Octane
21st Sep 2011, 08:44
I just received this from a family friend who went to Melbourne Monday morning:
"We made it back to Melbourne in one piece, and yes we were able to get into the Qantas Lounge in Darwin prior to leaving with Virgin.
That’s where my love of Qantas ended.
After great service on the plane down to Brisbane with Virgin I left my wife upstairs to avoid her having her normal problems with Security because
of her knee replacement.
Qantas have recently changed their rules on luggage!
They obviously do not cater for folk like us who had arranged to collect another bag in Brisbane with clothes more suited to Melbourne than
Darwin. You are only allowed one bag each passenger even after my 30 years with Qantas club & travelling Business Class. As if that was not
enough I was then instructed by the machine you punch into for your boarding pass to go to the area allocated to pay your additional baggage
cost to find a huge queue as long as your arm with other disgruntled customers suffering similar unanticipated demands.
After waiting for 20 minutes and appearing to be no nearer the counter and my two hour buffer between flights sapping away I was urged by
another man in the queue to go and gate crash the small area (but still a long queue) now allocated for those people too thick apparently to
use their standalone machines for seat allocation and entry pass to the plane itself which I found later with some relief had a live pilot rather
than a fully automated system to deliver their precious plane down to Melbourne.
After gate crashing the new queue (like many others quicker than me) I managed to persuade the nice clerk to take our three bags from me but any
amount of persuasion and sweet talk failed to get her to take my $30 additional cost and issue boarding passes, but she said I had to go back to my favourite queue again, which had shortened a little as people who had not allowed two hours to obtain their boarding pass had probably missed
their plane and gone home. After only a 25 minute delay this time I made the counter and discovered one of the reasons for holdups in collecting
additional money for the Qantas shareholders was the gentleman who served me still was using the old fashioned slide type credit card machines
and seemed to have to complete an extraordinary number of computer entry’s in order to ensure my bags went to Melbourne after all and I was to
receive my long awaited boarding pass for us to continue our journey.
You will be very proud of me that despite not having been to bed for over 24 hours and endured the “red eye flight” from Darwin I was never
once rude or nasty to the counter staff who were very sympathetic and had never made the money grabbing rule changes anyway.
Finally sitting in the plane I realized this latest Qantas obstacle course had been developed to leave us no time to relax and enjoy a coffee
In the Qantas lounge as I only just made it back to the gate 24 in time to board the plane with the wife almost beside herself wondering what
mischief I had been up to."
So, a 30 years plus Qantas business class customer probably lost to Virgin. Luckily they missed the security debacle that occurred an hour later.....
"We made it back to Melbourne in one piece, and yes we were able to get into the Qantas Lounge in Darwin prior to leaving with Virgin.
That’s where my love of Qantas ended.
After great service on the plane down to Brisbane with Virgin I left my wife upstairs to avoid her having her normal problems with Security because
of her knee replacement.
Qantas have recently changed their rules on luggage!
They obviously do not cater for folk like us who had arranged to collect another bag in Brisbane with clothes more suited to Melbourne than
Darwin. You are only allowed one bag each passenger even after my 30 years with Qantas club & travelling Business Class. As if that was not
enough I was then instructed by the machine you punch into for your boarding pass to go to the area allocated to pay your additional baggage
cost to find a huge queue as long as your arm with other disgruntled customers suffering similar unanticipated demands.
After waiting for 20 minutes and appearing to be no nearer the counter and my two hour buffer between flights sapping away I was urged by
another man in the queue to go and gate crash the small area (but still a long queue) now allocated for those people too thick apparently to
use their standalone machines for seat allocation and entry pass to the plane itself which I found later with some relief had a live pilot rather
than a fully automated system to deliver their precious plane down to Melbourne.
After gate crashing the new queue (like many others quicker than me) I managed to persuade the nice clerk to take our three bags from me but any
amount of persuasion and sweet talk failed to get her to take my $30 additional cost and issue boarding passes, but she said I had to go back to my favourite queue again, which had shortened a little as people who had not allowed two hours to obtain their boarding pass had probably missed
their plane and gone home. After only a 25 minute delay this time I made the counter and discovered one of the reasons for holdups in collecting
additional money for the Qantas shareholders was the gentleman who served me still was using the old fashioned slide type credit card machines
and seemed to have to complete an extraordinary number of computer entry’s in order to ensure my bags went to Melbourne after all and I was to
receive my long awaited boarding pass for us to continue our journey.
You will be very proud of me that despite not having been to bed for over 24 hours and endured the “red eye flight” from Darwin I was never
once rude or nasty to the counter staff who were very sympathetic and had never made the money grabbing rule changes anyway.
Finally sitting in the plane I realized this latest Qantas obstacle course had been developed to leave us no time to relax and enjoy a coffee
In the Qantas lounge as I only just made it back to the gate 24 in time to board the plane with the wife almost beside herself wondering what
mischief I had been up to."
So, a 30 years plus Qantas business class customer probably lost to Virgin. Luckily they missed the security debacle that occurred an hour later.....