WhatsApp defaulting in calls instead of FaceTime

This sounds like a flavor of the issue that I've been trying to track down and it's now looking like may have been introduced in a very recent OS update, where a contact does not show available for FaceTime calls in the Contacts app or tapping their card in FaceTime recents, even though they are in fact contactable. In my case there is no alternate contact method so the button is just greyed out, but I am assuming if I had WhatsApp set up for video calling it would do the same thing as with the phone icon--default to that if it's incorrectly showing them as not-FaceTime-able.

This isn't a fix, but may be a workaround: If you have messaged the person in the Messages app, the camera icon that appears in the top right seems to work normally even when other things don't, so if you initiate a call that way (tap and hold on the icon to select the specific method), it may allow calls instead of defaulting to WhatsApp.

The other thing you can do is, in the FaceTime app, select "new call" and find their contact card--that seems to initiate calls normally.

For my devices, if I've video called the person recently so they show up in the FaceTime app's recent calls section, tapping the quick-call camera icon on their card will also work, although in your case that might still route to WhatsApp.

There have been a couple of recent posts.

If you don't tell Apple then they won't know it's a problem and they won't fix it.

Product Feedback - Apple

I have this problem too. I now can’t call my aged mother because of it because she doesn’t have Whatsapp.

i’m astonished and really dissatisfied. Really really poor service. Maybe switching to Android is the answer.