I was Profiled to be downgraded from Premium Eco to Eco from Melbourne to LAX (Qantas), during Check in 3 hours before departure due to overbooking.

I was Profiled to be downgraded from Premium Eco to Eco from Melbourne to LAX (Qantas), during Check in 3 hours before departure due to overbooking. Customer care have been very very difficult to initaly get hold off and very very difficult to deal with. What sort of compensation / fare refund should I expect , given my 3 day intensive medical course (6 day trip total) was ruined by this experience?

Paid about $7500 for the tickets in October 2012

Kelvin. Your experience dealing with Qantas seems like my experience with Emirates cutomer service, worse than none at all. If it were me I would be seeking advice from a  solisitor who specialises in problems with airlines. Could anybody help Kelvin,  sugesting  the names and cotact addresses of any laywers  Also Kelvin look at the small claims tribunal at your local Fair Trading department. Here only the parties  can be represented by themselves if you dont want to get involved with the legal system. I used this method to recover sveral thousand dollars that a travel agent refused to refund me when flights were canclled and I had to book alternative transport.

Did you read the terms and conditions of your booking?If you had one,did your agent advise you of these.I have read them for all airlines i've flown.Extremely boring.All of them pretty well state you can be denied a seat,downgraded,have your seat changed after checkin etc.The best is that they don't have to uplift you and they don't have to give a reason why.

I do agree that you should be entitled to some form of refund.

However as far as compensation is concerned, if the being seated in economy rather than premium ruined your whole trip than I think you need to harden up princess and any such claim will make your attempts to seek a refund seem frivolous.

From my previous experiences, I would accept the sum of $ in accordence to their schedule and ask for a business class seat on the next flight if avaible.

I would be asking for the difference between your ticket and an Economy ticket at time of booking (probably around $2000) either in cash or some form of cash/ flight credit.

I would also be asking to get Original Routing Credit (ie Points and SCs as in PE)

You paid $7500 for PE.... wow...

Social Media.... Give them a spray on their facebook page. Guessing that will bring around a much quicker response - I am sure that they monitor comments that go up there VERY closely.   

For that sort of money you'd be better off flying VA or UA in Business Class next time. I think even I would, and I'm a very loyal Qantas flier.

But to make a useful contribution - you should only expect to get the difference in fare refunded. It may have ruined your trip, but the terms and conditions (and the law, I believe) places responsibility for that sort of thing on the customer, not the corporation. 

If QF manages to wriggle out of it somehow then you get your travel insurance company involved and they will figure it out for you (either by finding some way of making the airline pay, or else paying out themselves). If you didn't buy travel insurance, you now know to in future...

If you are the same individual who's posted about a forced downgrade on the Whirlpool Forums (forums.whirlpool.net.au) then IMO you should also state here that you were offered a business class seat on your return flight.

So Kelvin.Were you upgraded on the way back?

yes I was upgraded.. though I did not ask to be..  I actually asked to be downgraded on return.. given returning in PE or ?business was not use to me..

I have now been through the airline customer advocate in ther interim.  We have since worked out that Qantas has lied to her about the amount I had paid for the tickets..as justification for their limited compensation.  I have been advised by the airline customer advocate to contact consumer affairs victoria, given that Qantas has failed to arrive at a satisfactory solution.

We were not that far apart from resolution (about 75%) there its seemed rather silly that a few dollars more initially would have kept me as customer...  .  However the lies that Qantas tells the advocate.. just makes my blood boil..  Not to mention the attititude of the customer care...

If you guy want more info... do read the whirlpool thread...

And yes Qantas did intially offer me $400USD as compensation... when I paid over AUD$4000 extra for premium economy...  Its takes many hours of emails and phones calls to current get to the partial inadequate refund.. ..