Screwed In Terminal 5

My mate Alex organised a mini cab to take me to Heathrow Airport.  I had booked a flight via the Qantas website using my frequent flyer points.

The flight was a code share on a British Airways plane.  My flight was going from terminal 5 which is brand new and absolutely huge.

I figured that i would give the automatic check in machine a go so I whipped out my passport and my ticket info printout.  I entered the relevant information and was promptly told by the computer that it could not help me in anyway and that I should go to the “Assistance” counter.

This is where my whole day went downhill.

When I think back it had started out so nicely; nice blue sky, a walk and a coffee and paper reading in Starbucks.  A bit of a walk along Buckingham Palace Road

All the niceness of the day was dashed and kicked to the gutter when the woman behind the counter said there was something wrong with the ticket and I need to go up to section 13 and see them in ticketing.

So off I hiked to the ticket people.  I have a lifetime Qantas club membership which allows me to use business and first class check ins so i used them at the ticket section. Apparently the BA guy had a problem with this and was ranting and raving on about first class. I looked around and I was holding up exactly … no one.

I asked him to help me out rather than go on about the first class thing.

I showed him my Qantas card which seemed to appease him a little.  He clicked a few things on the computer and then said that Qantas had not issued the ticket properly or that it was not complete. none of this made any sense to me because the printout Qantas had issued said it was confirmed.

Because he liked me so much he said “nothing I can do about it mate, you will have to talk to Qantas about it”

I asked him what their number was because I had no idea. He suggested I ring the number on the back of the qantas card … yeah..that was a 1300 number in Australia.

I let him know I had a prepaid phone with about 50 pence left on it

Finally he got off his fat arse and got a number for me.

off I went to call them and was promptly put on hold for 7 minutes.  I hung up and sent a text to Alex asking him to put some credit on the phone for me.  what a champ in a few minutes it had 10 quid on it!

I decided it would be better to try BA again.  Nope, that was useless but they did suggest going around to Terminal 3 where Qantas was located.

So I went down to the basement and found the train station and boarded.  nice modern train. Found a seat and dialed up Qantas as we had a few minutes before we were ready to go.

Soon as a human answered I asked him not to put me on hold.  I went through the story of having booked online and using my points. He was ok. He found the problem, just as the train pulle dout of the station on its way to Terminal 3.  No matter I felt much better cause this guy was going to sort it all out.

He told me that when Qantas had gone to process my debit card to pay for the taxes on the ticket it had been declined.  Oh I said, gosh  that’s never happened to me before!  hahahahah

Anyway if I could give him a card number he would process it right now and get my ticket issued in time for me to catch the flight to New york.

Halfway through giving him my card number we hit a deep spot and the phone connection was lost…

I nearly cried like a little girl

I grabbed by incredibly heavy new big suitcase, laptop, and heavy winter coat and struggled to terminal 3 looking for Qantas.

Nowhere… I asked at the staff at an airline that I’ve never heard of. They had no idea. I went to BA and asked them. They directed me to BA ticketing at the end of the hall and said that BA ticketing handled all the Qantas tickets.

Can you feel my hatred of that jerk back at BA ticketing in Terminal 5?

By now I’m dragging all my stuff and am holding my phone to my ear talking to Qantas.  I’m going through it all again with a new girl.

I’m talking to her and to the lady at the BA ticket counter.  BA cannot help me, it’s all down to Qantas.  Are they going to come good and issue the ticket cause time is running out fast.

YES!  The ticket is issued and the BA gal even holds a seat for me on the flight.

At least the train ride back to terminal 5 was more relaxed.

The BA club was excellent and I used and abused it and the flight was excellent as well.

This all goes to show there is no way around paying taxes