Qatar Airways/Travelstart- Poor Service Indeed

My wife and I booked, through Travelstart, a return trip to Dubai. We were informed by Chantil of the Travelstart office as well as their website and that of Qatar, that my wife needed a PCR test 48 hours before boarding the flight (and not at the time of boarding the connecting flight in Dohar to Dubai). My wife took the PCR test at 12H40 on Sunday afternoon and the negative result was received at 20H00 on the same day. The test was completely valid at the time that we were supposed to depart from OR Tambo.

On Tuesday morning when checking in at the Qatar desk, we were informed that the PCR test would be invalid by the time we had to take a connecting flight to Dubai, and as a result my wife was not allowed to board the flight in Johannesburg. We were advised by a supervisor that she needed to take a new test and we would be placed on the next available flight which was that afternoon.

My wife took a new test and we proceeded to the Qatar desk to book and confirm the next flight. We were then told, to our horror, that we were required to pay an extra R18 617.00 for the new tickets, which we duly paid in protest.

We believe that we have comp**** fully with Qatar’s requirements as per their and the Travelstart web sites and we claimed a full refund of the R18 617.00 alternatively new tickets to the value of our claim.

It was extremely difficult to get the person at customer care to understand that nowhere on their website does it state that the PCR test has to be valid at the time of boarding the connecting flight- it only states that it needs to be valid at the time of departure from one's country of origin. Had it clearly stated that we certainly would have ensured that the test was taken in the correct time. The person we dealt with is Omar Mohamed, a customer care officer- the e mail address is ***.

Qatar have denied any liability and refuses to deal with our claim. Travelstart have also denied any liability on their part despite being the agent through whom we booked. Surely they should also take some responsibilty?

Very poor business decision as my wife and I have extensively used Qatar Airways and Travelstart and we travel overseas regularly , but will never use these services again.