Another meltdown at @QantasAirways and @nab struggle with Frequent Flyer Points.

If the immortal words were ever so true, this morning was the morning, “Mascot, we have a problem!”  And what a problem it was.  It seems that the gremlins from Virgin had been watered after midnight and escaped to Qantas.  Now in the “olden days”, this would not have been an issue as when you entered the departures hall you were greeted with a wall of check-in counters and accommodating staff.  These days you get a hand full of staff showing you how to press buttons on a screen and when the gremlins broke into the datacentre, the screens were not co-operating and thus you get monumental delays and my word, Qantas are good at those.

My usual Canberra run would have been a very long and protracted affair today had I not already been in Canberra.  The 7:20 did not depart till 8:57.  I bet Qantas made the poor bastards sit on the plane !

In summer Channel Nine have classic catch’s and Qantas have classic boarding passes but no car to be won!

The pen and paper is a nice touch, next tablet and chisel?

The other big news, NAB – more take, less give, I think that is how it goes…..

Qantas mediocrity is legendary, they do it so well, so I was surprised at the ease NAB had got in on the act with the allocation of Frequent Flyer points from cards that are earn points.  This sorry affair started in September 2011 when I noticed that I was missing a couple thousand points on my Frequent Flyer statement.  I phoned 1300 number on the back of my card and that is when the fun started.

After spending an hour explaining that there was an error, that it was a bank issue (remembering that at the NAB customer charter indicates that our faeces does not stink) and asked what were they going to do to fix it, I got no where.  Eventually, I was told, some one would ring me back.  Too their credit, they did get back to me and guess what – still my fault.  The rocket scientists in the NAB loyalty department do not consider customer loyalty to be a high priority on their to do lists.  Faeces, smell, ring a bell!  The more give, less take was wearing thin.  After a false start with the NAB Resolve team (another sorry story) I finally got some where and guess what – “Docklands, we have a problem”.  It would appear that a flood of complaints came in after mine and the rocket scientists finally joined the dots (they only had configure 1 to 2!).  What happened next,  the bank has still not issued, and I have looked, any acknowledgement of the problem.  Furthermore they still have not apologised for the error and after 5 follow up emails and a few more phone calls we are getting the points in January 2012 currently as of email 5 today. I did get a letter a month ago from the NAB Resolve team saying the problem had been resolved.

Moral of the story

• “More give, Less take” only works when nothing goes wrong!
• when dealing with third parties about Qantas Frequent Flyer points, large quantities of pseudoephedrine may be required.  At one point, a dose of the green dream was looking appealing.
• All ways check your Frequent Flyer points – you have paid for them physically and mentally!
• The words “benefit of the doubt” and “bank” do not sit well in one sentence,think oil and water.

Next time, I have done some research and Ferdinand Magellan was wrong.  In Mascot the world is FLAT !