This is not so much a review about Qantas Economy Class from Hong Kong to Christchurch but more about the absolutely pitiful customer service Qantas I encountered while trying to make a few changes. Needless to say, this isn’t going to be pretty!
Made a booking in a hurry for Hong Kong to Christchurch return on Qantas which has turned out to be a complete nightmare and will never fly with Qantas again. I made a cockup on one of the passenger names, had to call their Hong Kong customer service line and spent almost an hour and a half on hold trying to get through. When I eventually did get through they said they could fix it no problem, but then when I had the ticket open I saw I’d booked the wrong return late, a month later, in Premium Economy Class. Cockup on my part but little did I know how much I’d regret that.
This is where it went wrong. It took about another 30 minutes for them to change the booking, to the 12th Feb, everything was verbally confirmed and they said they’d send me the new tickets with the correct name and correct date within 48 hours. I was told I’d be refunded around HKD$200 and something, and had to downgrade to Economy, which was understandable since it was Chinese New Year and I had initially thought that the Premium Economy was unusually cheap (turns out because I booked on 12 March return). Anyway, no complaints, apart from the one and half hour wait time trying to get through to them.
A few hours after that I logged on to the booking page and saw the return fight had been updated, I then went in and selected the seats, including paying HKD$1310 for two extra legroom seats in the upper cabin. My credit card was charged. Later at night my travel partner logged in and told me the flights were still showing March 12th return, I logged in and sure enough they’d been changed back to March 12th. I checked the updated e-tickets and sure enough the dates were the same. The name change had been made, but the return ticket was still for 12 March. This was about midnight HK time. I called and waited about 30 minutes, and was told that the return flight could not be downgraded to a lesser class i.e Premium Economy to Economy. I informed them the booking was confirmed with over the phone, why now the change?
They had no answer. By this stage and time I was getting rather frustrated, and eventually, they agreed to change the ticket to economy. I then spent another hour and a half on and off hold at 2a.m in the morning while the reservations agent waiting for god knows what. Basically she took an hour and half to make the change.
I must have booked over 60 flights in the last 4 years, flown on different airlines, including budget airlines HK Express and Hong Kong Airlines and have had to make changes to dates before and never come across such inept and inefficiency. An hour and half to change dates???? Anyway, eventually I told them I had to go, it was 2a,m in the morning and I had to wake up at 6, and I’d had enough. She told me the flights were confirmed but to rebook the same extra legroom seats on the return flight, I’d need to go and do it online. By this stage I was getting rather irate and vowed never to book any Qantas Economy Class again.
I did that, and get the following message: “A payment is in progress. Payment for a Seat Selection request has been submitted, but cannot be verified. You cannot change seats for the affected passengers. Please contact your issuing agent, or the Qantas call centre if you made this seat request online.” I checked my credit card statement and I’ve already been charged for the original seat assignment, for the booking that Qantas cancelled, which they still can’t give me an answer why to.
Just a word of warning, if you have the stupidity to book with Qantas Economy Class, you better hope to god that you don’t need to make any changes because it’ll be the biggest headache you ever have. I’d rather fork out a few extra thousand and fly Cathay, who are MUCH more efficient (ticket changes typically take a few minutes and you don’t get put on hold).
Sure, it was my original mistake, but Qantas confirmed a booking over the phone, put the booking in, then cancelled the booking without telling me, charged for a seat assignment on that cancelled flight, and are trying to charge me again to rebook it. What is baffling is why they cancelled the booking after telling me it was confirmed, and even more baffling is the fact they just decided not to tell me. No call, nothing, like they were trying to get it by me and hope I didn’t notice.
Nobody has given me an answer why this happened and their customer service staff I spoke to were the rudest I’ve encountered at any airline I’ve come across in the past 20 years. Speaking to all my family and friends in New Zealand when I eventually did arrive, they all said you don’t fly Qantas because they’re renowned for their poor customer service. Compared to Air New Zealand and Cathay customer service, Qantas are not on the same planet. Their customer service were actually quite rude and condescending and this is not even considering the extreme wait times I had to endure to get through to them.
The actual service on the plane was ok, but I’d never, and I mean NEVER, book with Qantas let alone Qantas Economy Class again. The seats on the plane were tiny, the food was horrible, looked a bit like petfood, and didn’t taste much better. As mentioned, the actual service was satisfactory but do yourself a favour and fly Air New Zealand or Cathay who are not much more expensive and well worth any extra cost.
I was close to just not showing up and giving away the tickets and booking something on Air New Zealand, such was my experience with Qantas Economy Class. You’ve been warned, I’d rather not go on holiday than put up with what I had to put with Qantas.
