Last Friday 3rd March I was meant to spend time with my mom ( From Bangkok), sister and her partner ( From New York) and take them out to see a show at the Opera House with a nice dinner but I had to deal with some drama with Qantas as my client's connecting flight was cancelled by them.
If you don't have to read, here are the summary.
🥲Qantas cancelled my client's connecting flight and rebooked for next day.
🥲Took me 8 different phone calls to fix a simple issue from Friday 3pm until 4am Saturday morning.
If the client booked this online herself then you can imagined how frustrated she would be.
Client booked and paid for my service fee which include "After Care" so she doesn't have to lift a finger cus I dealt everything on her behalf while she was on the plane.
If you want to know the extension I had to go through for my client then read on baby😎
My client is a nervous traveler and normally her husband would organise everything and travel with her but sadly her husband has passed away recently so I wanted to make sure that she's okay.
Her flight was booked with Qantas: Sydney - Johannesburg - East London then fly back from Cape Town - Johannesburg - Sydney. The flight Sydney - Johannesburg - Sydney is in premium economy.
She flew out on Friday 3rd March and after she departed, I checked her flight again just to make sure that everything was okay then to find out that her Johannesburg - East London was cancelled and rebook to the next day when it was meant to have 2 hours transit in the airport.
Original flight
QF 63 03MAR Sydney Johannesburg 0935 1435
4Z 917 03MAR Johannesburg East London 1615 1745
Updated flight
QF 63 03MAR Sydney Johannesburg 0935 1435
4Z 913 04MAR Johannesburg East London 0620 0750
1st call to Qantas.
I rang Qantas and got through after 45 minutes, I asked her why was the connecting flight at 16:15 got cancelled so she put me on hold to investigate the situation.
She told me that the client had requested to be upgraded from premium to business class and to change her connecting flight to the next day. I was like but why would she want to spend 1 night in Johannesburg and if she wanted this, she would have asked me to organise the hotel for her. This didn't sit well with me so I told the lady that she's a nervous traveler and she would never ask for the flight to be changed to the next day. I asked her to reinstate the flight back to the same and guess what she said to me???
You need to get the client to call us to change this back and I was like........
Ummmm as you can see in her booking, she's currently on the plane in the sky!
How the heck would she be able to call from there?
At this point I know that this staff doesn't know how to do her job properly so this is where I have to fight back for my client.
Sekha: You need to reinstate the flight back and reissue the ticket.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: You need to pay for the change fee.
Sekha: No you guys have to do it free of charge since you cancelled the flight.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: You requested for reissue then you have to pay.
Sekha: I need to speak to your supervisor.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: Why? My supervisor won't be able to do anything anyway.
Sekha: Well you are not listening to me or trying to help out the passenger.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: My supervisor can't help.
Sekha: Put me through to your supervisor now cus you are not listening.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: Why? Do you want to complain?
Sekha: Yes cus you are not trying to help.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: If this is a complaint, you can visit our website and submit your complaint.
Sekha: (Blood is boiling and I was ready to give it harder to her) You are seriously don't know what you are doing and you are not willing to help. You guys cancelled the flight so you must reinstate and reissue free of charge.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: Fine, I'll send it off for reissuing then.
Sekha: Okay thanks and this will be free right?
Qantas' bad attitude lady: As this client requested for the change, she must contact us and pay for the reissue fee.
Sekha: She's in the sky, you cancelled her flight so you fix it. You pay for it or this has to be free of charge.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: (She proceeded to explain about t&c blah blah blah blah)
Sekha: So this will be free of charge yes or no. Simple question, simple answer.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: Yes it's free.
Sekha: Ok thank you. I also need you to spell your name for reference please.
Qantas' bad attitude lady: It's XXXXX
Sekha: Ok thanks.
After hanging up the phone I had to just sit still and meditate so I can recoup my thoughts and think about what just happened. In my heart I knew she wasn't going to reissue the ticket so I had to call back again. Another 45 mins on the phone.
2nd call to Qantas.
I explained the same thing and found out that the outbound flight was delayed that's why the connecting flight got cancelled cus there was only 20 minutes between flight so obviously the 1st lady didn't know what she was doing at all. The 2nd lady said no worries, will send it off for reissue and if it's not done within 1 hour I need to call back so she can call ticketing for me. I said to her the flight is within 24 hour so why can't she call now but she insisted I had to wait. Was the ticket issued within 1 hour????? No.....FML. I also asked if she can help booking the transfer and hotel for the client but she said no and to contact Qantas holiday. Rang and spoke to Qantas holiday and she said unless I have a credit voucher then I'd have to pay. I really hate it when people just say thing without actually knowing the process cus it's just a waste of everyone's time.
3rd call to Qantas.
I meant to meet up with my mom and sister at 6.30pm so we can have a few drinks at Opera bar but I was super late. I rang Qantas again from home and got through in 35 minutes while I was on the train. Had to explain the situation again which the lady said okay I'll get ticketing to issue the ticket now....... She hung up on me.
By this time I was deflated and had to see the show and dinner. The show was a bit weird and the whole time I was just worried for my client. We went for dinner but I had to call Qantas again during that time which was pretty sad.
4th call to Qantas.
Got through after an hour, explained the same situation and finally the ticket got reissued and sent to my email. I was like thanks Buddha! Finally it's done but I had a bad feeling about it so once I got home at 11pm I checked the booking and guess what??? The connecting flight got cancelled 😭
5th call to Qantas.
This time I got through within 30 mins and told the lady that the connecting flight got cancelled and she couldn't find out the reason even the new ticket is in there. She did something with the booking and reassured me that it won't cancel out again. It was half past midnight and I was determined to fix this so I wait for another 30 mins to see if the connecting flight would get cancelled again or not and boom, it got bloody cancelled.
6 and 7th call to Qantas.
It was 1:30am and same thing kept happening and Qantas confirmed it won't get cancelled. at 2:30am it got cancelled again and I really didn't know what to do. I was tired but I wanted to stay up until my client got my message through whatsapp. I was going to give up at 2am but I was so invested already so I was like, nah I have to make sure she's okay.
8th call to Qantas.
3:00am I rang and got through within 15 minutes. I explained to this lovely lady what had happened and she was so compassionate. She said let her check everything and will get back to me. After 15 minutes she reissued the ticket and made sure it won't get cancelled again. She actually listened and felt sorry for me. I asked if she was a supervisor and she said no and asked if I would like to speak to her supervisor to give her the feedback. I was like "What? So you can transfer the call to supervisor? I thought you can't". She said of course you can speak to my supervisor.
I told her supervisor, first of all Andi was extremely helpful and compassionate. I wished I had her on my 1st call. I said to her that it's already hard for us Travel Agent to do our job with all the delay and cancellation. I also gave her the name of the 1st girl who was super unhelpful and rude and needs to be retrained or find another job.
It shouldn't have taken 8 different calls from 3pm - 4am to fix this. That's bloody 13 hours.
My client landed safely and the ground staffs booked her hotel and transfer so I was like okay now I can sleep peacefully.
This was an extreme case where my client was a nervous traveler so I just wanted to make sure she's okay. If there is an emergency then I need to see it case by case cus I can't work 24/7 as well.
As much as I think Qantas is awesome as an airline but when you are paying us Travel Agent 1% commission on the airfare ( not even including the taxes), I get paid $50-$100/ticket. Do you think it's worth my time and energy of 13 hours trying to fix the issue you have created? Or can you imagined you booked online and having to deal with this drama yourself?
When you pay for my service fee, you will also get "After Care" service which including dealing with the airlines on your behalf ☎️✈️🌏
You can also watch my video of my experience with lots of emotion! The drama is real haha 🙃
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