QANTAS: ‘COVID credits’ extended – must book by end 2023 for travel by end 2024

Prior to the announcement today, you needed to book and complete your travel using your credits by 31 December 2023. Now, you still have to book by the end of 2023, but your actual travel can be in 2024, in fact through to December 31 2024 whether you r credit is with Qantas or Jetstar.

While Qantas like to remind us what action it has taken, everything from setting up a Travel Credit Concierge Team; Ph 1300 171 505) or go to Travel Credits Hub to emailing monthly reminders about your credit balance

If you still are having trouble keeping track of your credits and original travel booking details, then Qantas is launching a “Find My Credit” tool to help you.

Pre-empting findings of the ACCC

It should be noted that travel credits are one of the things most complained about in social media forums and to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) where complaints about Qantas have risen by 68%. The ACCC even initiated an enquiry back in April 2022.

The cynical would say that Qantas is trying to pre-empt the findings of that enquiry!

What credits Qantas is holding

During the height of the pandemic, Qantas was holding something like AU $2 billion of credits. The figure is currently around AU $800,000, of which 76% of credits are under AU $500, and the rest under AU $5,000. There are under a per cent over that amount. What that means is there are a lot of people Qantas has to service that hold those credits, so they need to, and should have already built a much more robust system to redeem them.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is a good move by the Qantas group. But there is still a lot to do.

My account shows that I have 3 Qantas Passes, or whatever Qantas calls them, when in fact once I fill in the details, and then go to the separate website where I have to add in another number that Qantas emailed to me, with a password that Qantas also emailed me – more than a year ago, the balances show as zero. Every time I see those credits, I think – maybe I am wrong – and I do have some credits. And every time I track down the details and check, and there is nothing. But each time it erodes my confidence.

As for the separate web page that calculates the fares available for your credit, the fares used to be somewhat higher than shown on the main Qantas site. That seems to have stopped. I recently redeemed a flight credit for a flight I cancelled, and the fares were exactly the same as on the main site. So that alleged ‘gouging’ seems to have been de-programmed.

And let me jump from hobby horse to soap box, and complain about Qantas’s appalling IT. If you try and search on their website sometimes, especially for Classic Rewards, you can go away, have lunch, a nap, a cup of tea, a short zoom meeting, a couple of hands of mahjong, and still not get any results!

I could go on, but I won’t. Expect an email from Qantas or Jetstar soon explaining the changed credit arrangments

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