The ‘spirit of disappointment’: Qantas named and shamed in Choice Shonky awards 2022

Qantas has been named the "spirit of disappointment" by consumer watchdog group Choice. Australia's national carrier joins a smart cooker that Choice says doesn't deliver, and veggie "boosted" nuggets that Choice says contain hardly any vegetables, on the group's annual Shonky award list.

Choice has described Qantas as "going out of its way" to win a Shonky by steering customers to flight credits even when they were entitled to flight refunds, making it difficult to claim flight credits, and providing slow customer service, all while continuing to charge premium prices.

The airline's poor performance over the last couple of years has seen it slapped with its very own award category: the "spirit of disappointment".

"We're particularly disturbed by the behaviour of Qantas because it is one of Australia's largest businesses that portrays itself as the Australian national airline," Choice's chief executive, Alan Kirkland, said. "Yet it has comprehensively failed to deliver on that promise to Australian consumers over the past few years."

Qantas topped the list of the Australian companies most complained about on Choice's customer service hotline this year, Jodi Bird, a Choice travel expert, said.

Most complaints concerned the airline's flight credits, given to customers affected by Covid-related travel bans.

Bird said Qantas was steering customers towards claiming flight credits, even when they were entitled to refunds.

"Qantas and Jetstar combined are sitting on $1.4bn worth of travel credits," he said. "But Qantas has made it difficult and confusing for customers to use flight credits for the cancelled travel.

"People have had to spend extra money to use their credits, there's limits on the available flights that they can get with their credits. And there's been problems with the actual online services that people need to use to claim the credit."

Choice claimed it takes an average of 21 minutes for a call to Qantas' call centre to be answered. Although it said this is an improvement on 2021 wait times. By comparison, the average hold-time to Virgin's call centre is five minutes.

Choice said Qantas had the worst rate of on-time domestic arrivals of any Australian airline in July, with only 47.1% of flights arriving on time.

Although Bird conceded the aviation industry has struggled through the pandemic, Qantas stood out for all the wrong reasons.

"It's been a really topsy-turvy two years for all the airlines," he said. "I think the reason why we selected Qantas, instead of the other airlines, is really because all the airlines have been through the same issues. But Qantas seems to be dealing with it the worst out of all the domestic airlines.

"People are paying premium prices for Qantas flights, but they're just not getting a premium service."

A Qantas spokesperson said: "[We've] had several months of poor performance earlier in the year, but it's improved significantly since August and we're back to our pre-Covid level of service."

"Our call wait times are less than half what Choice is claiming.

"No one is disputing the fact we had issues earlier this year, and we apologised for that, but it's disappointing that Choice failed to acknowledge the impact that Covid and border closures have had on the entire aviation industry."

Steggles markets chicken nuggets that claim to be "boosted with veggies", but they contain only a "tiny amount" of cauliflower and potato, Choice's editor, Pru Engel, said.

The packaging appears to be marketed at parents who want to serve "hidden" vegetables to their children, but there are just 14g of vegetables for every 100g of nuggets.

In order to get one serving of vegetables, Choice said a consumer would have to consume an entire 400g packet of Steggles chicken nuggets, plus part of a second packet.

Engel said 91% of children in Australia aren't getting enough vegetables in their daily diet, and the product is taking advantage of parents who are trying their best to provide more nutritious options to their children.

"We're just quite upset at this product that is making out like it's a solution for those parents, when really, it's not really adding much benefit at all," Engel said.

Choice said the "boosted with veggies" claim was also misleading because the vegetables contained in the nuggets mostly consisted of potatoes.

Steggles did not respond to a request for comment by publication deadline.

It may have promised ease and convenience in the kitchen through its "self-cooking" technology and "smart app" functions, but the Zega digital pot simply "doesn't deliver" when they tested it, Choice said.

The pot's thermal design is supposed to save on energy costs and time spent in the kitchen - home cooks place the Zega pot on the stove, and after it comes to the desired temperature, you can switch off the stove. The pot's thermal design uses the residual heat to finish cooking the ingredients inside.

But when Choice testers lifted the lid on the Zega's coq au vin recipe, they said they found partially raw chicken, watery sauce and undercooked vegetables.

"What we actually had to do was put the pot back on to the stove to cook it further, to ensure that the dish was edible," Chantelle Dent, a Choice kitchen expert, said. Doing so cancelled any potential energy-saving benefits of the pot, she said.

The pot also contains Bluetooth technology that links with a Zega app on a customer's smartphone. The app sends an alert when the pot is ready to start "self-cooking", and another when the dish is complete. But if the smartphone moves out of the Bluetooth range, users won't receive their notifications.

"While it's obviously like an appealing feature, it's not 100%," Dent said.

For all its bells and whistles, she said the Zega digital pot - which retails at $299 - is not value for money. "You can pick up a recommended digital slow cooker for less than 150 bucks," Dent said.

Zega said they "stand by" their product, and that the Choice reviewer declined an offer to troubleshoot her issues with the Zega pot over the phone.

"We provided additional information to Choice, but it's unclear whether they further tested following our instructions," Brian Mooney, co-founder of Zega Holdings, said. "We recognise the role Choice plays in safeguarding consumer interests. However, on this occasion, Choice has got it wrong."

Kirkland said the Shonkys, which are in their 17th year, tap into the "core of the Australian spirit".

"Fundamentally, they're about calling out unfairness," he said. "And people in Australia really hate it when businesses, particularly big Australian businesses, treat them unfairly."