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Can someone tell me if they think Qantas can refuse our refund given the following.

  1. The flight was cancelled within the 24 hour cancellation window.
  2. The flight was departing from the USA (JFK) and going to Sydney Australia.
  3. Was booked directly with the airline, on the US Qantas site as we were directed to the US site to make our payment in US dollars
  4. Was made more than a week prior to departure.

Qantas is claiming that because we weren’t in the USA when we made the booking that we are not eligible for a refund.

Do DOT rules override what the airline states because as far as I can tell we have met all the requirements. Thanks for any information that I can use.

I wanted to let everyone know that Qantas refunded our money this week. We are incredibly relieved. Hopefully this won’t happen to other people.

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    How do they claim to know where you were when you made the booking? Did you tell them? Originating IP address/geo-IP nonsense does not mean anything.
    – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
    Commented Jan 29, 2023 at 16:57
  • Airlines have become extremely bad at honouring their obligation when it comes to refunds. There are many questions similar to this on this site. They will claim all sorts of exemptions to the rules, whether or not their claims have merit, in the hope that you'll give up and go away. You will have to resort to documenting every interaction, and double checking your facts. Eventually, they will honour the refund. Alternatively, you could consider raising a claim with your credit card company.
    – CatchAsCatchCan
    Commented Jan 30, 2023 at 3:58
  • Thank you for everyone’s responses. It is great to hear that everyone thinks that the location where we purchased the tickets doesn’t matter. For reference we didn’t tell them, I assume that the transaction was tracked in some way otherwise there wouldn’t be evidence that we did indeed cancel the flight within 24hrs. We have filed a complaint with DOT and will let you know of the outcome.
    – Michelle
    Commented Jan 31, 2023 at 6:24
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    Thanks for coming back and letting us know what happened. As it was not enough of an answer I edited into the question.
    – Willeke ♦
    Commented Mar 11, 2023 at 7:40

1 Answer 1

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I do not believe where you are located matters. The rule is for covered carriers, which in this case Qantas is.

You can file a complaint with USDOT here.

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    Territoriality is a complex topic, and the fact they are a covered carrier does not necessarily mean the rules apply to all their flights or all their customers. If that were the case, having a single scheduled flight to/from the US would force any carrier to offer 24-hour refunds to any passenger on any flight. The rule lacks a clear definition of what flights and/or passengers are covered.
    – jcaron
    Commented Jan 29, 2023 at 9:55
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    @jcaron carried carrier for foreign carriers specifically means for flights to/from the US, not any other flight.
    – littleadv
    Commented Jan 29, 2023 at 19:19
  • where does it say that? The linked definition is “Covered carrier means a certificated carrier, a commuter carrier, or a foreign air carrier operating to, from or within the United States, conducting scheduled passenger service or public charter service with at least one aircraft having a designed seating capacity of 30 or more seats.” which is extremely broad and clearly does not have any notion of territoriality. Note it dods not say “for flights to/from the US”, it says “a foreign carrier operating flights to/from the US”.
    – jcaron
    Commented Jan 29, 2023 at 20:25
  • Note I’m not saying the policy doesn’t apply in this case. I’m just saying it’s not obvious just from those definitions.
    – jcaron
    Commented Jan 29, 2023 at 20:32
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    @jcaron foreign air carrier operating to, from or within the United States - here. that's enough to make that transaction covered. You may claim that Qantas shouldn't be covered for flights outside the US jurisdiction, and DOT may not enforce that rule, but that argument would be irrelevant to the situation the OP described. That specific transaction is undoubtedly regulated by the USDOT.
    – littleadv
    Commented Jan 29, 2023 at 22:37

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