I was in Cairns the couple of days before Cyclone Yasi hit up there recently. We had a flight to Gold Coast booked on the first day that Cairns airport was announced to be closed and all flights were cancelled. We were desperate to get out and Jetstar announced additional flights that night. When we got online new flights to Brisbane had just been released and almost the whole flight was available. We filled out the form, got accepted, to the final confirmation page and told its declined because we hadn't paid enough. Yep in those few minutes jetstar had raised the flights price. We didn't care about the cost just wanted to get out and at the time would pay anything, but it was making us do the form again. So we started the process again and there were still seats available, filled out the forms and then declined AGAIN because Jetstar raised the price AGAIN even more during those few minutes. By the time we went to complete the form for a third time the flight was full.
It's absolutely ridiculous to think that we could have been stranded in the cyclone area just because they wanted to continue increasing the price because seats were selling so fast. Further why was there no priority to any of these additional flights to people who had flights cancelled on the next day? We ended up getting a flight later thankfully, and it cost $300 more than our original flight. disgraceful.
Comments
Also in addition to the above
Also in addition to the above - the phone services this day were terrible. 30 mins on hold to get through to someone. We were told by an asian lady (clearly not in Asutralia and new nothing about the flights) that there were no flights that night due to the cyclone. We quesitoned this 3 or 4 times as the airpot was not closing until the next day. She kept saying no flights. We asked to speak to a manager and she hung up on us!
Obviously she was fed a script, new nothing about the cyclone, and when we questioned it were hung up on. And do you think we want to wait on hold another 20 mins????
u see what they do to people!
u see what they do to people! they r scum fucks. they only want money and will stop at nuttin to get it! theefs! they can go out of buisness for all i care, and i dont care!
Remmerz
Remmerz how old are you?
Remmerz how old are you? 11?
Chris - If your Cairns Gold Coast flight was on Jetstar, they would have been able to change your flight (free of charge) to one of the Brisbane flights - it was all clearly detailed on the website under "Important imformation regarding cyclone Yasi." They were offering people in affected areas refunds/free rescheduling and re-routing.
In relation to the price continually rising, if you knew how the airline industry worked, you would know that prices gradually rise as seats sell out and as the date of the flight approaches. The additional flights out of Cairns were added (as detailed on the website) in order to allow people to get out of Cairns before the cyclone hit. Imagine the number of people who called at once to quickly get moved to that flight. It would have been quite difficult to book it online (as you described) if the call centre was continually adding people to the flight.
On the website your booking is not confirmed until payment has been successfully accepted. If someone has beaten you to the last remaining seats at a certain price point (or if the call centre is moving people for free in accordance to the policy the website described), then it will fail.
I think you need to realise in unusually busy times such as the cyclone period that these things can happen. I hope you were able to get a refund for the gold coast flight that was cancelled.