flight delayed for 12hrs n left high n dry

Me and four of my friends planned a holiday to the Gold Coast for New Years as one of us is relocating to Australia so we wanted to spend some quality and fun time with him before he goes. Thinking we were being smart and organised and wanting to avoid the holiday rush, we booked our flights with Jetstar at the beginning of July alongside our accommondation and other activities. All was nice and well until I received an email in my inbox 10 days ago telling me that our flight has been delayed for nearly 12 hours and will now arrive in the Gold Coast at 7pm on the 30th Dec instead of 7am. I'm sure some people might not have had issues with this time change but we had transport, activities and hotel booked (need to check in by 2pm) so this delay meant great inconevience and potential financial loss to us. Promptly me and my friends rang up Jetstar to explain our predicament and I was the only one who was able to get through as I waited for 30min while others rang out of patience. The person I spoke to was very friendly and he offered to transfer us onto an inter-connecting flight which would get us there by 1pm. However I wasn't going to take that option as there was only 2 hours seperating the two flights and if anything happens to the first one or we get delayed in customs then we are pretty much screwed. I expressed my concern to him and he said the only other option I had was to request a refund which I also wasn't going to be okay with as the whole objective is to get us to the Gold Coast. I asked him if there was anyway I could contact customer care as I couldn't find any numbers on the website that I could call and was told that I needed to lodge a complaint online. Then the staff member told me that I would have to make a choice as which flight we would change to because there was a 3-day deadline in terms of flight changes which was not stated anywhere on their website or in their emails. Noting this was clearly an act of bad faith in a contractual relationship I asked the staff member as how long it would take for me to hear back from customer care as this issue would need to be sorted out soon and whether I could put an extension to this deadline as all of us were having exams and would need to meet up to make a group decision. I was told that I would hear back from customer care in 3-5 working days and the deadline had been lifted for my booking and I needed to contact my friends so they could do the same. I filled out a complaint form online straight away and had my friends do the same and contact Jetstar. However 5 working days later I still hadnt heard back from them so being as persistent as I am I rang them up again inquiring as when I would hear back from them. I had a different person on the phone that time and was told that the window as when my flight could be moved has closed and I would hear back from customer care in 5-7 working days from when the complaint was made. I informed him that the previous operator has told me the deadline was lifted and the response time was 3-5 working days instead. He then lifted the deadline again and said the previous operator was wrong. I waited till 7 working days after and still heard nothing so I rang up again asking to speak to a supervisor. During the call transfer my call got hung up but I wasn't going to give up so rang again and got through this time. The supervisor lady told me that I had another option of being transferred to a flight on the 29th but that meant we would be without accommondation for the night. I told her that I would be willing to take the flight on the 29th but would refrain from doing so until the issue with accommondation was sorted. I told her we would look for accommondation meanwhile but asked her to contact customer care just in case if we couldn't find a place to stay. She then told me that it normally takes 15-17 days for customer care to respond to which I responded that it was the third time-frame I have heard in 7 days as everytime I ring up I get given a different timeframe and how could it be that one would only have 3 days to change flight yet has to wait 3 weeks for s response if there is anything wrong with the schedule? She sounded embarrassed and told me that it was likely Jetstar would arrange accommondation for us and she would personally get on the case and would ring me again the same time the next day. That never happened so I rang again (do you see a pattern here, I'm really persistent) and was told that the supervisor was busy in a meeting. I told the person on the other side very politely that I would be ringing everyday until I get an answer and would urge the other 4 people in my group to do the same. A couple of days later just as I was getting ready to go and hand in my 10,000 word manuscript I got a call from some guy from customer care. I politely asked him if he could ring me back 2 hours later as I needed to have this assignment handed in and was told that he would be off work in an hour and would not be able to speak to me till monday. I thought 'screw it!' and engaged in a conversation with him regarding the issue and asked if Jetstar could find some kind of accommondation arrangement for us and we just wanted a place to stay and weren't fussed about the details. He was really demeaning and treated me like a studpi little chick. He kept telling me Jetstar would never do that and kept on quoting the policy and saying that 'Jetstar is not responsible for delays' to which I informed him it was the case however it said nowhere that Jetstar was also not responsible for financial losses that occur due to the delays. He arrogantly said that it was implied and I told him that there is no such thing as 'implied' in the legal context and I have consulted my lawyer and there is a legal loophole which I could take advantage from. I then went on to tell him that according to their policy I should get what I paid for and this flight which would see us with nowhere to stay for a night is clearly not what we paid for and when Jetstar policy contradicts with local law and legistlatins local law provails and im pretty sure their policy is not in accordance to Consumer Guarantee Act. He stuttered greatly and said he would consult the legal team and I told him he needs to get back to me on Monday as I have many journalist friends who would love to cover this story and I'm not going to rest until this problem is solved. I went on to tell him that the contact centre supervisor lady said we were likely to get accommondation from jetstar and he said what she said doesnt count and since it's nearly two months away from our holiday we needed to sort out our own accommondation. I asked him if the words of the last person never counts could the same pattern be applied to what he says and have it overidden by some other people I would speak to in the future. I also told him that we have tried to look for accommondation on our own behalf and couldn't find anything hence why we BOOKED EARLY! He then offerred me (and me only, despite the fact that there are other people in my booking) a $50 Jetstar voucher and I told him I will never ever ever fly with jetstar again and what the hell would I do with a voucher?

The whole point of us booking early is so we could secure flights and accommondation and we have tried our hardest to find a place to stay for a night but nowhere has vacancy no more (hence why we booked early thinking we were being smart and all). We are a group of postgrad students and really don't have the sort of money to throw around and when a cost occurs which we did nothing to cause some kind of compensation should be made. We're not asking them to put us up in a 5-star hotel we just wanted a place to stay and apparently that's too much to ask. They have caused a great amount of stress on us as we were all having exams and thesis due in. Also the attitude of their customer care people are disgusting (call centre people were okay but had absolutely no clue and no authority whatsoever), the response time is way too long and nothing ever happens with them.

I was wondering if any of you guys have had similiar experience with Jetstar and whether the issues were resolved and if so how you guys went about it. Also if any of you guys have any idea sa where else I could take my complaint to or anything I could do to speed up the process please let me know. cheers