I had high hopes for our return trip home from Singapore to Australia. We had just finished an amazing 8 days in Ho chi Minh, flew from Ho chi Minh to Singapore, had a 2.5 hour stopover and we were looking forward to the return business class flight, it was going to be the final dose of luxury before coming back to reality.
How wrong I was.
Let me begin at the start. Boarding, great, first on, seated, champagne in hand, dinner order taken, our flight was scheduled to leave at 9.10pm. I had kicked off my shoes, got my pillow and blanket sorted, looking forward to dining on the perch I had just ordered. Safety demonstration complete, Cabin crew arm the doors, and we are off. Taxi-ing out happily, I was going home and looking forward to the next 7.5 hours.
That was until an announcement came overhead, ‘passengers, it seems we have a small problem, we ask you to disembark while we sort it out and we will be back on our way in no time.
2.5 hours later they informed us that our flight JQ8 , at the ripe old time of midnight is in fact, now cancelled.
Don’t get me wrong, if there is a problem with a plane and it is deemed not safe to fly, then by all means, I do not want to be on that plane!
The problem lies with the poor customer service by Jetstar that was to follow. We had been waiting hours for a update and by this stage all airline flights had closed for the evening, and it was clear that no one from Jetstar knew what to do.
After hours of trying to sort out a flight, I was informed we were rebooked on a flight leaving at 11.50pm that evening. It was in this conversation that I was informed we would be rebooked on a business class flight, I confirmed this twice with the live chat assistant, and yes, they confirmed twice that I would be travelling home on a business class Qantas flight. I took screenshots just in case of a problem.
From the time of our original flight we had a 27 hour layover, we spent the day exploring Singapore, ending up at Universal Studios on Sentosa Island. At one point during a ride on The Mummy rollercoaster, we began laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole debacle, in hindsight, I think we were just delirious!
The laughing soon stopped when the circus continued that evening, when we made our way to the Qantas booking counter to check in. It was at this point I asked the Qantas check-in staff the magic words “just confirming we are business class”……. she looked at me, ‘No you are economy, Jetstar have rebooked you economy’ followed by, ‘you need to take it up with them if that is a problem’. Ok. deep breaths. Yep, that is a problem, so off we waddle with our bags to yet another counter, in my head all I could think of was the theme music to The Benny Hill show.
It was at this counter we were rudely informed by a jetstar employee ‘we are only ground staff, we didn’t do the booking, we can do nothing for you, I mentioned the screenshots stating my business class booking which was met by a ‘we can not help you’. Next.
So there we were, tired, deflated and feeling defeated. Our dreams of business class… finito.
As a final insult, as we boarded we were made to walk through the business class seating, passengers were already snuggled in their large seats, Kate Spade amenity bags sitting pretty next to them, champagne in hand. The worst of it was that the business class area was only half full. The joke was on us!
I have nothing against economy and until this trip it was all I had ever flown, I am definitely no snob, but we were ripped off big time by Jetstar.
I give it two thumbs down!
Travelling Soul Sister 