Qantas unable to offer incentives when flights paid in other currencies

We are living in Canada at the moment and had booked business class flights to visit Sydney over Christmas like we do every year. Qantas just cancelled the flights as expected but because we paid in CAD (which is the only option when using the Qantas site in Canada) we were only offered a refund, no travel pass incentives. As a family of long time platinum and gold frequent flyers it is very disappointing as the double status points may have been a way to help maintain status over the coming years. Apparently Qantas has a system limitation that only allows it to offer the incentives when the flights are paid in AUD. Very disappointing. Has anyone else experienced this?

Didn't think I would see someone complaining about getting a refund. Normally people complain about only being able to get a travel credit

Wouldn’t worry too much, airline status will be fairly low on the list of priorities in the next few years anyway, let’s face it we are not going anywhere much and when we do it won’t be anything like it was.

Yes, an interesting situation which just goes to prove that everyone is different - for some pax, a travel credit with DSC or some other incentive is preferable to a cash refund! (I'm in the same boat - I want the credit with DSCs).

Very true!

Just wondering if the differences is not just due to whether you paid in AUD but also consumer rights and refund rules based on which website location the ticket is bought from (which cannot be circumvented if buying a straightforward return trip between one origin and destination) especially when the conversion rate used by the airlines can be far more outrageous than official rates

Perhaps the refund rules is demanded by Canada law per consumer rights

You can't win, really.

Yes Juliann

We had O/W flights booked back to Perth from Singapore after a cruise from Australia to Singapore. No choice but to book in Sing Dollars as flight originated in Singapore. Enquired recently if I could get some SC incentive to leave the booking as a credit but was told they are unable to do so with foreign currency bookings. I fail to see any good reason not to offer SC incentive. I’m still a fare paying customer of Qantas and this catch 22 just irks me. After currency exchange penalties not sure how much I will end up with if we take refund. How hard can it be to offer incentives.

Ah the complexities. There are some who had numerous flights booked with DSC and when the original cancellations and credits were announced, keeping any DSC with the credit was not an option. I know; I'm a multi-year P and this year would have made P1. I asked and was prepared to leave the money as a credit. Keeping the DSC wasn't and option, so I took the refunds. Then out came the announcement that any remaining tickets with DSC, if cancelled and taken as a credit would keep its DSC.

While it would have been nice to have left the funds with Qantas and kept DSC on all related tickets, this is life. I'm looking forward to travelling again and fully expect many things to be different. I fully expect Qantas to try and woo we customers back when there are flights and competition, but it is a commercial world and if they don't, they'll test the loyalty as I'm sure all their competitors will.

I don't take FF programs as a given, but at the end of the day, the FF Loyalty systems are there to recognize loyalty and when they don't, being a proud Australian will only carry so far. Interestingly, I found myself sniffing aviation fuel in the air the other day and longing to go back to all of the challenges and tribulations that come with being a regular traveler. Go figure.