I am never going to fly jetstar again, and from reading the other complaints it looks like its a waste of time to even try to call and get my refund from them
Last Tuesday me and my partner were due to fly from Dunedin to Auckland but were unable to make that flight as I had suffered a miscarriage the day before and was told under no circumstances could I fly the next day.
Not only would I have suffered severely on the plane, Jetstar would have had to have an ambulance waiting for me at the other end.
As I was going through this horrible experience, my partner called Jetstar so we could change the flights asap. Not only were we charged for the difference in cost of flights, they also charged 100 to change the flights and $30 for the pleasure of calling them. When we finally gave in and decided to just pay, they then insisted on talking to me as he had my credit card. So here I was doubled over in pain, having to talk to the stupid customer service consultant and confirm my credit card details. Sure I get the security of it, but it was my partner on the phone, they booking in both names. Why couldnt they just speak to him.
To get a massive $100 refund then they told us to fax through my med cert with a cover letter explaining in detail what had happened. I refused to send the cover letter, as that is none of their business, if they need more info they can call my doc as it states on the med cert. I dont want that private info there for all the call centre to see!!! When my brother rung the next day as the fax number was a digit to long in NZ, he was told that number was correct and to try again. What the CSC didnt say was that is an australian number. If I didnt already live in Australia, we would never have figured it out!!!!!
So the moral of the story is we paid a total of $750 (included original flight cost) to get to Auckland. And we will only get $100 back. So Jetstar just made nearly $500 off my miscarriage.
How is that right? How do they get away with this, what if we didnt have the money to change those flights straight away? Did they want me to just get on that next flight and bleed to death??????? They didnt even try to sort something else out for us.....no compassion whatsoever!!! If we had just been calling to change the flights because we changed our minds, we would have been charged the same amount.
And apparently it takes 15 days to even process my refund. NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!
Comments
That’s appalling! By
That’s appalling!
By contrast, several years ago I was in South America when my father passed away. I was flying Air New Zealand and needed to take 4 separate flights from Argentina, Chile and New Zealand to get back home in Australia. In every case I simply explained my situation at the desk and everything possible was done for me by Air New Zealand and Qantas. Although thankful for their understanding I don’t regard this as exceptional treatment, just normal behaviour to someone in a difficult situation. In some cases they were not able to assist me, but always explained the reasons and offered alternate plans. In each case I said I was willing to pay whatever it cost to change flights, in every case they told me it was not necessary and simply put me on the plane. You deserved so much more from Jetstar, simply as normal decent behaviour.
Unfortunately it seems that this airline regards its customers as the enemy to be done over at every available opportunity.
Jetstar's compassionate
Jetstar's compassionate refund request works. You DO need to do the form, not just a phone call. And they DO allow themselves a few weeks to process it. Try to think about it from their point of view too.
You can do it all on line, including attaching documents. If you privacy is an issue for Jetstar (but not this site), then get your GP to write a letter of a general nature and refer to your phone call and booking change and date in your refund submission.
You should get a full refund including the cost of changing the flights. It might be in a refund voucher; this I'm not sure about. I missed a flight, I would also have been a liability to all the other passengers and my health situation may have even required the plane to divert on a long flight and I got a refund, but it took time. They are a budget airline and comparisons to gov't supported airlines don't help. Pay more, get more perhaps. But don't just give up on a refund because you don't like that they didn't give it on the spot.
Hello folks. Kim, I am sorry
Hello folks. Kim, I am sorry for you & your husband's loss. I think Jonathan Chapman's comments put the actions of Jetstar into context. I also had a similar experience about 14 years ago when my father died. I was having a short break in Cairns, & had booked a few days in Sydney on my way back to Melbourne. When my father died, I had to get back to Melbourne asap, as I am an only child. This was in the good old days of Ansett. One phone call, and I was given a new ticket for a direct Cairns-Melbourne flight, no documentation required, on a compassionate basis.
At least Eedra Zey's comments can give you hope that you might be able to apply for a refund. I don't know why you might be so sensitive to your doctor merely saying that you suffered a miscarriage, & leave it at that. However, I guess she or he can merely say you were advised not to fly at that time due to urgent medical circumstances.
Other thing to mention is that I think it's always worth taking out some travel insurance, even if it's a short journey. Stuff happens during travel, whether it's a volcano spewing out ash, to breaking an ankle stepping off a kerb! Airlines can go into receivership, or you just might miss a flight because your watch stopped (that happened to me once - although the airline was very compassionate & just booked me onto the next flight, no charge.). So, for a modest amount you can be covered for financial losses whilst travelling.
Good luck with the Jetstar paper trail - from this website it looks like you just have to have a lot of persistence, & wait quite some time.
I might add to this that at
I might add to this that at the time I posted this complaint I was very upset.
I did eventually get a refund from Jetstar, which was great, but only $100.
I was more appalled by the customer service I received, where they did not even try to find another solution for us in our situation. I understand each company has their policies etc, but there can be situations that they can try to work around it for their customers. I did not expect a refund on the spot, but their customer service reps could have been more forthcoming with what would happen, and what else they could possibly do to assist us in that horrible time.
I have no problem with the doctor telling Jetstar that I had a miscarriage, but I shouldnt have to post the details in a cover letter, I sent through the med cert and the doc had put for more information to contact him. I am fine with the doctor disclosing those details, I am not fine with me having to also write a seperate letter stating that information.
From now on we will be getting travel insurance for this very reason. I understand now why it is so important, but businesses (all businesses, not just jetstar) need to sometimes remember that customer service is the heart of it all. Bad customer service = loss of customer = no more company.