The Spirit of Disappointment: CHOICE awards Qantas shonky award
CHOICE has awarded Qantas with a Shonky for constantly disappointing customers on almost every front.
The Australian airline has failed customers with its unusable flight credits, delayed flights, disappearing baggage, and endless call wait times.
“If there was ever a company that appeared to deliberately be going out of its way to win a Shonky Award, it’s Qantas,” says CHOICE travel expert Jodi Bird.
“People are still paying premium prices to fly Qantas, but it’s clear from the complaints we’ve heard, they’re not getting a premium service.”
Granted the pandemic paused the majority of flights for travellers, but an investigation by CHOICE in April this year found that Qantas and Jetstar together were sitting on $1.4 billion in unused consumer flight credits and future bookings.
“Qantas has made it difficult and confusing for their customers to use flight credits for cancelled travel. This includes forcing many people to spend extra money, putting limits on available flights, being unable to make bookings using credits online – the list goes on,” Mr Bird said.
Further investigations by CHOICE, found that telephone wait times for Qantas were embarrassingly long compared to their competitor Virgin.
“Our research revealed on average, you’ll be on the phone for 21 minutes before your call is answered, and up to 50 minutes. By comparison, Virgin came in under a quarter of that average time with five minutes wait, and a maximum of 13 minutes,” Mr Bird continued.
Following their investigations, CHOICE has called for greater protection for all travellers.
“The laws that left travellers in cancellation chaos throughout 2020 remain the same today,” CHOICE CEO Alan Kirkland said.
“Businesses are allowed to write the rules, so anyone who has paid for travel that is then cancelled needs to wade through unclear terms and conditions, as thousands of Qantas customers have been left to do.
“CHOICE has put forward a clear plan to governments about how to ensure that people are treated fairly in the travel market. We now need federal, state and territory governments and industry to work together to make travel easier and fairer.”
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