Low day thanks to Qantas

To cut a very long day short it started at 7am with phone calls to the NZ embassy and Qantas and ended 17 hours later with a 3 hour phone call to Qantas... (there were at least 7 more in between!!)- with no ticket at the end of it!!

Tanya and Greg messaged early to say that they had no joy at the airport but had a friend of a friend who was a travel agent who had managed to book them LATAM tickets out of Santiago this am. Lucky them!
K and I went downstairs for breakfast as we weren’t hungry particularly but we didn’t know when we would next have food.
K was in the throes of her cold and was desperate that people didn’t think she had Coronavirus whilst I had woken up with nausea and the worst headache ( ? Dehydration / coffee withdrawal).
Speaking to the NZ embassy they said we were allowed out for food and essentials so we informed the hotel and went to the supermarket. The hotel warned us not to speak whilst we were out so people didn’t know we were tourists because we could be reported!!
The supermarket was pretty empty except for fruit, chips/ crisps and packet soups! Our diet is going to be outstanding if we have to stay.

Next we sent a desperate email to a travel agent in Dunedin we used to get our travel insurance to see if she could help with a ticket out, as rumours about the quarantine lockdown turning into Marshall law at midnight seemed to be true. Our hotel also didn’t know if it was going to be allowed to stay open.
We also made an emergency dash to the airport with Aussie claire as she had flights but she couldn’t process the payment for them ( much stress!) and for us to pray that LATAM could change our ticket from July 6th ( which they could not). Only Qantas could change it ..... WE CANT GET THROUGH TO THEM!! We have been trying for 3 days.
What was most depressing was the constant playing of the Qantas hold music and repetitive announcements I had to liaten to for hours and hours at a time until the WiFi made the call drop out whilst we were on hold.
We went back to Claire’s air bnb to use her better WiFi which resulted in getting through to Qantas after a further 2 hours!! “Jamie” was in middle of helping us when he cut us off!! WTF??!! No way of getting him back. Rang executive headquarters to get put back through- no luck. 1 hour later through again to a female of no name. We asked her continually not to put us on hold as it would cut out. We are now desperate as it’s 9pm and claire wants to leave for the airport.... Qantas rep is checking flights... and puts us on hold!!! Despite us shouting “nooo” at the phone as she says “ I will just pop u on hold”. Gone.
Now 10pm we decide to leave but suddenly “Dave “ answers the phone and we start again.
1.5 hours later, a lift, a cab ride and a transfer to our hotel whilst praying we don’t get cut off, Dave comes up with an answer... there are no seats out forever for our fare class- WTF?! Ok try the next fare class up.... $12,000 aud to get us out on 23rd mar!!!! Come on!!
Anyway we sent a desperate email to Janine and she said she would work on it and get back to us by 7am tmrw. V v hard to sleep as I had the Qantas music on repeat in my brain!
Then to top off a bugger of a day K in her sleep sat bolt upright, jumped out of bed and reported the hotel was moving and we were parked v close to a street!!!😂😂😂 apparently this am she said she thought we were on the World Explorer and she couldn’t work out how we had docked right in the middle of town!!! This world is going mad... and so r we it seems!! Tmrw will be a different day of god knows what.... a flight home??
If Janine can’t get us seats we really are stuck here until a mercy flight or quarantine is lifted in 2-4 weeks or longer. Praying for affordable seats v soon.Read more