I was looking at booking a flight out of BKK to SYD on Qantas website, but then I noticed this "After you have completed your booking you will need to visit our office below wit

I was looking at booking a flight out of BKK to SYD on Qantas website, but then I noticed this

"After you have completed your booking you will need to visit our office below within two working days for credit card and signature verification. Your ticket will be issued once your credit card has been sighted.

Bangkok Office

21st Floor, Charn Issara Tower I, 942/162 Rama 4 Road, Silom, Bangrak

Open hours: 8.30am-5pm Mon to Fri

Phone: +66 (2) 632 6611

Can anyone tell me what this is about? I have never seen anything like it before.

Chrisor, this is very strange. I have been flying a lot with Qantas and I have never experienced this problem. I would recommend calling them first and ask whether this was an electronic or credit card error. I think this may be because your credit card is from another country, has a bad credit history, may be reported as stolen before or has problems connecting to Qantas' Asia hub in Singapore/Hong Kong.

Once this has been cleared, you should come back to this page and say what happened, so future travellers can know. Good luck!

I hadn't actually booked the ticket, this message popped up right at the beginning before booking, I can only presume that as I am trying to book a one way flight out of BKK it was flagged.  My credit card has never had an issue so it can't be that. I then checked flights out of HKG and it says that the credit card must be shown at boarding time. I had been looking at booking a first classic award out of LHR to BKK as a stopover on the way home if it sheds any light on the problem.

I'm now not game to book that flight as I may have problems getting out of BKK. I'll ring Qantas tomorrow and discuss.

Reason being is because you are originating the flight out of Bangkok, they want to make sure that the credit card that you use is yours, and that you haven't just picked up a random card and started booking flights, as they can check on the status of cards in the original destination, but they can't check up if you have already flown on the flight, you could easily use a stolen credit card or a fake one.

I have travelled Cathay a few times, and I fly from Sydney, on the itinerary it says that you have to show the credit card used for booking at check in, to confirm that it is yours, otherwise if you fly to Hong Kong and there is a problem, and they are forced to refunds the fare, the airline loses out because they have already provided a flight for you.

Or, It's to verify you as the purchaser of the ticket and not somebody else, as you could be travelling illegally or with some contraband on you.

Hi,

It is because of the local banking system require a more stringent credit card policy to prevent fraud.

I've had the same request when booking an ASA from Jakarta to Sydney, but I managed to avoid the hassle by paying everything on points, so $0 was due.

The problem you have now, is that you can't actually make the booking and get the flight ticketed, as you booking will be automatically cancelled (within a few days) if they don't somehow process your payment.

The best way to resolve it is to call the Qantas office (Bangkok) and agree on a solution, I've known some people being allowed to get a authorisation form (for AMEX) which they sign and  return as the basis of the authorisation.

Hope that helps

Cheers

If you call the Bangkok office they will hold the booking until you are able to get there to verify your card.

Alternatively you can ticket the booking by calling QF Australia, but they will probably want to charge the $60 fee.

TG have the same policy when booking flights ex NZ

I've gotten around this by booking QF flights on Expedia's Thai website (expedia.co.th). However, this won't help you if you're trying to redeem points.

I gave the BKK stopover a miss and ended up paying for tickets from LHR direct to SYD on QF2.  Surprisingly, even though I used Qantas Australian website from here in Sydney the prices were in GBP and I was charged a $43.66 international transaction fee with no option to pay in AUD.  It doesn't make sense to me.