Cancelled flight, Lying staff, Lost bags, Useless call centre, Misleading facebook staff, $1600 cost to us, JETSTAR ARE THE WORST

PHUKET
Wow, This Company are the pits of the earth. I cannot understand how they are not disbanded and fined beyond belief. Our story is awful. There are four of us, including a 13 year old girl.
On Friday 26th April we had a 9.45am flight from Phuket to Singapore cancelled at 9.40am, after we had all checked in.
At 10:30am No announcement has been made but a few of us are at the desk asking what is going on and we are told the flight is "indefinatly delayed"
Those of us at the desk were told there were four flights available.
12pm Tiger (buy a ticket and be reimbursed)
5.20pm Jetstar (straight transfer) with 25 spaces left on board
7:50pm Tiger (buy a ticket and be reimbursed)
10pm Jetstar (straight transfer) with 124 places on board

There were also silk air and air Asia flights out of Phuket that day

We were one of the first 25 people to claim the 5.20pm flight. Our name went on a list and we were told that was our flight. As a result none on the 25 booked the other flights

At 12.30pm no official announcement over the PA had been made and as a result some people were still unaware of the cancelation. I know this as two people spoke to me and asked what was happening.

Between 10.30am and 3pm I asked at least four times if we were defiantly on the 5.20pm and was told by (Jetstar know her name) that is we were on the list we were on the flight .We were told our boarding passes would be issued when the flight “opened”

After 3pm one of us noticed some of the names on the list had suddenly got a tick or an x next to the names. This caused a bit of a stir and between after many questions (an hours’ worth) with most of that spent watching (Jetstar know her name) talking on a phone or a walkie talkie then at about 4pm it was announced that only 11 of the 25 people were actually on the 5.20pm flight.

We were told that as no one had stopped the sale of the tickets online others had bought 14 of them and the other seats had to go to people with Jetstar connecting flights. I was told by (Jetstar know her name) that this was HER mistake and that some of the people should never have been placed on the list (including the four of us). She also told us that we should not have gone on the list at all as out connecting flights were not with Jetstar and again she said this was her mistake

By now it was clear we were going to miss our connecting flight and I was not happy. This (Jetstar know her name) then proceeded to tell us again that it was her mistake and said she was going to contact Jetstar in Singapore, get us on the 7.50pm tiger flight and make sure that when we got to Singapore we would get help to get home.

We have it on video

I was told by her that for that to happen would have to get to Singapore quickly where they would be waiting to help us get home. It seemed plausible so we agreed to the 7.50pm flight

Between 5pm and 8.30pm we still did not know what was going on, then the tiger flight was delayed. We finally got on the tiger flight at about 8.45 and were given out passports and boarding passes at the gate by tiger staff. I asked (I really did) if our bags were on the flight and they (little bald guy, a manager in Phuket) said “yes they should be”

Before we leave Phuket I want to point out the fact that all they did to feed us was give us a can of drink and some (almost) cold airline food. It took them hours to make an announcement. One of the managers was actually laughing at us. There was no coordination at all. It was a total shambles. If it was not for a passenger, a lovely lady who works at Perth Airport, who basically took over coordination I doubt that we would have been told half the stuff we were, and half of not much is not much at all.

SINGAPORE

Landed in Singapore the other side of midnight on the 27th (tiger flight took off at 10.pm in the end)
Got through customs and waited for our bags, and waited, and waited and eventually realised that 3 of the 4 were not there.

By now we had been up for 21 hours, had had hardly any food, were dirty and tired and now we had no clothes (well my g/f did but the rest of us had none)

We got to the lost baggage and made a report (a tiger one as we were on the tiger flight). The report was made using the Jetstar check in tags as they had (illegally I’ve found out) not checked the luggage out at Phuket and rechecked it onto the tiger flight.

Then we approached the ground staff we saw that seemed to be doing Jetstar stuff. He listened to us and we told him how we were meant to be getting help and could he contact someone as they should be expecting us.

He told us that no one from Jetstar was at the airport and he then went off to phone “Wendy” the supposed one in charge at night. She was not at the airport.

He came back about 10 minutes later and said he had been told “it was not Jetstar’s problem” and that “no one was going to do anything” By now it was 2am. This guy was amazing, he tried to think of ways to help us and in the course of that I showed him the video of the woman in Phuket. Once he saw that he said he was going to ring Jetstar “Wendy” again. He clearly saw this woman in Phuket telling us we would be getting help and went out of his way to help us

He came back again and said he really tried his best but Jetstar had said it was “not their problem” and that they “don’t care about Phuket mistakes” he then said he mentioned the video several times and that he was still told by this Wendy “it’s nothing to do with Jetstar”

We were now into hour 22 and my daughter and partner slept on the floor at change whilst I and my friend tried to arrange a hotel with early check in and other flights. During this time I spoke on the phone to Jetstar 5 times and was basically told to get lost on every call except for one supervisor who noted everything down and then went to call Jetstar at the airport to see if they, finally would help.

She came back with a lot of sympathy but again with the news that Jetstar were not going to do anything

We ended up booking a hotel with a 10am check in and scoot flight back to the gold coast at 10.30pm that night, it was now 7am, we had been up 24 hours, I had no clothes, my friend had no clothes, and my daughter had no clothes. We checked into the hotel at 10am, 24 hours after all this started, slept, bought some emergency supplies like clothes and toiletries and got on the scoot flight with no trouble at all. Just the hotels cost $250 and the flights about $1000

We landed back in Australia on Sunday Morning about $1500-$1600 lighter, all because of Jetstar’s mistake.

BACK HOME
So we are back minus three bags. You would think Jetstar would now do the right thing yes? Well think again! I spoke to Tiger lost bags on Monday Evening who said they now had my bags, minus ANY tags, basically just dumped on the plane by Jetstar (I don’t know when) and that he was now going to contact them to collect them from Tiger and get them back to the gold coast for us as Tiger did not fly there and they still were under the original check in tags.

When I phoned Jetstar baggage services they told me it was not their problem and to talk to tiger. I checked on Tuesday morning and the bags were still sitting at tiger.

I phoned Wednesday afternoon and was told by Tiger that Jetstar had collected the bags and they were going on a flight to Brisbane, a Qantas flight and he said to make sure I should ring baggage services for Jetstar to make sure they have actually done what it says in his system.

I phoned baggage services and they did not have a clue what was going on and told me again to ring tiger. I got cut off multiple times and transferred to dead ringtones too.

Wednesday morning, after the flight has landed I ring QANTAS at Brisbane but it was too early for them so I continued to try to talk to baggage services in both Singapore and Australia, each time (six in all) not getting past even this basic call centre person, being cut off, going to dead phone tones and more.

I finally got to talk to a manager who FINALLY found out that my bags were in Brisbane and they as soon as baggage services had them they would call me.

I then rang QANTAS back and was told I had helped to solve a mystery as they had three bags which had been dumped on the flight by Jetstar with tiger labels and the correct paperwork not filled out so they did not know who to contact.

I arranged with QANTAS to go and pick them up directly and did at 6pm. I got home at 7pm WITH THE BAGS only to get a call from Jester baggage services to say… wait for it…. WE HAVE YOUR BAGS HERE. I of course politely told the guy he was lying as I already collected the bags and hung up

The bottom line is If this woman in Phuket had not told us we were on the 5.20pm flight when it was not possible NONE of this would have happened. Jetstar are responsible as they offered the solutions. I have names, i have video, i have agentid's, i have everything to prove Jetstar stuffed up.

SUMMARY
1: Disgusting behaviour by Jetstar staff on the ground, literally lying to save their skin
2: Disgusting treatment by call centre staff (they literally do not have a clue about anything except to get rid of you)
3: Jetstar’s MISTAKE (not the delay) costing us over $1500
4: No responsibility taken by Jetstar for their mistakes
5: Fly at your peril

************** we got our money back one year later!*********************