Nothing to do with caravaning but last Saturday week were to leave for Brisbane for 3 days to visit a close member of the family with a terminal illness. Whilst we all believed that there was plenty of time (months), unfortunately we were a few hours too late.

We had booked cheap (reasonably) Qantas flights through Flight Centre in Doncaster & were to return 3 days later on the Monday.

We did not return as planned there was the funeral to organise & attend and it was assumed that the return flights would be forfeited as they were non refundable/changable etc.

Attended Flight Centre at Hyperdome (Qld) Monday morning and explained our situation. The consultant could not have been less helpful or understanding, insisting that we should cancel the flights that were scheduled for the afternoon to allow the seats to be filled. We signed an authority for the tickets to be cancelled however did not book further flights due to her attitude.

Subsequently we returned to our accommodation & contacted a Flight Centre in Beenleigh (Qld). Extremely helpful & suggested we contact Doncaster immediately to see if we could transfer the tickets or request a credit/refund. Contacted the consultant in Doncaster who too was extremely helpful. Unfortunately quite some time had now elapsed and our original flight was shortly due to depart. Understandably Qantas could not transfer the tickets on such short notice & it was necesary to pay for for return flights (Virgin this time). Booked the tickets through Doncaster & the nice guys at Beenleigh printed them off for us. Upon our return, the consultant at Doncaster contacted Qantas, advising them of our situation and within the day, Qantas had given us a credit for the return flights.

Whilst I am very disappointed that the consultant at Hyperdome did not disclose, that given our circumstances, we may have been able to tranfer our flights, I am extremely grateful to both the branch at Beenleigh & Doncaster, as well as Qantas. I must say I am a little ashamed that we ended up returning on a Virgin flight but I think Qantas now has me for life.

Yes, and they are still majority Australian owned. Virgin Blue is owned by some Pommy fella, isn't at?

Kevin