Wait times on Qantas Frequent Flyer 131313 > 2hours for last 4 weeks.

Qantas appears to be unable to staff their Frequent Flyer call centre properly for at least 4 weeks now. While I understand that there have been floods in QLD/NSW and a fresh Covid wave, to still have issues 4 weeks later is pretty ordinary.

My situation is that Q decided to convert some flight credits I had to a QantasPass in December 2021 rather than leave it as credits visible & usable on my Frequent Flyer acct. They also decided to notify me of the magic numbers to access the QantasPass via email - which did not come thru. Unfortunately you have no access to your credit funds without this magic number - it is not visible in your QFF account. According to the web site, if you don't have the number, the only way to get it is to ring them.

That's when the QFF call centre experience began...

1. I rang 4 weeks ago - message said "please hang up if you're not flying today", so I did.

2. I tried again multiple times over the next 2 weeks - same message, so I hung up hoping that the crisis would abate.

3. Tried again last week and decided to ignore the message - I had no option as I wanted to book flights with the credit. After 2 hours & 5 minutes on hold, I finally got a person. They said they would arrange the system to re-send the email with the details within 48 hours. A week later it has not arrived (and no, not in Junk or Spam folder).

4. Rang again this week and was on hold for 2 hours & 20 minutes before I got to speak to a human. I said that this time I would not be hanging up until I had it resolved. It took 20 minutes but we got there .... finally.

I'm QFF Gold, so pity help anyone with less "loyalty" to Qantas.

Olivia Wirth - is this the new normal for QFF frequent flyers post Covid?

I feel your pain. On 11 March 2022, I rang Qantas Frequent Flyer in relation to missing status credits. Because it was not urgent and I was not flying within 24 hours I terminated my call and sent an email to Qantas. Two weeks later on 25 March 2022 I had not received an email response. I rang Qantas again and did eventually get through to the call centre. After a 45 minute phone call they were still unable to rectify my problem. I am now waiting for another email response from Qantas.

It has been the new normal for a while, not just the last 4 weeks. Booking a Qantas flight now means that you will be forced to contact the call centre and face horrendous wait times when any sort of change, voluntary or involuntary, affect your booking.

I had a June 2020 flight credit and wanted to book flights in December 2022 (busy, selling-out, expensive, so no, I can't call back later). At various times in the last ~2 years, I had the ability to Manage Booking online and potentially re-book using my credit, BUT suddenly I cannot do it myself anymore and had to call the call centre. So I did - 4 HOURS on hold; almost an hour to get my booking (I thought) done. It's "being sent to e-ticketing; you'll get an email confirmation"... there is a huge PENDING credit card charge for the fare difference (ouch, but sadly expected), but now three days later, no confirmed e-ticket. So now I sit on hold again because I just know I can't trust this to go smoothly the way things are going these days. I know, silly me for giving them twice as much money again as the flight credit.

I had the same issue regarding Qantas Pass. Finally, it arrived. I think they are pushing their luck with their FF's.

“No matter how far, or how wide I roam, Qantas still won’t answer the phone.”

Totally agree,

I gave up too. Wanted to book 2 paid F tickets to the US and use FF for a third seat. I could see a return flight on classic point but only 770k point seats outbound. Previously I would have called QFFF as a platinum to see what they could do.

$27,000 in cash and 350k of points should get you a hearing but no - after a 2 hour wait, I hung up and sent an email, got a response to call 13FOff!

All booked with SQ instead - it was so much easier (and with a nice break in Tokyo too)

Don’t even get me started on the Qantas pass scam. We have multiple passes for multiple bookings - all make on the same booking reference but noooooo Qantas sends each person their own pass, so rebooking and using is a nightmare.

I’m going to run my passes out, run my points down on domestic biz and pay Virgin domestic and SQ international.

Shame, I used to keep Platinum with both and PPS with SQ but clearly Qantas just don’t care, good luck with that as a long term business strategy.

Qantas has become impossible to deal with. I too had an issue that couldn't be resolved online, and got the message on 131313 to go away. Have now tried the 'customer care' number and got a message that there will be a wait of 'approximately' 1 to 2 hours. The worst part - aside from having no access to customer support whatsoever - is that Qantas is treating us like idiots. These messages about only trying to phone if you're travelling in the next 24 hours have been active for many months. It seems QF refuses to resource up now that demand has increased. While waiting for my callback - which may or may not happen today - I tried phoning Virgin. I got through to a human within a minute.

This issue has been going on much longer than 4 weeks. I have given up on Qantas as I have experienced long hold times various times for over a year now. This was even a challenge pre-covid with them unless you had high status.

Qantas will only get the message if we "vote with our feet". Their arrogance in this and other things will continue until they lose enough customers to weaken the bottom line.

Totally agree, tommygun. I had intended to book a flight to secure status extension, but have decided to just use up my points, go for a status match elsewhere, and get out of Dodge. The realisation that Qantas has stopped offering full refunds on 'fully flexible' domestic economy airfares was the last straw....

How do you get a nice break in Tokyo without 2 weeks in a shoebox? I know SQ are good but...

I am just glad that I got my OW emerald with JAL rather than QF, ironic isn't it.

An update; it took me 1 hour 40 mins last Sunday afternoon through to the QF Platinum call line to change a date on a flight... I was expecting longer, but still far too long given I needed to phone as their website functionality wasnt allowing me to only change the outbound flight, not both legs.