I hate QANTAS (or, Christmas holidays continued...)

I haven't had a good year with QANTAS. They've now officially managed to stuff me around twice this year (out of two trips, that's a pretty impressive record).


I don't think I wrote about the first stuff-up when it happened. It was a the end of my Vietnam/Cambodia trip, trying to get home to Brisbane. Since I was travelling with friends from Melbourne, our international flight left from there. And returned there. That was fine - I didn't mind that, and it actually saved a bit of money. But from Melbourne back to Brisbane I booked a QANTAS domestic flight. I'd left around 2.5 hours between the international arrival time and the domestic departure, but our Malaysian Airlines flight got in to Melbourne quite a bit earlier than scheduled. That was great - I thought I'd be able to get home earlier than planned. When I went to check in with QANTAS, though, the woman on the checkin desk was pretty rude. I asked if I could get on an earlier flight, since I was now over 3.5 hours early for my booked flight. She checked my backpack through, said she was busy, and told me to go to the service desk. I thought that was a bit strange, especially since she checked my luggage in, but went to the service desk anyway. When I asked about earlier flights they said of course they could do that, right up until they realised that my luggage was checked in. At that point there was apparently nothing they could do. So, because the woman on the check-in desk couldn't be bothered spending 30 seconds to give me some good advice, I was stuck in Melbourne airport with nothing to do for hours. And hours. After a long international flight. I was tired, bored, and now angry. So - strike one against QANTAS.

The second problem was coming home again to Brisbane, this time from Hobart after Christmas. I booked the return trip with QANTAS, but they put me on JetStar for a flight to Melbourne, then connecting to a QANTAS flight to Brisbane. I'm never doing that again. First of all, because I was changing from JetStar to QANTAS and it was all on one booking, I couldn't use the web check-in function. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying. Then, even though I'd booked the whole trip through QANTAS, they can't transfer luggage between the airlines. So I had to get off in Melbourne, collect my suitcase, and then re-checkin with the QANTAS flight. That was very annoying - especially since JetStar was running a bit late at this point. And just to top it off, JetStar enforces its 20kg baggage limit. QANTAS lets you take up to 32kg without charge, but JetStar doesn't. I had 22.5kg in my suitcase, and so had to pay excess baggage charges for the first time ever. Not happy there, either!

I assumed, that since it was all on a QANTAS ticket and they chose to put me on JetStar (since QANTAS flights to/from Hobart are now few and far between) then QANTAS rules should apply. And that they'd take care of tranferring my luggage. Wrong on all counts. This is the last time I ever take a booking with tranfers between QANTAS and JetStar - it's really not worth the hassle. Next time if QANTAS offers me flight options with these transfers I'll fly Virgin instead. Every time!

I could have avoided all this, of course, if I'd fully read all the terms and conditions, rather than just assuming that QANTAS would do what I thought was the right thing. Silly me! It was all in the fine print, of course. Still, it is definitely the worst travel option I could have come up with, and it wont be happening again.

Thanks, QANTAS! It wasn't a good year for you, I'm afraid!