Qantas question - Cancelling paid flights on mixed itinerary - Will it affect points flights on same booking?

Flights & Airfares
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Hi there,
I’m trying to help my sister with a Qantas booking issue, I think they’ve ripped her off…but I usually fly Virgin so I’m not familiar with Qantas policies. I’ve read the fare rules on the website, but they’re unclear, and my sister has received conflicting information from different Qantas phone representatives.

The situation:
She had outbound flights (paid, DRW > SYD > PQQ) and return flights (PQQ > SYD > DRW, booked with points) that both appear on the same itinerary/booking reference. This cost $3,150 in total plus a bunch of points.

Plans changed and they’re now coming to Melbourne instead. She called Qantas and they changed the outbound flight to DRW > SYD > MEL. They charged her an additional $465 for the privilege and, for some reason, the ticket type changed to a Red e-Deal and remained indirect. There is a direct Jetstar flight DRW > MEL but they weren’t booked on that. No changes were made to the return flights.

I’m thinking I want to cancel the first leg, buy the direct Jetstar flight instead and keep whatever is left as a flight credit.

My questions:

  1. If we cancel only the outbound flights, will Qantas automatically cancel the return flights as well because they’re on the same itinerary? Or are paid and points bookings treated separately even when they share an itinerary number?
  2. Regarding the Flight Credit from cancelled Red e-Deal flights:
  • How long does it typically take for a Flight Credit to be issued after cancellation?
  • Can Red e-Deal Flight Credits be used to book Jetstar flights directly through the Qantas website, or are they only valid for Qantas-operated flights?
  1. Shouldn’t the MEL flights be way cheaper than the PQQ flights and they already owe her a refund/flight credit?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ideally, they could fly direct and save some money, but I don’t want her to end up further out of pocket.

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Hi there,

I’ll attempt to answer some of the questions.

  1. I’ve not heard of Classic Reward (points) bookings combined with paid (cash) bookings in a single itinerary. Potentially, her point booking was on “points & pay”, where the amount of points required is tied to how much the flights costs in cash?.

If it was “points & pay”, there is nothing stopping her from cancelling the entire itinerary without being charged for this - IF the change was initiated by Qantas.

Going back to your question, I would say you would need to request the flights to be split into two itineraries before cancelling the first set of flights without affecting the second set of flights.

  1. I’m unsure of how long credit takes to be generated and available in her account.

I would think the credit can be used on Jetstar flights as you can book Jetstar flights via Qantas website.

  1. One would assume so but there is no way to know unless you compare the flight costs at that exact moment in time.

Good luck. Hope that helps.