The quality of any service includes how well they can and do handle the exceptions and unexpected problems. If they fall over it suggests their systems, protocols, and/or procedures are lacking be it staffing, delegations, whatever.
When one gets caught up in a serious fail whether it was an anomaly or not rarely factors into one’s outlook.
What little service QF provided quickly disappeared after the demise of Ansett. I used to travel around by air every 4 weeks for years and did so with Ansett, I think it was Golden Wing. I remember when arriving at Valet parking someone would come out. They would take your bags, check them in immediately adjacent to the Valet area, provide the boarding passes and off you went without the bags. When returning your car would usually be waiting for you and your bags would be helped into the boot.
On one occasion my mother was in Royal Brisbane Hospital recovering from pneumonia while on a holiday from Sydney. She phoned my one morning in Sydney to say she was being discharged. When I enquired I was told the doctor had discharged her and. she would be put in a chair outside the ward and then no longer their problem. I knew I needed to arrange her travel back to Sydney and started by phoning Ansett Golden Wing for advice. The lady, who was very sympathetic to the situation asked loads of questions and then said she’d call me back. Half hour later she rang. She told me that she had spoken to the ward and to Qld Ambulance and arranged for an ambulance to take her to the airport. She had booked a flight, Brisbane to Sydney and arranged for an ambulance to meet the plane at Sydney domestic terminal ad to get my mother to her home. She had spoken to my Aunty, my mother’s sister, told her the arrangements and arranged for her to be at my mother’s home when the ambulance arrived. All organised. I expressed my profound thanks and said what do I owe for this. She said the airfare is $x, no charge for the ambulance, Ansett would send an invoice in due course and wished me all the best. It all came off without a hitch.
Can you imagine getting that level of service from QF? Not in your wildest dreams.
It is likely that you would have got the same level of service from whichever of TAA, Australia Airlines or Qantas was competing with Ansett at that time. In 2022, close to no chance - regardless of the airline.
In “the good old days” a much higher level of customer service was included in the business model, and also the price tags, of most businesses. Unfortunately the airline industry, like many others, has had new entrants marketing services more on price rather than customer service. This generally leads to an across the board drop in customer service levels.
As an aside, in 2022, even if the airline did try to help you would get a response along the line of “we tried to arrange an ambulance but…”.
Forecasts there will be more opportunities for all of our carriers to show how well they can handle the not so unexpected unexpected! 
P.S.
To the recent comments relating how things used to be, or might compare today - ‘Up Up and Away’. Our latest travel plans involve a road trip, even with petrol at $2.00 or more per litre. We’ll be putting any FF credits towards enjoying a better class of accommodation rather than the convenience of catching “Covid on a Plane”. Coming to a Cinema soon, just in case you missed out the first time. 
Before anyone asks - immediately before Covid both Virgin and Jetstar were our number one choices for domestic and annual OS travel.
When is a lifetime membership not!
The original news item appeared in the SMH and has generated more than passing comment. Here js an assumption the ruling is also on the public record, VCAT
The short version is Qantas claimed the lifetime membership was provided by mistake. It had not been requested by the card holder.
VCAT agreed with Qantas describing the event as a ‘windfall’ in favour of the customer. Hence the customer had no entitlement to keep the benefit once Qantas had discovered the error and cancelled the card.
It’s reported Qantas tried to reach an agreement with the card holder for a lesser membership extension, subject to non disclosure.
Qantas demonstrates premium customers are not immune from service failures. Some interesting suggestions on how to better frame a complaint.
The quality of the remedy may reflect other premium values?
(Ex Senator Rex)Patrick also contacted a dedicated Qantas support line for premium customers and said he was ultimately impressed by the response he received – which included the airline organising a better replacement hotel than its subsidiary had initially booked.
Qantas also offered to cover Patrick’s accommodation costs while in Washington DC and gave him future flight credits.
Possibly not the same ‘premium’ most would associate with a more expensive seat in the aircraft. 
A priceless experience with what appears to be a major QF failure. I wonder if the pax will hear from them again with more than an empty scripted apology? Nothing quite like a premium airline these days, or ?
Qantas has a special meaning to me as an expat arriving in Australia in 1981. Long time ago, and at that time they only flew overseas, not domestic, so they were my lifeline to getting to the rest of the world then and now.
Qantas started their Frequent Flyer programme in 1987, and I joined in 1988, so if I have any issues with a Qantas issue, I call and ask them to look at the lower part of their computer screen to check out my “loyalty time”, and they hesitate, and then say “my goodness, how can I possibly help you.”
QF priorities are what they are, and on schedule, reliable flights and baggage services might not be atop their list. The news com file name for the article might include what their CEO thinks is most important - clubs. ‘-way-of-saying-thank-you’
Not only have they improved the Lounge (in my opinion less than a muted wow) but they are now in the business of selling home loans. With a QANTAS mortgage the borrowers get 100,000 Frequent Flyer points. I guess they figure that Real Estate is a sure thing on obtaining that steady income for their coffers. Is it a good thing? I don’t think it is, others may think it is the next best thing after sliced bread. It seems the SMH opinion piece has weighed up some of the pros and cons…
The FF points, if going by some of the adverse comments found on this site, are perhaps not such a great bonus. I have linked the QANTAS money site about the loans purely for information purposes and it definitely is not any recommendation of the product. I have also posted the link to the SMH piece that looks at some of the pros and cons.
So when will they open the QANTAS Supermarket chain, the QANTAS private hospitals, the QANTAS mining company, and so on. It seems a lot of businesses are trying their hardest to become all things to everyone and the only differentiation is the name.
There is already a wide selection of products in the online Qantas Rewards Store, ably supported by the brands Wine Club. Feeling a little unwell, there is also the Qantas Health Fund, not quite a hospital. All premium priced products IMO, so one is left feeling all the better for thinking like other Qantas regulars.
Noted the Qantas $100M lounge commitment mentions something the more average Qantas customer would rarely experience unless perhaps a regular on FIFO. Clean HiVis work gear is one way to stand out in the crowd. Yes, there was a conscious decision some time past to say yes to the trend. Very obvious in Brisbane and Perth domestic terminals.
I have travelled on many different airlines and Qantas would be one of the worst and the unfriendliest hostessses. First of all, when I had a broken arm, the attendants would not help me put my luggage up top. They even lost our luggage in a quiet time flying from Canberra to QLD where we had to change planes.
With the ongoing fiascos about vouchers, reliability, fares and so on, QF has identified what must be most important to their customers.
While that is appalling at first glance there is some history that might help understand why. While this is 4 years old it reflects current carry-on limits as evidenced by allowances shown for domestic flights on a recent e-ticket. Have policies changed? Probably not but I do not authoritatively know.
When on the way to an airport, waiting in the terminal, having arrived, or having left and on the way into town. If one is feeling a little hungry, or not satisfied with the snack on board the flight one can always exchange $20 for a quick bite to eat to defer or end the hunger pains.
Yet to find where to exchange the $20 and have the luggage that did not arrive turn up on demand, a delayed flight still arrive at the destination on time, or a cancelled one teleport me to my next destination to check in as originally planned.
A rellie from the USA had a good trip over in March but the return became a ‘QF experience’.
QF11 (SYD-LAX) - delayed 3 hours. A slurry of texts to advise.
At that point there were so many texts advising of this and that it became overwhelming to know what if anything needed to be done. Rang 13 13 13; on hold for about 3 minutes and connected to an agent who verified/confirmed everything about the new itinerary.
The pax overnighted in SYD and I later found out she and a few fellow travellers lost confidence so went to SYD 6 hours prior to their new flight to BNE and dealt with ‘customer service’ face to face.
About the time the new SYD-BNE flight was scheduled to depart SYD the pax rang from BNE. Nothing updated in any (visible) records.
Two issues, 1 – the call centre answered quickly enough and was helpful although they did not need to do more than verify arrangements were in good order. 2 – QF advisory systems overwhelmed the pax with updates, some contradictory and others irrelevant standard verbose rubbish. I can understand why many get confused. Face-to-face at SYD worked.
The pax made it to LAX and felt QF took good care getting a nice hotel and meal, snack, and taxi vouchers although it required hours milling about SYD. Arrival at LAX was to be 0700 Monday but became 1800 Tuesday (‘so sorry for the inconvenience’ and there was lots on the LAX side).
Conclusions include QF is still struggling to regain operational reliability for aircraft (more flight delays and informational miscues than I included above), schedules (same old [not] on time percent?) and especially their information systems sending many times more, often contradictory information. The call centre experience was good. Decision making to get pax to their destination as quickly as possible seemed lacking. An unknown is whether there was no capacity or just no decision to send pax via BNE on the same day noting there was more than 9 hours from cancellation to a BNE connection (12 hour arrival delay), or she could have been on QF11 the next morning or routed via MEL (24 hour arrival delay), or if QF systems minimised their costs not the customer inconvenience.
Following on from Qantas stumbles of late it will be interesting to see how advertising that QF ‘calls Australia home’ will stand up against increased international carrier competition and how or whether the government will do anything to protect QF (profitability/sustainability).
The new CEO has a lot ahead of her. It got resolved, but imagine if they did not have $19K.
Leader boards are what they are but this should be some comeuppance.
This will be an interesting one to watch. If proven it will reinforce QF has nothing but disdain and lack of respect for their customers.
