How long did Qantas take to process your refund for cancelled flights?

[sanne]

As I’ve mentioned before I waited over 12 weeks for taxes to be refunded for a cancelled award flight. Several phone calls and messages, Qantas said they’d paid. Amex said they hadn’t received it, suggested a charge back. Sent all the documentation to amex and received the amount owing.

 

[NM]

My last remaining refund hit the 11 week mark today. I called Qantas and selected the call-back option, which took about 40 mins to receive the return call. Agent escalated the request and informed me the refund should take 3-5 business days.

I received the refund confirmation email almost immediately, and now await seeing the funds returned to my Amex card in the next few days.

 

[Pushka]

Another one of mine has just received points and then cash refund. Taking about 3-4 weeks. Still two outstanding and which were the first to be cancelled.

 

[serfty]

My final Qantas one had refund initiated on June 12th where upon I noted in my diary to call today ( > 11 Weeks) - somehow it is now dated 22nd June.

I was offered incentive to let Qantas keep $$$: 10% value add on for non refundable voucher or a choice of Double QFF points or double SC's for travel booked with voucher.

After being advised I preferred the $$$, I was I was told 'next week' as it is not yet 10 weeks since June 22nd.

 

[Seat0B]

I cancelled 2 bookings at the end of March - my choice, I stupidly cancelled before they did. One was for a points booking to Melbourne, the other was for a paid booking to Melbourne, both for travel in early April. Points and taxes cancellation refunded quite quickly - a matter of weeks. Paid booking - I elected a voucher at that time thinking to preserve the DSC (oh how different things looked back then ). After 5 separate phone calls since then (about once per month) I still have not received my voucher. I called again today, 15 minutes wait time, then told by the person that they could see my voucher and had no idea why it was not sent/showing on my account. Said it would be fixed soon and to check my account again tomorrow. I'm not overly convinced as this is exactly what the last person said. I'll check again tomorrow.

Does anyone know if the ACCC "refunds must be offered" position would apply to me in these circumstances as given how things look now I think I'd rather have the refund and be able to book when/if I want to in the future?

 

[mrsterryn]

@Seat0B I am going to look into getting my credits as refunds now .
Husband has his refunds done 10 weeks at which point he rang and then three business days . Funds returned

 

[weststigers]

It took over 5 months and several calls to get my refund. And when I finally got it they kept the $35 credit card processing fee. I've call them twice in the past 3 weeks about getting that refunded too. Both times I've been told it would be in my account in a week. Nothing yet.

I would recommend anyone that has received a refund check that they got ALL of it back.

 

[Guvner]

How on Earth can any CC processing cost $35?? That's theft.

 

[NM]

well, out of my 4 refunds, all have processed the fare/taxes components. But 3 out of 4 did not process the credit card fee refund, all of which were verbally confirmed to me when making the refund requests. It would appear that the system conveniently "forgets" to complete the credit card fee refund, and I expect many people either never notice or think its just too hard to call back for the relatively small amount and just let it ride.

I called back today to enquire about my three credit card fee refunds. All three showed as being "requested" to the very pleasant and helpful Qantas Premium agent. She confirmed the booking references, passenger details and amounts with me, then put me on hold while she called the correct internal department. She then confirmed that all 3 bookings would be refunded the credit card fees in the next 3 business days.

Amounts included $0.40 (for a QFF domestic award booking), 2 x $1.50 for two passenger international award booking, and NZ7.00 for a paid flight booking. So a total of a little under $10. Was it worth the effort? Probably not from a financial perspective, but certainly was from a personal satisfaction perspective.

 

[AIRwin]

Post by @RAM :

2020 FY Results

It looks like Terry McCrann's CL membership is safe (even if there be a extremely slight doubt about their ongoing presence). Terry McCrann: Alan Joyce worth every cent of his $25m pay packet It's paywalled, but here are some snippets: Qantas had two huge things going for it coming into the...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[MEL_Traveller]

From todays news(.com).au: https://www.news.com.au/travel/trav...s/news-story/20b515d22981ff9f171545f4903e40e1

Qantas says processing refunds is very complicated because:

“Processing a refund is more complicated and the majority cannot be automated as many are complex – for example if an itinerary is partially flown or includes codeshare flights. In addition many refunds touch other intermediaries such as travel agents and financial institutions like banks and/or Visa/MasterCard which can slow down the refund process.​

​

I'll translate the last sentence... it means QF have taken their slice of the credit card processing fee and they won't refund that to customers, delaying the refund process

Otherwise they could just void the transaction?

 

[NM]

and none of my transactions included ANY of those things that might slow it down - except Amex and I am certain they add no more than 1 day once sent the refund details by Qantas. No codeshares, no other airlines involved, no travel agent other than Qantas on-line booking system, no partially flown itineraries. Still took 3 phone calls and over 12 weeks to get everything back.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

and none of my transactions included ANY of those things that might slow it down - except Amex and I am certain they add no more than 1 day once sent the refund details by Qantas. No codeshares, no other airlines involved, no travel agent other than Qantas on-line booking system, no partially flown itineraries. Still took 3 phone calls and over 12 weeks to get everything back.

Amex - but was was there a credit card processing fee? Qantas would have to manually go through and make sure you didn't get that back!

 

[willclan]

last refund took 10 weeks from Qantas

 

[NM]

Amex - but was was there a credit card processing fee? Qantas would have to manually go through and make sure you didn't get that back!

All 4 of my cancelled reservations included at least one credit card processing fees. One of the cancelled booking was refunded as two Amex credit transactions on the same day, one for the fare component (just over $750) and one for the credit card surcharge ($7.90).

Then about 2 weeks later, one the same day, two more bookings refunds were processed. One being a QFF domestic classic award for about $36. which was $0.40 less than I had paid, which was later confirmed to be a $0.40 credit card surcharge. The other was for a QFF classic award trans-Tasman involving two passengers. This was refunded as 2 separate transactions, each for about $137 and each being $3 less than paid, which was confirmed later as being the missing credit card surcharge refunds.

The last was a trans-Tasman fare refund, which noted on Amex card with the NZD amount being the amount paid not including the NZD7.00 credit card surcharge.

It appears to me that they do no look at what was actually charged to the credit card in the original transaction, but look at the fare that has been cancelled and just refund that portation, with credit card surcharges needing to be requested as a separate transation.. With each booking cancellation I specifically identified the credit card surchage to the phone agent and each time they confirmed that the surcharge/fee was noted in the refund request transaction. But 3 out of 4 "fell through the cracks" in favour of QF of course.

 

[NM]

well, overnight I have received one of the credit card surcharge refunds - from Qantas NZ for the NZD7.00 fee. No sight yet of the AUD refunds.

 

[RAM]

Meanwhile Emirates can process & cash refund 1.4 million bookings out of 1.58m cancelled since March. I suspect there is much more involved in issuing refunds for Emirates given less than 4% of their bookings are made locally. Surprised that the amount averages USD 1,000 (AUD 1,400) a booking though, for a total of USD 1,400m (AUD 1.9bn).

Emirates airline pays $1.4 billion in COVID-19 travel refunds

The Emirates airline has shelled out roughly $1.4 billion in coronavirus-related travel refunds — and it’s not done yet. The Dubai-based carrier revealed the figure in a Monday news release, …

nypost.com

The figures for Q are more like $4+bn in cancelled bookings.

Perhaps the recent rash of cash refunds coming through coincides with Q having some more cash to pay out after its late August $500m unsecured 10 yr bond issue in the US. For some reason Q will not touch its $1bn undrawn bank facility - curious.

 

[RAM]

...and as if by magic

If you have Q Travel credits or have still not received your 'cash' refund then read this story - especially the second half as it is very relevant.

Dec 31 deadline approaches for Qantas Covid credit bookings

While you can also request a full refund, Qantas is offering double points for bookings made with ‘Covid credit’.

www.executivetraveller.com

In addition, Qantas has pulled almost all international flights from October 2020 to March 2021 from its website.

This is considered a precursor to the flights themselves being officially cancelled, which would open the floodgates for passengers to claim a full refund instead of travel credit – leaving the airline on the hook for an estimated $4 billion in refunds on outstanding international bookings.

____________________________________________​

Seems someone else is more pessimistic - they've estimated $4bn in refunds just on outstanding international bookings.

Vs NTA of less than $400m (given 30 June accounts + $500m unsecured bond issue less 10 weeks cash burn BEFORE paying out any refunds).

 

[cambriamarsh]

I'm at 18 weeks and counting. Simple domestic round trip paid booking.

Chase them got mine released at 11 weeks

 

[Guvner]

Chase them got mine released at 11 weeks

I have, a number of times. Spoke to a Premium Contact Center person yesterday who has escalated it.