I want to share my direct experience with this community about Qantas gift voucher that can be purchased easily from Qantas website in order to alert some of us here who used to or plan to purchase it as a surprise gift for your loved ones.
To make it clear I will tell the story the chronologically.
- my partner purchased two vouchers as surprised gifts for Christmas for me in December 2017 and December 2018
- at the time my partner purchased these vouchers, he put his email address as purchaser’s email and my email as a recipient’s one
-Terms and conditions specified in that webpage saying the voucher will be initially sent to the purchaser’s email and a recipient email. If there is no receiver’s email recorded during the process of purchasing, the email will be sent only to the purchaser’s one
- after a year of the first voucher, and 3 weeks of the second one purchased, two vouchers have never been sent to me until now
- I contacted Qantas Platinum one and premium booking team (my partner is Platinum one and I am Platinum), they sent me their system sequence chart, which showed that they only sent the vouchers to my partner’s email
- although it can seen without any doubt that it is Qantas fault and error that the voucher were not sent out to the recipient, none of them said sorry or apologise or take any responsibility
- we found out about this because my partner purchased the second one this year and wondered why I didn’t say anything at all, so we talked about it and found out and contacted Qantas promptly
- the voucher from last year will be expired on 30 December, the one purchased this year will be expired in 2021 which is fine.
- Qantas premium booking staff insisted that it was not their fault.
He actually said that you people don’t have any chat in your family? No - not for a surprise gift - not when the product provider said it clearly that it would send it out by themselves, I replied.
- premium booking staff didn’t care about the fact that it was two errors from their side, no sorry or apologise of course and he insisted the voucher will not be extended (as it was solely our fault, not theirs) I just have to redeem it or lose it
- at the end I was forced to throw any destination on any travel date and then I change it later with possible fee occurred later with possible higher fare when I have to use it. If I have this past whole year, I would definitely be able to plan carefully and use this voucher for Business saver without having to change any travel date which can cost 250 AUD fee.
- Qantas made it terribly difficult to communicate with them and they kept denying their error even it was shown clearly in their system
So this is a friendly alert, if you happened to buy their voucher already, ensure that the recipient received the voucher. Otherwise these voucher would simply be a free annual bonus for Qantas people. Please note that they take no responsibility at all.
I was once in a situation where I had two $300 gift vouchers. One agent offered to combine the values for me at no charge since the system does not allow me to do it online and asked me to call back once I had decided what flights to book. On my next call, the agent I spoke to told me there would be assistance fee and they would not waiver it because it was my choice to buy two gift vouchers.
I have recently noticed a number of their staff being scared of being reprimanded for waiving assistance fees, such as the other time I couldn't change a multi-city booking on a flexi ticket online and needed operator assistance for. Qantas could do better in providing consistency in customer service and information.
CitizenF
CitizenF
Member since 11 Jan 2017
Total posts 5
I want to share my direct experience with this community about Qantas gift voucher that can be purchased easily from Qantas website in order to alert some of us here who used to or plan to purchase it as a surprise gift for your loved ones.
donatello
donatello
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 22 Jul 2014
Total posts 24
I was once in a situation where I had two $300 gift vouchers. One agent offered to combine the values for me at no charge since the system does not allow me to do it online and asked me to call back once I had decided what flights to book. On my next call, the agent I spoke to told me there would be assistance fee and they would not waiver it because it was my choice to buy two gift vouchers.
Steve987
Steve987
Member since 23 Feb 2015
Total posts 268
Qantas vouchers are a terrible idea generally. No redeeming qualities at all (pun intended).