QANTAS announced last week that it reopened bookings on most of its international network from July 1 , n the belief that the roll out of vaccines would make it possible for people to travel overseas again.
Global Travel Media asked the QANTAS PR office if with the airline now accepting bookings and payments from travellers for travel after July 1, whether that meant all refunds for payments and deposits made for travel between last March and now for cancelled flights had been refunded.
QANTAS refused to answer the questions asked and check out this trail of emails: –
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GTM question:
Now that QANTAS is now taking new bookings, has QANTAS now refunded the money all bookings made from March where clients have requested refunds?
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QANTAS response:
Our latest update on refunds is that the Qantas Group has assisted more than 2.5 million customers with impacted flights since the onset of the pandemic which includes refunds, flight changes and flight credits.
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GTM response: –
Sorry! Unfortunately, you did not answer my questions which was, now that QANTAs is now taking new bookings, has QANTAS now refunded the money all bookings made from March where clients have requested refunds?
If yes, great.
If no, then an additional question is “Why not” and while “2.5 million customers with impacted flights since the onset of the pandemic which includes refunds, flight changes and flight credits”, how many are not resolved and are outstanding?
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QANTAS’ response:
I’m sorry I don’t have a further update on refunds for you.
As you’re aware, ongoing state border closures means that we’ve had to cancel further flights from time to time. I can let you know next time we have a significant update on refunds.
And just to clarify, we have always had international flights on sale for 2021. In late December we made some adjustments to the schedule (as we’ve done several times throughout the pandemic in response to the evolving situation) which pushed some destinations back from March and brought others forward from October to align to 1 July 2021.
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What an interesting response which leads us to believe quite reasonably we also believe that QANTAS has not refunded all the payments for cancelled flights between March and now!
We may be wrong of course, but if you know of refunds that have not been made by QANTAS for flights between March and now, please let us know in the comments section below, telling us how much and since when, what responses are you receiving from QANTAS and did you book direct or with or through an agent.
We look forward to hearing your story.
A report by John Alwyn-Jones
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