Jetstar customer guarantee is useless

Qantas’ low cost subsidiary Jetstar has expanded their “Price Beat Guarantee” into a 10 point Jetstar Customer Guarantee.

The 10 points cover a range of issues and promise some minimum standards and offers of $50 or $100 in Jetstar credit for certain negative events.

I’m not impressed.

Some points are non sequiturs.  Who ever heard of an airline not promising to make safety a priority?

Some points are already covered under general consumer laws and add no consumer protection. If a pre-pay option is not received then a refund will be made.  Later on there is a point about refunds being 15 working days after Jetstar has agreed to make the refund – 3 weeks not including time to investigate and decide on a refund is an inordinate amount of time.

Some points are self-contradictory. Point 7 is about how quickly complaints are responded to. It starts out by saying first point of contact will try to resolve. If that is unsuccessful then you are referred to their Call Centre. If that doesn’t work then you have to make a “written” complaint, whicch can only be made via their website. They then give themselves 15 working days after receipt of the written complaint to respond. By this time it could be well over a month after the problem. How many people would just give up by this lengthy and complicated process?

Some points are vague and meaningless. The point on dealing with cancellations and delays has so many clauses and conditions it is unclear what happens in all the different circumstances. Furthermore there is no requirement for alternative flights or other options to be acceptable to the passengers. For example in the event of overbooking Jetstar could tell the customer they are rebooked on the next available flight, which happens to be next week, and the passenger has no recourse to force rebooking on another airline or claim compensation. This is because the point is committing Jetstar to a process for informing passengers and not committing to providing satisfactory alternatives or compensation.

I give the charter a score of 2 out of 10, with one mark gained for raising public awareness of the need for a minimum level of passenger protections.