An update to ‘flight delayed for 12hrs n left high and dry’

Even though my old issue still haven’t been resolved by Jetstar, they have created another screw-up out of nowhere just to make my experience with them that much worse and more difficult.

I recently changed my name legally by grant to go with my application of NZ citizenship. In accordance to the time frame given by Internal Affairs, I never thought I’d get my citizenship and NZ passport on time for my trip to the Gold Coast scheduled at the end of Dec this year so I booked the return flights with my original name on my old passport. All the other troubles regarding the delay and everything else aside, I received a letter not long ago informing me that I will be getting my NZ passport by early Dec. I decided to use my NZ passport for my travel since it means I wouldn’t have to obtain an Australian visa and is just much more convenient on all levels, and subsequently I rang up Jetstar to change my name on the booking.

I was informed by the call centre staff I spoke to that I would be able to change my name for free and all I had to do was to fax through my name change documents to an Australian number. Since I live in NZ this is kind of inconvenient so I asked him whether I would be able to send a copy to a friend of mine who lives in Australia and have her print it out and fax to them. I was told that it was a negative as they needed the original copy. I was extremely puzzled and asked him how he would know whether the original copy was faxed through or not since it’s a fax and not mail. He stuttered and put me on hold for a good 10min while he went to speak to his supervisor. He came back and said it was fine for my friend to fax it through and to ring them after it is done. I complied, had my friend sent through the relevant document and a clear and detailed cover letter stating my flight information and explaining the specifics of my request. I even rang up after the fax was sent to inform them to keep their eye out for it, at the same time I was told I would receive my new itinerary by the 29th Nov at the latest. However when I checked my email the next day, I received something from Jetstar telling me that my request for a refund is in process. What? I didn’t request a refund, I requested a name change! Hoping it was just a random mistake, I rang up the call centre for the third time in three days to speak to yet another call centre staff to check on my request. She confirmed that my request for a name change was indeed being processed as a refund and put me on hold for 5min so she could speak to her supervisor. When she came back she told me that the issue has been raised and I will hear back in 15 working days. Since I did not hear a confirmation the request has been corrected (only raised) I asked her if I would be getting a confirmation in written form so that I have some kind of prove to lean on in case something comes up in the future. I was told that there is no guarantee there would be a written confirmation that will be sent to my email and I needed to wait 3 weeks till I get an answer. Feeling that it is entirely possible I could potentially be waiting 3 weeks just for the wrong request to be processed knowing how unreliable Jetstar is, I informed her of my concern and asked her if she is entirely sure the mistake would be corrected. She said there is no guarantee of that either (!!!!!), so I asked her what happened to the 29th Nov as the latest I would receive my new itinerary which is the information given by the previous call centre staff and she had absolutely no answer to that.

Sensing that she could not help me any further I thanked her for her time and promptly lodged another complaint on Jetstar website. I then went on the Facebook pages of Jetstar the company, Jetstar NZ and Jetstar Australia and posted on their wall regarding this issue. They are very sneaky and only allow 1000 characters which is not enough to elaborate on anything so I had to use abbreviation but got it up there regardless. I heard nothing from Jetstar the company. Jetstar NZ told me to lodge a complaint online which I have already done, and when I replied saying so and I heard nothing further from them. Jetstar Australia argued that the message I received was an automatically generates one and had nothing to do with the actual request which is completely untrue since the call centre stall confirmed my request was indeed being processed as a refund and not a name change. Also it suggests that being as big of a company as Jetstar is, they only have one automatically generated message template for all issues?? I raised my point and asked for some written prove and they suggested that I lodge a complaint which I have already done! I promptly informed them that I have already lodged a complaint which they could find under the booking reference but I can’t help them locate it by providing a case number because I was never given one!

Today I got a call from Simon from the customer care centre whom I have spoken to before. It was ‘nice’ to see that he was still as rude as last time and kept interrupting me half way through the sentence. He was just so condescending and patronising that I got more and more furious as the conversation went on, of course I made sure I was as polite as pleasant to talk to as normal but he could not do the same. He kept telling me that it was an automatically generated message that I received to which I questioned whether the template is the only one a huge company like Jetstar has for all issues and what the call centre staff had told me. He just stopped me mid-sentence and went ‘Look, I will call you next week alright?’. I was in shock when the call ended and left feeling even more pissed off than I already was. How Jetstar managed to screw up something so simple is entirely beyond me. I know people and companies make mistakes but by the look of it Jetstar does it frequently and does everything in its power to deny responsibility or to give out confirmation that the problem will be solved. The fact that every time I ring up I get told something completely different is getting on my nerves. If you people want to travel somewhere with no dramas and no issues, don’t fly with Jetstar because dramas and issues are all you are going to get!