Appalling Customer Care

I used to be a proud Qatar Airways Privilege Club member, but after my letest experiences with them, I think I've made a mistake choosing them as my airline of choice.

Johannesburg - New York Trip (Booking ***) Firstly, when booking we found that the cost of the flight was double when we wanted to book through the Qatar website (ZAR49k), compared with the aggregator site we ultimately booked through (ZAR24k). I cannot understand why pricing would be more expensive on your own website, and particularly given the huge variance in the price.

Secondly, having purchased a ticket on Qatar Airways, I wanted to book a hotel on Discover Qatar to take advantage of the stopover special offered. After much frustration trying to do this on the website I was told by an agent that it had to be done at the time of booking my flight, which is not indicated anywhere on the site. This essentially means that one is forced to book the flight through the Qatar site, which we have already established above is double the cost of other aggregator sites. I none-the-less booked a hotel through booking.com for a one night stop over in Qatar.

Thirdly, I wanted to upgrade my flights using my QCredits, but your website simply doesn't have the functionality to do this, and agents were most unhelpful when I called, telling me I should try at the airport when we check in. I was also unable to upgrade using my QCredits or my Avios points despite asking at every check-in we did.

Fourth, when we went to check in for the return leg of our flight from New York it was discovered that our Covid certificate was not valid for entry into Qatar. The check in agent advised us that they had reserved our seats and that we should go get new covid tests done at the airport as there was sufficient time before our departure to get the results. Following this instruction from the check in agent my wife and I scurried all over JFK airport (with all our luggage) to get our tests done, at great cost, and return to the check in gates where we waited for the results to arrive. When our results did arrive and we went the agent to check in we were informed that the check in counters were now closed and we couldn't check in; this despite the fact that we were standing right in from of the check-in gates and no-one even had the decency to come tell us that the gates would be closing soon.

Fifth, having now missed our flight, and our stop over in Qatar, after following the instructions of the check in agent, we were left on our own to make alternative arrangements, as there is no Qatar booking office at JFK. That is when we phoned the contact centre to make alternative arrangements, which turned out to be having to change our flights at a cost for the return leg which was more than the entire cost of our original return trip ($2k/ZAR32k).

As a result of this we also missed our stopover in Qatar, and lost the cost of the hotel which had already been paid.

I have posted this on the Qatar Airways feedback site, but as I predicted in that post I did not get any response from Qatar regarding any of the above, and obviously no positive action has been taken by Qatar to rectify this.

Johannesburg to London Trip (Booking ***) I have now (foolishly) booked a flight with Qatar for our trip to London in October (4 months in advance), returning in March 2023 (9 months in advance), and when I went to upgrade using my QCredits or Avios points I'm told there are no award upgrade seats available! What is the point of being a Privelege Club member and accumulating rewards if I cannot even do a simple upgrade because no seats have been made avaialble for this purpose. As a result my QCredits have now expired and I have lost them.

When booking this trip I specifically selected the option for a Doha stop-over, but the system never took me to the necessary page to make my booking on the Discover Qatar offer.

I find this service absolutley atrocious, and the lack of response from Qatar appalling.

Roland Poyurs Membership Number: ***