I had a first class booking Emirates, booked via QFF. It was originally booked early 2019, and we were due to travel in April 2020. I rang QFF and rescheduled in early March, to later this year (Nov). As it is rather clear now, there will be no chance of flying internationally this year, I phoned QFF on Saturday night (27 June), and cancelled the award booking. The phone agent stated I should receive my points back within 24hours, and a cash refund ($1200 ~) within 10-12 weeks.
As of now, I still haven’t received my point refund (576,000), which is not that unusual, although I am a little concerned as there was no email confirming the cancellation (the trip has been removed from my QFF account however).
I was wanting to hear other people’s experience of getting the points refunded, and the cash portion as well. How long did they take?
We also cancelled a SIA redemption booking on April 3, and those points refunded on 25 May. They also stated that the cash portion will be refunded within 16 weeks as of 5 May. Obviously, we haven’t received the $ portion from that yet.
Hi,
I’m in a very similar position to you. I had a first class booking on Emirates for flying in September which I cancelled on almost the same date as you. I also received no confirmation from Qantas of the cancellation. Like you, the booking no longer shows under “My Bookings”. Also like you, there is no change under “My Points Activity”. I would put little faith in the accuracy of information from the o/s call centre or getting anyone from Qantas to reply to messages. I eventually found the answer is on a pre-recorded message.
Dial Qantas on 131313, Press Option 2, then listen to the pre-recorded message. It basically says refunds will take 8-10 weeks, they are being processed in date order, and you will receive an email once the refund has been actioned. It also says that their Frequent Flyer team are unable to assist with refunds. So that’s it I guess. It’s unsatisfactory because that’s a lot of points you can’t use in the meantime to re-book next year until they are refunded back to your ff account (It used to be that the points would be refunded instantly but the pre-recorded message just says “refunds” will take 8-10 weeks and I guess that means the points too).
Thank you for your response Graham.
I would have thought that the points would be refunded a lot sooner than the 8-10 weeks.
As you stated, if we wanted to book a domestic award/another award we are restricted by the lack of point refund.
I understand the $ portion may take longer, and am totally happy with that. But the points should be refunded within a few days. They are happy to deduct the points from the account the second you may a redemption.
I will continue to check my FF account everyday and hope to see those 576K points refunded!!
If anyone has any other first hand knowledge, I’d love to hear it.
Hi all,
Last year I booked 8 business class award flights in 4 separate bookings for travel in Aug/Sept 2020. When it became clear we were unable to fly I tried cancelling my flights from my account under My Bookings but flight credits were appearing which were confusing me so I called Qantas. The lady I spoke to was hard to understand but just after cancelling the first 3 bookings we were cut off. She did not call back so I decided to cancel the last booking myself which was successful. The points appeared pretty quickly and the $ portion appeared on my credit card the next day. About one week later the points from my first leg of bookings appeared in my account, however, I did not receive the $ portion back on my credit card. After about 3 weeks I called Qantas to request all my points be refunded because I needed to re book flights for next year. They obliged and the points appeared almost immediately, however, when I asked about the $ portion, I was told I had to wait 8-10 for weeks for reimbursement. One interesting thing to note is that at no stage did I receive any email confirmations regarding my cancelled flights from 21 May. I still have several weeks before any money is refunded but I’m holding out that it won’t be too much longer. My points (all 806,600 of them) were my first priority and thankfully I have all those back.
But to avoid confusion, you haven’t said when you cancelled?
You’re correct that it used to be that you’d get the points and money back straight away, but right now it looks like that’s not the case with Qantas.
Hi Graham,
Cancellation of all award bookings was made on 21 May, 2020, by a Qantas agent via phone. She was able to cancel the first 3 bookings in date order and I cancelled the 4th booking the same day myself (through my account under My Bookings). Was very surprised to receive those points immediately as well as the $ portion refunded the next day. Given that all bookings were cancelled on 21 May, I am confused as to why I received a refund on last leg of my trip, yet still waiting for the $ portion refunds of the first 3 legs. Refunding in date order just doesn’t add up.
Thanks Mandyjane!!!
You inspired be to ring up to see if it works! Was on hold for about 90 minutes, BUT THEY IMMEDIATELY REFUNDED MY 416,800 POINTS WHILE I WAS ON THE PHONE TO THEM!!! I said it was the points I was worried about and understood about waiting for the taxes. They said the money would take the 8-10 weeks. So the answer is just ring up.
I rang Qantas Friday night. After a 2 hour wait (which was expected), I was answered by a phone agent based in Tassie - turns out the QFF platinum line are answering calls when they have spare time.
The agent was lovely, and tried to action the point refund straight away. Unfortunately, a department which she needed to speak with was closed by this stage, and would not reopen until Monday 6 July. The agent informed me that she would follow up with the relevant department on Monday, or leave notes/reminders for others to do it.
I was worried, and thought I would be forgotten about.
Today, I received a call from the exact same phone agent informing the points had been refunded!! She also informed me that the taxes will be refunded, and to expect them in a few weeks.
Now we wait for our taxes to be refunded. It’s been almost 7 weeks for me - shouldn’t be too far away but I will let you all know when that happens.
Thanks for the tip. I too got my points instantly refunded.
For those who are worried about time on hold- Qantas have a callback feature when you are automatically called back when you get to the front of the line. Saved sitting around for 90 mins
Hi All,
Received a “Qantas Refund Confirmation” email this morning for one of my three remaining bookings for flights in early September, 2020. Please note that they are not being processed in date order as I’m still waiting for refunds on flights early August and middle August, 2020.
Hi everyone,
Just updating everyone to show the end result of my experience getting my points and taxes refunded from a cancelled Qantas rewards flight. I’d booked the flight with points on 30/3/20 and cancelled on 1/7/20. When I cancelled I didn’t receive any sort of email or advice from Qantas saying it had been cancelled and nothing showed in my Qantas account to reflect the cancellation. Following great advice here from mandyjane6, I just simply rang Qantas and the operator refunded the points instantly. I then just had to wait for the money to be refunded (which they tell you will take 8-10 weeks). I never received any email or anything from Qantas like they say they will send you, the funds just eventually returned on 20/7/20 to the credit card that I’d used to pay the taxes with. As a word of warning to everyone if you’re like me and churn many credit cards, I got no notification the money had been refunded. I had to ring Qantas to find they’d actually refunded the money to whatever card I used at the time. I then had to work out which card it was that I used back then (and had since cancelled). The money was sitting in that non-existent credit card account and in fact would have just sat there until the “end of days” if I didn’t find it myself. I then rang that bank and had the funds transferred from that now non-existent card, back over to my usual savings account. Thanks to everyone here for great advice and hope everyone else has a similar experience
Thank you graham for the update. This is really great advice!
I like you, churn and burn. There could be 2 possible CC’s that paid the taxes with that are both no longer open.
This gives me more motivation to be proactive, and contact QFF. I haven’t received any notification of a $ refund yet.
I cancelled my booking on (late) 3rd July, and then received points back 6th July. By your timeline, I should be due for a cash refund any day now.
I will give them a call in the new few days and report back.
In other news, my SIA (Singapore Air) cash refund came through in early July. Not sure when exactly, as like Graham above mentions, the CC account was no longer active. We didn’t receive and email either from SIA informing us of a refund. We rang up and were told it was processed early July.
After a phone call to ANZ, we found the taxes sitting in an inactive account.
No notification from ANZ either (we have no active accounts with them).
ANZ transferred the balance to our normal bank account on 15th July.
