QANTAS – the finale

I hate QANTAS. If you’ve been reading my posts, you’ll know about the atrocious treatment I have received from them, and their attitude of not giving a rat’s arse about the fact that they have ripped me off.

In my opinion, QANTAS are a bunch of money-hungry thieves who seem to have forgotten that without customers, they will go broke. I’m not going to re-hash my experience, because to be honest, it makes me angry and upset.

The thing that has really shit me off about them now, is that my FIANCE and I recently travelled to the USA (by the way, yes I said Fiance – we got engaged on the beach in Fiji). The way air travel is done in the USA is about a gigabillion times better than anything QANTAS could manage.

The prices are cheaper, and with my FIANCE being a QANTAS FF Silver member, we got to board with the Business Class passengers, AND we got a free luggage allowance. In the US, you get 1 checked bag for free, and then you start paying – but with Silver status, you get two bags. And because we were travelling together, they extended that second free bag to me.

In Australia, QANTAS pretty much don’t recognise Silver members. You board with the plebs in economy and receive no special treatment whatsoever. The sad thing, is that it’s THEIR club!!!!!

EVERY flight that we took in the US (4 in total), boarded on time, departed on time, and arrived early. EVERY flight. I think that QANTAS have managed that a dozen times or so in the 20 years I have been flying with them.

I also haven’t mentioned the special treatment that American Airlines (AA) give to the military. If you’re not aware, the US people LOVE their military. They almost seem to hold them in some kind of God-status. A couple of times, I mentioned that I am in the Australian military, and I got everything from genuine “Thank you’s”, to being able to purchase items tax free.

AA have a special club in conjunction with the USO at every airport. You get free internet, free drinks, and a dedicated military lounge. When you check in, they have specific ‘self serve’ terminals for the military, and when they board aircraft, they board uniformed military personnel at the same time as First Class passengers (US military wear uniform when they are on official travel).

AND, I was reading the AA magazine (American Way), and read the most amazing story. The USA’s highest military decoration is the Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH) – it’s kind of equivalent to our Victoria Cross, so there haven’t been that many awarded.

Anyway, there was some kind of CMH anniversary, so AA flew all the surviving CMH winners from the New York and Washington state areas to an official function, and then granted them all the highest possible AA club membership and status that it’s possible to achieve. And all at no cost to the individuals.

Australia now has 3 surviving VC winners. Could you imagine QANTAS flying the three of them to a dinner and then even giving them QANTAS Club membership for free? Me either.

But one of the main reasons I now hate QANTAS so much, is that after my previously-mentioned treatment from them, I still have not received an e-mail from them with anything like an offer to make things right or even an apology. I rang them to discuss it, but they palmed me off and really couldn’t have cared less.

I give you my word, that from this point forward, whenever I have a choice of airline to get to my destination, I WILL NEVER FLY QANTAS AGAIN. In the words of the great Bill O’Chee: “They can root my boot”.

Have you had pathetic service from QANTAS? There is no travel industry ombudsman in Australia where you can take your complaint. I am a petty man, and have a bit of spare time, so if they’ve ripped you off, or pissed you off, let me know. If I get enough comments, I may even lobby the ACCC to sort out their shit.

QANTAS – an update

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I recently had a run-in with QANTAS. It related to an overseas trip my GF and I were to go on, until I selfishly broke my toe, and was ordered not to fly.

We had booked our AU-US-AU flights on QANTAS using frequent flyer points. With me being a little over six feet tall, we pre-paid to secure exit row seats, costing a total of $640.

The catch is that QANTAS have thrown in to their T&C the fact that if – for any f**king reason at all – you don’t use the seat, they keep your money. And that is whether it’s a medical reason, a personal choice, or whether you get on the plane, sit in the seat and then have QANTAS staff move you. Yes, you read that right. THEY can move you and then keep your money.

Not being one to shy away from standing up for my rights, I e-mailled QANTAS. Among other complaints, I raised this issue and requested that they contact me to discuss the issue. I waited a week and heard nothing. So e-mailled them again, giving them 24 hours to respond before taking my complaint further.

Predictably, I heard nothing from them. I e-mailled the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission), asking if QANTAS had the legal right to put those conditions on the pre-purchase of the seats.

Their response to me did not address whether the condition is legal, but in true Government fashion, palmed me off by informing me that this is a specific contractual issue, and that I could try to resolve it with QANTAS (who, let’s face it, couldn’t give a shit), or I could seek legal advice.

As I constantly argue, where is the consumer protection? Conditions like “we reserve the right to f**k you over in any way we can, as long as we can keep you rmoney and do nothing for you” are always buried somewhere like section 234.1.23.4c, aren’t they?

Nobody ever reads through three pages of conditions when they’re buying things online. Let’s face it, who has the time? We make the assumption that everyone is inherently good, and no company would be deliberately out to rip us off. And yet it happens, and then the authorities go “Sorry mate, nothing we can do. You should have read the ifne print”.

I always wanted to be a lawyer. Maybe it’s the reason why I know so much about the Trade Practices Act 1974, and how I know that it changed in Australia on 1 Jan 2011, and is now called the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. I know that the four reasons that provide for statutory refund or replacement have been replaced with nine conditions (although these nine are really just an expansion on the four).

My knowledge of the law has saved me thousands of dollars over the years, and I’ve forced companies to do things they refused to do – because I had the law on my side.

So what I want to know is: Why, when Joe Citizen conducts business with a company in goodwill, that they can be royally shafted and then hung out to dry by the authorities whose job it is to protect us?

If it didn’t take near on 10 years to do a part-time law degree, I’d be running my own consumer law business, helping people like you and me get what we’re entitled to our of a*holes like QANTAS. It’s now been two weeks since I first contacted QANTAS to address the issue, and the only thing I have received from them (other than auto-reply e-mails) is one saying they have a 10-day turnaround on e-mails, and mine has been passed to someone. That came 11 days after I e-mailled them.

And if you’re reading this QANTAS, I still haven’t ruled out taking you to small claims court – where there are no lawyers. It’s just me and you pleading our case. Try and explain to a judge why you should keep my money. I dare you.

QANTAS

I’m going to start this post by clarifying that “slander” is when you VERBALLY bad-mouth someone and “lible” is when you WRITE it. The one thing that disqualifies these two offences is when all you do is state fact.

So I’m going to state fact. No opinions. No name calling.

My GF and I had been planning a trip to the USA before I carelessly snapped my toe off. Well, I snapped the BONE off, not my complete toe. Anyway – I needed surgery and was told I couldn’t fly. Our hopes of a great holiday were dashed, until we decided to re-schedule. So now, we’re going in June.

I am a member of the QANTAS FF program. I have been for almost 9 years, and being a government employee, I have flown QANTAS almost exclusively for the last 20+ years. The only I time I DIDN’T flown on QANTAS was when they didn’t fly to where I wanted to go.

We booked our AU-US-AU flights using FF points. We were a little short, so I called QANTAS to purchase some “top-up points”. This system lets you just buy the last few points you need to claim a flight. The T&C state that:

+ You can only buy top-up points once in every consecutive twleve months (meaning that you have to wait a year after buying points before you can buy them again);

+ The points must be related to a specific flight; and

+ The points must be for you.

Fair enough. But here’s the thing. We looked on the QANTAS website to see how many points we needed. I rang QANTAS the next morning and bought the points, agreeing to their conditions.

I then rang my GF and told her that we had the points and she could go ahead and book the flights. But when she went to book them, the cost of the flights had changed. I rang QANTAS back (within 2 hours of buying the points) to explain my problem. They’re response?

They didn’t care. They stood by the fact that I had agreed to the terms, and that I was not allowed to buy more points. I told them that I had purchased the points in goodwill (a legal term you should all learn about) and that there was a problem with their website.

They didn’t care. I told them that now, for the sake of about 3,000 points, we could no longer fly to the USA. There was some to-ing and fro-ing, and eventually the woman agreed to speak to her supervisor. They put me on hold for a while and then came back on the line. Her supervisor’s response? They didn’t care.

Courtesy of companies like this, I have learned quite a bit about my rights and what used to be called the Trade Practices Act 1974. I argued my point again and told them that I had purchased the points based on what the website said, so I shouldn’t be disadvantaged by THEIR error. Eventually, they agreed to speak to their head office in Sydney and call me back.

About half an hour later, they called. They had agreed to cancel my initial purchase and allow me to buy the points I needed. And then they told me the most amazing thing. QANTAS are actually aware that the point-cost of their flights change online. They KNOW that this happens to other people. I asked them what their procedure is when it happens. Guess what?

They don’t care. They make it the customer’s problem. So I asked what they were doing about the problem. And the answer was “Nothing”. So they KNOW there’s an error that disadvantages their customers, and they’re choosing to do nothing about it. Are you listening, ACCC?

Anyway, our flights were booked and we were happy. And then I broke my foot.

My GF called QANTAS to cancel our flights. “Sure” they said. “But we’ll charge you 5,000 points (per person) for cancelling.” My GF explained that I had broken my foot, needed surgery, and was ordered by doctors not to fly. They didn’t care. On the heels of the initial points issue, this meant that we no longer had enough points to fly in the future.

I was kind of prepared to wear this penalty at the start. Shit happens, and companies have the legal right to not be left out of pocket for their customer’s actions.

But then we booked new flights to the USA. Strangely, we are now flying AU-US-FIJI-AU for LESS points than our original trip – even though THIS time we’re going in peak season.

My GF booked our flights, but we realised our stop-over in Fiji was going to cost us about $2,000 in accommodation and meals. Within three hours of the flight booking, my GF rang QANTAS back to change the flight.

She made the call so quickly that the points hadn’t been taken from my account. And I need to mention here that the new flight we wanted would bring us home a couple of days early, and had the same point cost.

QANTAS decided that for us to change our flights, they would charge us 3,500 points. Each. As a penalty. AND THEN they were going to charge us 7,500 points EACH to change the flights. 22,000 points to change a flight that hadn’t even been processed yet.

So I sent them what I call a shit-o-gram. At the time of posting this rant, I’m still waiting for QANTAS to contact me to discuss their behaviour. So it could all work out in the wash, but my problem is twofold:

+ Why are they allowed to get away with treating customers like this in the first place?

+ And why should we have to fight to be treated fairly?

I talk about consumer protection quite a bit on my site, and this is a perfect example. If you write a cheque that bounces, banks are no longer allowed to charge you enormous fees. They’re only allowed to recover THEIR costs associated with your bad banking. So why can QANTAS charge us 22,000 points when they’re not “out of pocket” at all?

And what about the initial 10,000 points they took from me? We cancelled the flights two weeks prior, so I would imagine that those seats will be taken by someone else. So that means QANTAS have taken more points for those seats than they charge. That should be illegal.

And my GF just reminded me of something else QANTAS have done – which MUST be illegal. I’m a little over six feet tall, so 13 hours in an economy seat is hell. We paid $640 to QANTAS to secure exit row seats for our AU-US-AU legs. When we had to cancel, QANTAS told us they are keeping the $640.

It also turns out that if you pre-book the exit row (@ $160) and then can’t carry out the “duties” of the exit row, and QANTAS staff move you – you don’t get your money back. Or if you show up, and QANTAS allocate the exit row to someone else – you don’t get your money back.

Hello ACCC? Are you paying attention? Why do QANTAS get away with this shit?

Consumer Protection

I am constantly amazed that in Australia (and it turns out, on the internet as well), no-one seems to give a rat’s arse about consumers. And by that, I don’t just mean retailers or service providers, but government bodies as well.

My gorgeous girlfriend and I were about to embark on a two week trip to the USA. A couple of days in Sanfran, almost a week in Vegas, and almost a week in NYC. It was shaping up to be the trip of a lifetime, and my GF had spent a good month planning every detail.

But then, fate struck. 13 days prior to our trip, it was bin day at home. I went to put the bins out, and thanks to our driveway being on a steep incline, the recycle bin began to overbalance. I put my foot back to steady myself and clipped the edge of the gutter. My ankle rolled, and down I went, faster than a cheap whore.

As I plunged toward the road, I heard a crack and then felt the bitumen slap me in the face. The pain I felt was intense. I found myself incapacitated for a few minutes, and was stuck, laying on the road, unable to move from the pain. I managed to lift my head and see if any of my neighbours were on their way to help, but being midweek, there was no-one in the street.

I managed to struggle my way to my foot, and just then my GF stepped outside to see what was taking me so long. We headed off to the hospital, and I discovered I had fractured my toe. A “Jones Fracture” they call it, where the little toe is broken. Well, it’s not so much broken, as snapped off. Where the toe bone (metatarsal) attaches to the foot bone, the pressure of the tendons actually separates the bone from the foot. Not good.

So I got to spend that night in hospital, after having undergone surgery to screw my metatarsal back onto my foot. And here I am now, laid up, typing away.

The saddest part, is that my GF now has to undo everything she has done for our trip, because I’m in a cast-thingy – so I can’t fly. Luckily, we took out travel insurance, but despite that, it seems that nobody gives a shit, and they’re all out for their pennies.

We had booked some internal flights in the USA through Continental, but when we called to explain what happened, guess how much sympathy we got? F**k all, my friends. They told us that we could cancel, or “postpone”, our flights, but we would be getting no money back at all. Virgin America have charged us a $150 cancellation fee, giving us back $57 of our flights.

We had booked our long-haul flights with QANTAS using FF points. Again, we explained what had happened, and they happily cancelled our flights. With a 5,000 point PER PERSON fee. Any sympathy? F**k no.

The insurance company are doing ok so far, but the first guy my GF spoke to was a moron. He actually told her that he didn’t know what the process was for providing refunds. When my GF asked if we should be trying to get refunds from each provider first, he replied with something like “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea”. F**kwit.

What I want to know, is why is it so f**king hard for consumers to be protected against companies happy to take your money, but who would rather spend $10,000 fighting you, than handing over the $1,000 you committed to them, but didn’t spend. Especially when our cancellation opens up the opportunity to re-sell our tickets.

Maybe the ACCC should start working on this shit. Instead of sitting in their ivory tower and arguing over shit that really doesn’t matter, let’s see our citizens afforded some legal protection from being ripped off.

As an example, I want to mention the ordeal I went through with QANTAS. We found the flights we wanted, and my GF gifted all her FF points to me so I could buy the flights. We still came up a bit short, so I rang QANTAS to purchase the “top up” points. Their terms and conditions state that you can only purchase “top up” points once in every 12 month period. Fair enough.

When we looked online, the flights cost 220,000 points. I rang QANTAS the next morning and purchased the points we needed to book the flights. Once that happened, I rang my GF and said she could book the flights. But guess what? The flights were now 224,000 points. I rang QANTAS back, and they couldn’t have cared less.

Until I started a fight. They argued that I agreed with the condition of one purchase per 12 months. I argued my point, and then the most amazing thing happened. The woman I was talking to told me that QANTAS KNOW that this problem exists. She told me that despite knowing it’s an issue, I was NOT permitted to by the extra points, nor would they cancel my initial purchase. HOW IS THAT F**KING LEGAL?

I put up a fight, stating that I had made the purchase in goodwill, and that there was a problem with the website. Despite sympathising with me, the woman initially stood by her theory that she couldn’t help me.

Being a stubborn bastard, I stood my ground, and eventually the woman agreed to speak to her supervisor. When she came back on the line, she said they MIGHT be able to help, but they had to speak to their head office in Sydney and would need to call me back.

I waited nearly half an hour before they called back. I was told that QANTAS were prepared to cancel the initial purchase and allow me to buy enough points to buy the flights. But did they admit liability? F**k no. They didn’t let me do this because of THEIR error. Their reason was that I called back almost immediately once I discovered the problem.

Why aren’t arseholes like this governed by some law that stops them ripping off their customers? It means that innocent consumers like you and me are at the mercy of the incompetence of some of these morons. If they f**k up, we suffer. And if my argument hadn’t won out this time, not only would I have been out of pocket some $500, but it would have meant that we would not have been able to fly to America. Not that we’re going now anyway – lol.

The thing is, we all know what a great guy Sir Richard Branson is. Remember that guy that complained about the meal on his flight, and was then offered a job? Mr Branson seems to be the shining light (along with Dick Smith) who cares about Joe Average and making sure they keep their customers. Maybe I should write Mr Branson a letter. After all, he is a bit of a hero of mine.

Have you been the victim of some company who screwed up and then let you suffer for it? If so, let me know. In the last five years, I have learned some pretty impressive legal facts that might not only stop you being ripped off next time, but might help you out THIS time.