Qantas business class upgrade requested, approved, then rejected!

Another example: couple checked in, with boarding passes, in Melbourne for Sydney Johannesburg flight, business class full fare paid 9 months previous, bumped at the gate in Sydney to economy (not even premium econ) because business was "overbooked". A few hundred bucks compensation offered and refund of the difference.  Hardly the point though when you have a medical condition that means a cramped economy seat for 14 hours is not appropriate, you've already travelled from country Victoria to Melbourne and then flown to Sydney for the flight (add those hours to the flight time), and you've PAID months ahead for the business class seats.  Apparently the cabin staff did their best to compensate, but Q has still lost two customers.

sorry but I am Platinum and I can assure you that in my experience QF does not care at all about loyalty, they run these expensive PR exercises by way of Feedback Panels and Surveys but I guess they must laugh behind doors at those who participate for they do nothing about it, they simply do not care. Have you ever dealt with the Executive Relations team in Sydney? Lodge a complaint, submit your feedback, whatever you do you get these less than interested and at times highly defensive and dismissive staff but they won't lift a finger, as you rightly point out, why bother giving this airline your loyalty? Others might disagree but QF sucks, one of the worst when it comes to looking after its loyal customers!

Ironic that I should stumble across this post whilst I have time to browse ABT in an airport lounge. I checked in for QF74 SFO-SYD about an hour ago, was told that business is overbooked/oversold and was asked if I'd be prepared to downgrade.  I didn't even ask what the compensation was, I declined. The checkin staffer was very pleasant about it, thanked me "for listening to the offer" and has given me a boarding pass for the seat I selected months ago.  From what I read above, I hope that is still where I am sitting in 1.5 hours time. This is a first for me and, as a QF platinum, I've checked in for a few QF flights over the years. Perhaps it's a good thing I was early at checkin.... fingers crossed.  They've been doing this in the USA for years, I find it unpleasant but know travellers with time to spare make a quest of volunteering and using compensation payments to pay for their holidays.

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I know, the Qantas airport staff is terrible, I was once travelling with them out of Brisbane, and we did not realise we had our Q-tags on, so it just went, we called for assistance and said, 'Our bags just went without a tag'. The service lady was like, 'you had a bag tag sir, it is called technology' so rude.

I haven't had this with QF, but a few times (thankfully, very few) with other airlines.  My reaction has consistently been "In that case, book me on another flight".  On all but one occasion when I was put on an alternative flight, the response has been (after a bit of tapping on keyboards) "we have no seats available on our other flights today/tonight", to which I reply "that's fine, you can rebook me on another airline".  This generally causes some consternation, but when I stand firm and politely point that I have paid (whether with miles or cash - doesn't matter) for a business class seat and I'm not travelling unless I get one, seats have always miraculously become available.

An update!  It has been 11 days since we were downgraded, and 8 days since we filled out the customer complaint form with Qantas and we still haven't been credited with the 90,000 points they deducted from the account for the "successful" upgrade request.

Originally Posted by User :

Sorry MRYJDRAKE - Both a little rude and condescending to the OP, in my opinion. Whilst the OP is Bronze, he had made enough  paid trips (or received bonus CC points) to amass sufficient points to request and be granted a J Class upgrade (note - not on a Red eDeal fare either). That's not necessarily an easy thing to achieve when you are not gaining status bonuses.

Remember, a SYD-LAX-JFK return in Y will net a Y pax  <10K points without Status Bonuses. So it's clear that the OP has made a few trips of this stage / length. A good bit more valuable than the average family punter doing 2 SYD-BNE returns for his/her annual holidays.