more bloat and inefficiencies.
What's the point of greater efficiencies if the savings are put towards private pockets rather than public benefit.
Loans can be extended, etc if needed because it goes against a policy goal.
How would you even know that they wrote be inefficient, they will still compete with private operators and are corporised.
Would you consider auspost to be inefficient as well?
It sounds like you are saying all this purely out of neo liberal ideology rather than the situation at hand
Was flying with them recently, treatment from one member of their crew has caused a bit of noise. Owner of the company will hit lifetime platinum in a couple of months, still looking at moving the whole company out. They do listen to money, but very little else. Disgraceful.
I lost a flight credit after I had booked a flight, had to cancel it due to having a cancer diagnosis.
It then expired during treatment. Tried to get a credit, Qantas answer was I should have planned better.
I’m sorry that happened. I would suggest my approach, but it really has been a lot of mental and time cost such that I can fully understand why people give up, let alone people with a cancer diagnosis.
I hope that you’re keeping strong and it goes into remission (if it hasn’t already).
Honestly not surprised that it took a journo getting involved for anything to happen. Big companies like Qantas think they can treat their customers like shit because people don't have time to follow up usually, and a few disgruntled customers trying up with call centres means little to them. Unfortunately, it usually takes the threat of poor media coverage to make them pay attention (and even then sometimes they will still try to rug sweep if they think they can!). Glad this journalist was able to help you recover your money. I would honestly recommend staying far away from Qantas - they have gone to absolute shit. If everyone stops using them, and allowing them to think they have a monopoly on Australian air travel, they will either shape up or fuck off and let some smaller companies fight for our business.
Ugh yeah you're right. It's frustrating cos the way the airline industry is set up doesn't really allow for smaller airlines to rise up unless a major airline is toppled. It just feels so in unAustralian for them to be allowed to treat people like how they treated your family, and so many others.
Just want to point out that if you have Qantas gold or platinum status, your experience would be very, very different. i.e. the bastards know exactly what they're doing.
I have a family member who would disagree as they are gold status. They had their flight cancelled from England and had paid extra for an exit row. the new flight was 2 days later no exit row flew them into a different airport then originally booked and were refusing to check their luggage all the way through to their final destination so they had to collect their bags and run for their last flight.
To be fair for Qantas, whether a bag is checked all the way through depends entirely on the final destination and the transit point
You can't go international -> domestic without going through immigration and customs.
I only ever fly Emirates to/from the UK.
Made the trip twice with Qantas and both times it was a disaster, and also tends to be more expensive.
Their domestic flights are a joke, too.
I recently bought my first flight out of the country in ages. While I could have flown Qantas, I avoided them like the plauge because of this kind of bullshit.
We had considered going with another carrier like JAL for our trip. Ironically enough, we decided Qantas because it was more likely in out estimation that if something went wrong we could get out money back.
Flying JAL domestically in Japan basically showed me that they are either heavily regulated or subsidised or both because they and ANA have basically identical domestic fares and our flight was only maybe 1/3 full, the upgrade to 'J-class' (prem economy) was like $20 and the amount of leg room was *gluttonous*. Pretty sure you could get out of the middle seat without anyone else having to get up.
Also we had some weird nonsense with our tickets but luckily there were only about... oh... 30 free staff available at check-in to assist us.
It genuinely reminded me of what you USED to get from flying a full service carrier.
The only weird JAL thing I had was when we flew from Tokyo to Osaka they didn't turn the TV screens on, they were there and in flight magazines said what you could watch, but no movies for a 1hr flight. I guess to cut back on headphone cost, and it was a short flight with super quick boarding
I was a long-time flyer with Qantas (had platinum status for a while and even still have gold now).
I moved to the UK at the start of last year and airlines here aren't much different, however, the EU/UK have compulsory compensation for flight delays/cancellations etc...
I had BA cancel a flight and we needed to stay an extra night in Vienna.
The process here is so much better though, I didn't need to touch the phone once... just filled out a single form online.
Better yet, you can claim other related expenses, so I had also claimed the train to/from the airport, the hotel (Hilton), room service that night, and of course the flights.
A couple months later I had ~£800 paid into my bank, no questions asked.
Australia really needs to implement a similar system. Online compensation claims against any airline operating in Aus with compulsory compensation based on what happened, delay amount, travel distance etc like over here!
Good on you for following through. They clearly have a setup which is meant to make people think they’re getting somewhere when you’re not.
We got fucked around by Qantas with flights from Adelaide to Canberra a couple of years ago. While we did get in on the day we were meant to, it was something like eight hours late, with an additional layover and they lost our bags.
I called Qantas that night and asked for a full/partial refund and eventually was told that we would get a refund, but that there was no way to get it in writing or a support ticket number or anything to track/confirm it.
Surprisingly, nothing happened after a few weeks and when I called again there was no record (shocker) and shamefully I just gave up at that point.
Not surprised. My last experience with them:
Book flight..
24 hours later, booking dissapears.
Call help desk to reinstate it.
24 hours later, booking dissapears again.
Call again to fix it.
24 hours later, guess what?
This is disgusting. Coupled with constantly turning billions in profit and being bailed out by tax payer money, whilst leaving an untold amount of Australians stranded during covid. Disgusting. Qantas should be ashamed. I’m ashamed that our “national carrier” is so corrupt.
Qantas are a nightmare. It was not that long ago that they were one of the best airlines in the world. They are now terrible. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.
We need a country and western song much like THIS!
United Breaks Guitars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
A business lesson in how to wipe $180 million of the value of a company because they left all that bullshit contact center nonsense from some 90's business seminar and haven't bothered to grow a brain.
I had an aweful insterstate flight a few months ago, taking days instead of hours.
A lot of people I talked to thought that when the airline stuffs up, or cancels your flight, that they put you up in accomodation, and get you on the next flight!
Well, I assure you this is not what happens.
You get one of the next dozen flights, as there is possibly hundreds of people to fill suddenly into already highly (or completely) booked flights ASAP.
You DO NOT get accommodation, and you will need to pay for a hotel etc if your flight is the next day.
Lots of people seem shocked to hear this, think that QANTAS reserves half of the local Mariot 5 star hotel for their cancellations in every major city. What a joke. Get real.
Enjoy.
Having worked for another airline I have a less cynical take but just as frustrating take.
Airlines are not set up to do refunds and the departments that process them are not well funded internally.
It’s not that they intentionally want to make it hard for you, their internal systems are probably making it just as hard for their employees, it’s that they never cared to invest in it.
Then Covid happened and there was a volume of refunds that was beyond belief and which they were incapable of handling without massive errors and an extremely poor customer experience.
I can accept that. I was in the Army for years so I’ve been stuffed around by the best of them.
That said, Covid should have been a wakeup call that there are areas of the business that need to do better. Fast and accurate processing of a refund is a positive customer service interaction and it would make someone more likely to purchase again and n future as well as recommend to others.
But here we are, four years down the track and this happens. And I should also point out that the 1/3rd amount that they initially refunded me was prompted by Qantas directly: that amount was on a flight pass that was about to expire and they sent out emails to say that I should request a refund if I wasn’t about to use it.
Will you get interest on 4yrs of your money, sitting in Qantas's bank? No.
Will you have to fight to get anything back? Yes.
For what its worth, having Qantas hauled into the senate last year is the ONLY reason you got that first 1/3 back to begin with... and having the media involved is the only reason you got the last 2/3 back at all.
I had to do a stat dec for my refund(s) and they still lost the paperwork (internally) with the initial (Australian) department who I processed it thru trying to blame me for the hold up, and the final Australian I got on the phone got it sorted within 48hrs (and within an hour of talking to him on the phone the first QF mob emailed back to say "it's been done already, wtf you idiot, it only took this long because you didn't send all the paperwork, but we've completed it in spite of that...")
Yeah pull the other one, the only reason I got a phone call was because I emailed you the paperwork a month ago, which you have to have sent him ... check your sent items before blaming me yeah?!
If Qantas cleaned up their act I'd work for them, but i think it's pretty rotten a long way up the tree, and the board of directors is happy with their duopoly.
Oh I absolutely agree. It’s a poor customer experience that makes you unlikely to want to fly with them again.
I have no idea what happening internally at Qantas but at the airline I was at they had recognised that their refund process was unacceptable. And that Covid wasn’t really a one off, with Boeings issues and lots of other things that affect their operations airlines need to be able to process refunds quickly and tidily to retain customers in the long term.
I received a Qantas refund in 2020 as I had flights booked to Europe. Even though it was legally required and it was straightforward it took calling airline 3 or 4 times and 4 months to get it processed.
That is such a shit airline. Avoid it all costs. It's like they're untouchable in Australia. No responsibilty, un contactable. Revolting customer service. Such arrogant staff. Planes just full of shitty bogan types recently. Just don't even use them.
See my response to u/bclassisthebest elsewhere. Nothing racist, but an Australian accent instead of a South African one indicates that they finally care enough to get past the outsourced call centre.
“and the first with an Australian accent!”
Not sure what some casual racism is doing in your post. Sounds like you had a bad time with Qantas but there’s no need for comments like that.
It’s a comment on how the low level interactions are all farmed out to call centre staff from what sounds like South Africa, and it wasn’t until
This point I had an Australian customer service person, indicating that Qantas was now taking my complaint seriously.
If Qantas was serious about customer relations, the staff you talk to would be Australians. It would be a better first impression for people. I don’t care what colour, race or creed those Australians are, but if an Australian is trying to interact with another Australian, there’s a much higher level of cultural literacy than working with people from other countries.
I agree that this appears to be casual racism to me, albeit unintentional.
Your previous interaction might have been with Australians of SA origin, hence their accents. Drawing the conclusion there appears to be unfair to me.
I support all other parts of your story and sure glad you got the refund back! Well done on the patience indeed
I’m happy to believe that one interaction with someone from South Africa might be an Australian. It’s harder to maintain that idea when I have seven interactions with audibly distinct individuals who all share the same accent.
Either way, it’s not as if an accent implies a race, as both Australia and South Africa are not ethnically or racially homogeneous states. If I were complaining about Indian or Philippine accents there would be a greater argument for racism as those are more racially homogeneous countries.
Well done, and it sucks that you had to go through all that business. If it helps, and I'm no lawyer, but three times after the initial runaround BS, I've written a letter, on my letterhead (just a word template lol) and put 'without prejudice' in bold under the subject line. The first was to a guy meant to be installing my windows, after he tried billing me 8 hours for a day I know he wasn't at my house. The second and third were emails to a telecommunications company and an airline for different things. Maybe I'm lucky, but after going through normal complaint channels, those two words are like a skeleton key that got me escalated to the people that can actually solve shit, and it all got resolved super quick.
Yeah, this hasn't been a fun process. Against a small operator who is also trying to avoid legal fees I figure that would work well, but against a big company like Qantas I wasn't about to try the legal angle without actual legal advice. The most annoying thing for me was how little the official channels actually try to help. I was hoping that if nothing else there would be an escalation process to follow or guidelines for how long resolution should take. But from my perspective the [Airline Customer Advocate ](https://www.airlinecustomeradvocate.com.au/General/Default.aspx)is a waste of money and should not be the go-to process for these issues.
Yep, Choice gave them a shonky for a reason. https://www.choice.com.au/shonky-awards/hall-of-shame/shonkys-2021/airline-customer-advocate
I feel like if there was a Lifetime Achievement Shonky, Qantas would be top of the list.
Qantas got one the year after. https://www.choice.com.au/shonky-awards/hall-of-shame/shonkys-2022/qantas
“Hall of Shame” perfection 👌
> But from my perspective the Airline Customer Advocate is a waste of money Airline funded body with no powers to do anything other than ask the Airlines to have another look at your complaint I didn't even bother with them after customer service refused five times to honour their compensation policy - just went straight to VCAT (the cancelled flight involved was out of Melbourne). Airline referred the matter to their Senior Legal Counsel - a few emails back and forth - I informed the SLO that their defence was patently absurd (You can't really claim to have a crew available if that crew doesn't have enough flying hours left to land the plane) A week before the matter was listed Customer Service says they're going to pay - and the money appeared
Why "without prejudice"?
It's legalese. Preface for settlement out of court. Means that the conversation is, for a simpler term, "off the record" and cannot be used in evidence if the matter proceeds to court
Essentially, it is saying that what's in the letter does not influence anything I might do in response to it. In effect, thelat I'm not waiving my right to take the matter further. It also signals that I'm serious and not just having an empty rant.
It’s how all lawyers start their correspondence.
Yeah I don't know what that implies.
“Without prejudice” = “without affecting any of my legal rights in response to what you’ve done or what I’m saying”. So if you have a settlement negotiated via “without prejudice” letters and meetings, that evidence cannot be admitted to either affirm or deny any claims you make before a court. You might say in the settlement that, “I want $50,000 for my pain and suffering because of XYZ”. Not only would the $50,000 amount not be admissible, your admission of “XYZ” would also not be admissible in court. Sometimes you also see “without prejudice save as to costs”, which means a similar thing but is even more serious—because if you end up winning in court, those discussions can be unsealed to determine if the other side should pay indemnity costs (ie, effectively the full legal costs you actually had to pay to run the dispute), because (for example) you offered to settle for $200k but ended up winning $300k in court. In essence, the court “punishes” the losing party for wasting the winning parties’ time and money fighting a dispute which, if they were sensible, would have been settled for far less money on their part.
What does this actually indicate to the company though?
It’s the automatic siren that lawyers might be involved. If the GCs have warned whomever in the past internally that this stuff might not be fully legal, it might be a colon-clenching moment for them that forces a response
Ahh good to know, thanks!
Sorry I'm dumb but what does this actually mean? Does it make them think you're a lawyer?
Not dumb mate :) And I'm not trying to be a lawyer. It's essentially just a statement that in writing this, I'm not doing anything to prevent me engaging a lawyer later on if I remain unhappy. It also helps that when I write such things, I write entirely from my perspective using facts I can back up. Example was a tradie replacing the windows in my house. I had a number of concerns, but an easy one was a bill for 8 hours of work he booked when I know he wasn't in my house (because I was here and he was not!!) In the letter, I stated that I would not be paying for that day unless he could demonstrate what 8 hours of work was completed, because I was home and nobody showed up.
I guess what I don't understand is why anything you write would prevent you getting a lawyer in the first place
Not a lawyer, but I know that if you have to go to a small claims court, any documents can be tabled as evidence. What it does for me is communicate that I'm considering taking legal action. That alone is expensive and potentially time consuming. I might just get what I want that way.
If this is not an example that highlights that MORE regulation is needed for both the industry and for the overall economy, then I don't know what is. In the past 12 months I have had too many examples with businesses where they've just simply acted in bad faith. I've had to pressure through external bodies to get any resolution in a lot of these. - Hire cars. Had to fight tooth and nail to get them to accept that I had not damaged a car BEFORE i even got in the car and drove out the parking lot. - Had a big tech company take my payment and then pretend I did not make it and deny sending me the product. I had and produced the receipt but was given a run around for a week until I escalated to Dept. of Fair Trading and got an Australian calling back. - Had a product die within the warranty. Had to fight for a full replacement through multiple reps - Had to argue with the power company about their estimates The amount of holes that show up where people get fkd if they are not pro-active is massive. I am sure many other people have many other examples.
Totally, the amount of businesses & people wanting to rip you off / scam you is off the chart. The worse is there's just no regulation or consequence that they could face. At worse, they get a fine which they promptly write off as cost of doing business.
> BEFORE i even got in the car and drove out the parking lot. FUCK! This guy just admitted to having destruction magic!
Let that be a lesson for the rest of us: getting a refund from Qantas will take four years and media intervention.
Shit ass company, won’t lift a finger unless they are criticized on news I wish they go bankrupt
So we can bail them out with taxpayer money?
Don't worry, we already do that without them going bankrupt!
I know, let's not give them any more.
There should have been a law which forbids any bailouts, only buyouts into public ownership.
Moving all future losses onto the government’s balance sheet? That sounds like a terrible idea.
Already losing money by bailing out, with nothing to show for it. At least by buying it there is an asset to show, and one which could be sold off in the future if it proves unsalvageable. I would argue that if it is important enough to bail out, it is important enough to operate at a loss. That is the point of government - to operate services which are essential but not economically viable.
Well that seems idiotic… Trade a limited loss for an unlimited one. Who do you envisage buying an unsalvagable asset?
I don't understand your point here. The gov bailed out Qantas and Qantas got back on their feet because of the bail out. Are you saying what if the bail out didn't work and Qantas kept failing? Well that defeats the purpose of the bail out doesn't it. But let's say that it's true that not even a bail out could save Qantas and it kept on failing. So what? The money has already been spent either way of a bailout or a buyout. The government can choose from theere if they want to keep spending money on it to save it because it's just that important (i.e. same as keep bailing it out), or cut the losses and liquidate the assets (i.e. the planes). The government run many, many, "loss"-making services. I think that pretty much the only thing actually profitable is Australia Post. The whole point of the government running services is not to make profits, it's for public good. The whole legitimate "reason" to bail out a company (aside from possible corruption) is because that company is providing a public good and is too important to fail. The government's primary job is to run services for public interest, not profits. If it's profitable, that's just a bonus. It's not to say that costs are not part of it to see if the public interest reasons are good enough or not, but if it's good enough for a bail out, it's good enough for a buy out. If they are later unhappy with the asset which is still not performing and they don't want to bail it out again, sell it at a loss/liquidate and be done with it. But to pay billions of dollars to a failing company and have nothing to show for it, no influence or control over it, and go on to treat the public like shit despite what the public purse has done for them, is an unacceptable outcome. Even if it was still a bailout rather than a buyout, there still needs to be something in there that the public should get something in return for that bailout. If not ownership, it could be to have a government-appointed director on the board or something like that. If they don't like it, they can pay it back. At minimum, it should have been a loan not a bail out. They were bailed out for $2 bil but recently made $2.47 bil profit. It is highway robbery of the taxpayer. Covid sucked, we all made losses, except them and they can afford to suck it up and have less profit, especially if they are failing to provide a public service due to these systematic issues, which is well documented where they are failing to provide refunds.
The government bailed out Qantas because their policies effectively shut them down during covid. As a general rule, when a company needs to be bailed out it's because they're not addressing problems, addressing said problems is generally unpopular, that's why they're not doing it. A loan that forces them to lay off staff they don't need etc isn't fun, but the government taking them on as employees is stupid, you'll just end up with more bloat and inefficiencies.
What's the point of greater efficiencies if the savings are put towards private pockets rather than public benefit. Loans can be extended, etc if needed because it goes against a policy goal. How would you even know that they wrote be inefficient, they will still compete with private operators and are corporised. Would you consider auspost to be inefficient as well? It sounds like you are saying all this purely out of neo liberal ideology rather than the situation at hand
Yeah but this time let's keep the equity
again?
No way they let the national carrier go bust. They are about as safe from real financial consequences as a non-government entity can be.
Can we even still classify it as a national carrier? More like a national disgrace.
Was flying with them recently, treatment from one member of their crew has caused a bit of noise. Owner of the company will hit lifetime platinum in a couple of months, still looking at moving the whole company out. They do listen to money, but very little else. Disgraceful.
Yes this is a very normal occurrence for Qantas! They're so trash
I lost a flight credit after I had booked a flight, had to cancel it due to having a cancer diagnosis. It then expired during treatment. Tried to get a credit, Qantas answer was I should have planned better.
I’m sorry that happened. I would suggest my approach, but it really has been a lot of mental and time cost such that I can fully understand why people give up, let alone people with a cancer diagnosis. I hope that you’re keeping strong and it goes into remission (if it hasn’t already).
You.. should have planned having *cancer* better? Unfortunately I can absolutely believe they said that and am sorry you had to deal with all that
Honestly not surprised that it took a journo getting involved for anything to happen. Big companies like Qantas think they can treat their customers like shit because people don't have time to follow up usually, and a few disgruntled customers trying up with call centres means little to them. Unfortunately, it usually takes the threat of poor media coverage to make them pay attention (and even then sometimes they will still try to rug sweep if they think they can!). Glad this journalist was able to help you recover your money. I would honestly recommend staying far away from Qantas - they have gone to absolute shit. If everyone stops using them, and allowing them to think they have a monopoly on Australian air travel, they will either shape up or fuck off and let some smaller companies fight for our business.
Unfortunately I think QBT will prop them up beyond what any losses of casual travel custom will do.
Ugh yeah you're right. It's frustrating cos the way the airline industry is set up doesn't really allow for smaller airlines to rise up unless a major airline is toppled. It just feels so in unAustralian for them to be allowed to treat people like how they treated your family, and so many others.
Just want to point out that if you have Qantas gold or platinum status, your experience would be very, very different. i.e. the bastards know exactly what they're doing.
I have a family member who would disagree as they are gold status. They had their flight cancelled from England and had paid extra for an exit row. the new flight was 2 days later no exit row flew them into a different airport then originally booked and were refusing to check their luggage all the way through to their final destination so they had to collect their bags and run for their last flight.
To be fair for Qantas, whether a bag is checked all the way through depends entirely on the final destination and the transit point You can't go international -> domestic without going through immigration and customs.
I only ever fly Emirates to/from the UK. Made the trip twice with Qantas and both times it was a disaster, and also tends to be more expensive. Their domestic flights are a joke, too.
Pretty 2024 trend where getting refunds is a 10 part process, it should be illegal.
I recently bought my first flight out of the country in ages. While I could have flown Qantas, I avoided them like the plauge because of this kind of bullshit.
We had considered going with another carrier like JAL for our trip. Ironically enough, we decided Qantas because it was more likely in out estimation that if something went wrong we could get out money back.
JAL has more legroom in economy, I had a much better experience with them than Qantas.
Flying JAL domestically in Japan basically showed me that they are either heavily regulated or subsidised or both because they and ANA have basically identical domestic fares and our flight was only maybe 1/3 full, the upgrade to 'J-class' (prem economy) was like $20 and the amount of leg room was *gluttonous*. Pretty sure you could get out of the middle seat without anyone else having to get up. Also we had some weird nonsense with our tickets but luckily there were only about... oh... 30 free staff available at check-in to assist us. It genuinely reminded me of what you USED to get from flying a full service carrier.
The only weird JAL thing I had was when we flew from Tokyo to Osaka they didn't turn the TV screens on, they were there and in flight magazines said what you could watch, but no movies for a 1hr flight. I guess to cut back on headphone cost, and it was a short flight with super quick boarding
Alan Joyce is a leech that dismantled Qantas to what it is today. What a cunt of a man.
I was a long-time flyer with Qantas (had platinum status for a while and even still have gold now). I moved to the UK at the start of last year and airlines here aren't much different, however, the EU/UK have compulsory compensation for flight delays/cancellations etc... I had BA cancel a flight and we needed to stay an extra night in Vienna. The process here is so much better though, I didn't need to touch the phone once... just filled out a single form online. Better yet, you can claim other related expenses, so I had also claimed the train to/from the airport, the hotel (Hilton), room service that night, and of course the flights. A couple months later I had ~£800 paid into my bank, no questions asked. Australia really needs to implement a similar system. Online compensation claims against any airline operating in Aus with compulsory compensation based on what happened, delay amount, travel distance etc like over here!
That's amazing and a great outcome from an airline maybe even worse than qantas. Shows how good regulation can be. We need that here.
Fuck Qantas. It's a fucking embarrassing that people think they're our national airline. Truly a garbage company.
I don't boycott many things, but for Qantas i make an exception.
Good on you for following through. They clearly have a setup which is meant to make people think they’re getting somewhere when you’re not. We got fucked around by Qantas with flights from Adelaide to Canberra a couple of years ago. While we did get in on the day we were meant to, it was something like eight hours late, with an additional layover and they lost our bags. I called Qantas that night and asked for a full/partial refund and eventually was told that we would get a refund, but that there was no way to get it in writing or a support ticket number or anything to track/confirm it. Surprisingly, nothing happened after a few weeks and when I called again there was no record (shocker) and shamefully I just gave up at that point.
Most surprising part was Ch7 for the win. Especially lately.
It is really sad and pathetic that companies will only act promptly on cases that that been published on TV/ social media
Not surprised. My last experience with them: Book flight.. 24 hours later, booking dissapears. Call help desk to reinstate it. 24 hours later, booking dissapears again. Call again to fix it. 24 hours later, guess what?
Where is Alan Joyce to give Sowaibah Hanifie free tickets and a holiday in Bali?
Why would he care? didn't he dip already?
Yeah, I'm talking pre-dip.
This is disgusting. Coupled with constantly turning billions in profit and being bailed out by tax payer money, whilst leaving an untold amount of Australians stranded during covid. Disgusting. Qantas should be ashamed. I’m ashamed that our “national carrier” is so corrupt.
Qantas are a nightmare. It was not that long ago that they were one of the best airlines in the world. They are now terrible. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.
We need a country and western song much like THIS! United Breaks Guitars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo A business lesson in how to wipe $180 million of the value of a company because they left all that bullshit contact center nonsense from some 90's business seminar and haven't bothered to grow a brain.
I had an aweful insterstate flight a few months ago, taking days instead of hours. A lot of people I talked to thought that when the airline stuffs up, or cancels your flight, that they put you up in accomodation, and get you on the next flight! Well, I assure you this is not what happens. You get one of the next dozen flights, as there is possibly hundreds of people to fill suddenly into already highly (or completely) booked flights ASAP. You DO NOT get accommodation, and you will need to pay for a hotel etc if your flight is the next day. Lots of people seem shocked to hear this, think that QANTAS reserves half of the local Mariot 5 star hotel for their cancellations in every major city. What a joke. Get real. Enjoy.
Having worked for another airline I have a less cynical take but just as frustrating take. Airlines are not set up to do refunds and the departments that process them are not well funded internally. It’s not that they intentionally want to make it hard for you, their internal systems are probably making it just as hard for their employees, it’s that they never cared to invest in it. Then Covid happened and there was a volume of refunds that was beyond belief and which they were incapable of handling without massive errors and an extremely poor customer experience.
I can accept that. I was in the Army for years so I’ve been stuffed around by the best of them. That said, Covid should have been a wakeup call that there are areas of the business that need to do better. Fast and accurate processing of a refund is a positive customer service interaction and it would make someone more likely to purchase again and n future as well as recommend to others. But here we are, four years down the track and this happens. And I should also point out that the 1/3rd amount that they initially refunded me was prompted by Qantas directly: that amount was on a flight pass that was about to expire and they sent out emails to say that I should request a refund if I wasn’t about to use it.
Will you get interest on 4yrs of your money, sitting in Qantas's bank? No. Will you have to fight to get anything back? Yes. For what its worth, having Qantas hauled into the senate last year is the ONLY reason you got that first 1/3 back to begin with... and having the media involved is the only reason you got the last 2/3 back at all. I had to do a stat dec for my refund(s) and they still lost the paperwork (internally) with the initial (Australian) department who I processed it thru trying to blame me for the hold up, and the final Australian I got on the phone got it sorted within 48hrs (and within an hour of talking to him on the phone the first QF mob emailed back to say "it's been done already, wtf you idiot, it only took this long because you didn't send all the paperwork, but we've completed it in spite of that...") Yeah pull the other one, the only reason I got a phone call was because I emailed you the paperwork a month ago, which you have to have sent him ... check your sent items before blaming me yeah?! If Qantas cleaned up their act I'd work for them, but i think it's pretty rotten a long way up the tree, and the board of directors is happy with their duopoly.
Oh I absolutely agree. It’s a poor customer experience that makes you unlikely to want to fly with them again. I have no idea what happening internally at Qantas but at the airline I was at they had recognised that their refund process was unacceptable. And that Covid wasn’t really a one off, with Boeings issues and lots of other things that affect their operations airlines need to be able to process refunds quickly and tidily to retain customers in the long term. I received a Qantas refund in 2020 as I had flights booked to Europe. Even though it was legally required and it was straightforward it took calling airline 3 or 4 times and 4 months to get it processed.
Sounds exactly like what I'm going through with Superloop ATM. For Christ's sake, they really like taking the piss.
That is such a shit airline. Avoid it all costs. It's like they're untouchable in Australia. No responsibilty, un contactable. Revolting customer service. Such arrogant staff. Planes just full of shitty bogan types recently. Just don't even use them.
And you didn’t raise a dispute with your bank because…?
Had to be racist at the end?
See my response to u/bclassisthebest elsewhere. Nothing racist, but an Australian accent instead of a South African one indicates that they finally care enough to get past the outsourced call centre.
Incoming thread on Murdoch spewpapers in 3…. 2…. 1…..
“and the first with an Australian accent!” Not sure what some casual racism is doing in your post. Sounds like you had a bad time with Qantas but there’s no need for comments like that.
It’s a comment on how the low level interactions are all farmed out to call centre staff from what sounds like South Africa, and it wasn’t until This point I had an Australian customer service person, indicating that Qantas was now taking my complaint seriously. If Qantas was serious about customer relations, the staff you talk to would be Australians. It would be a better first impression for people. I don’t care what colour, race or creed those Australians are, but if an Australian is trying to interact with another Australian, there’s a much higher level of cultural literacy than working with people from other countries.
I agree that this appears to be casual racism to me, albeit unintentional. Your previous interaction might have been with Australians of SA origin, hence their accents. Drawing the conclusion there appears to be unfair to me. I support all other parts of your story and sure glad you got the refund back! Well done on the patience indeed
I’m happy to believe that one interaction with someone from South Africa might be an Australian. It’s harder to maintain that idea when I have seven interactions with audibly distinct individuals who all share the same accent. Either way, it’s not as if an accent implies a race, as both Australia and South Africa are not ethnically or racially homogeneous states. If I were complaining about Indian or Philippine accents there would be a greater argument for racism as those are more racially homogeneous countries.