Scrap over dead wife's airpoints

Rachel Acton, pictured with granddaughter Faith. Photo / Supplied

Qantas has refused to return frequent flyer points to a dead woman's family for a flight she will now never take.

New Zealander Rachel Acton died from a heart attack five days after making a booking with Qantas to Australia, spending 41,000 of her father's airpoints which had been transferred into her account.

But when her family contacted Qantas after her funeral, the airline said it would return the airpoints only to Mrs Acton's account - for which nobody had a pin number - and in 48 hours they would be deleted.

Family members said it was an unsympathetic - and outrageous - response during a fragile time. Qantas offered an apology when the Herald brought the incident to its attention.

Mrs Acton is the daughter of respected educationist Sir Tamati Reedy, who is being invested with a knighthood tomorrow.

Mrs Acton's husband, Seamus, told the Herald last night that he had finally managed to unlock the airpoints by pretending his wife had simply forgotten her password, breaking into her email, and resetting her Qantas pin.

He said he had felt fraudulent getting the airpoints that way - and he could not believe that Qantas' advice was to keep guessing his dead wife's pin during the 48-hour time limit.

"I don't feel proud of myself for how I had to go about it. I was just flabbergasted," Mr Acton said.

"I couldn't believe it was happening. It was too much at the time. I've just driven Rachel's ashes up to the [East] Coast to lie up there with her grandmother, and this was weighing on my mind."

It had felt hurtful and uneasy to wrestle with the responses from Qantas, he said.

"If only Qantas could revisit their policy to be more caring and flexible to others who find themselves in this position - dealing with the loss of a loved one and having more stress added on by such a cold, hard and fast policy being put to you."

Sister Mei Taare said neither Mr Acton nor she could find a kind ear among customer service staff when they had contacted the airline, initially on the Monday after her funeral.

On Friday, after a week of dealing with customer service representatives, Ms Taare finally wrote to Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce.

"Her death was devastating for all of us and we are still struggling to come to terms with it," she wrote.

Under the circumstances, the family's request to have the points returned to Mrs Acton's father seemed reasonable, she said.

"They continue to quote 'frequent flyer policy speak' and refer to nameless and faceless [and possibly soulless] higher management who refuse to allow this to happen." It was extraordinary and "abhorrent" that her sister's death should benefit Qantas, while causing unnecessary stress particularly to Mr Acton, Ms Taare said.

A Qantas spokeswoman said it had been a situation where the policy in place stipulated that frequent flyer accounts were to be terminated on notification of death.

The policy had been followed to the letter, but the case should have been referred to senior management, the spokeswoman said.

"In this case, the person that was dealing with it should have escalated this particular situation to a higher level - which didn't occur on this occasion, and we apologise for that."

A customer service representative would be contacting Mrs Acton's family to offer a personal apology.