QMiles… QLies?

25 Jun, 2008  Annoyances, Uncategorized

By now you’d probably think that I work for Qatar Airways since I compliment them regularly and support their QMiles program with my little tutorial on how to get more for your money.  See Tips for getting QMiles Fast. 

However my flight to Japan hasn’t been easy. After going around for ages to get a refund because I ended up with two tickets and getting no reply, I finally had to hand the issue over to Head of Civil Aviation, Regional Manager of QA, and Head of Customer Services. Yep thats how many people had to get involved in a SIMPLE refund.

Alas, my blog post isn’t about the refund. In fact, that was a one-off incident, so I was fine with that at first. I just sighed in relief that I’d be able to get my money back and my credit card would be topped off. At this rate however, it seems that I’m going to have to pay interest on it because they’re being slow. Anyway, I figured that I’d use my QMiles to upgrade from Economy to Business rather than just buying a Business class ticket as I always do.

I gave the Privilege Club card people a call and asked if I could be upgraded on the 22nd of July.
“No sir, sorry we’re fully booked”.
Ok… let’s try the 21st.
“No sir, sorry we’re fully booked”.
23rd?
“No sir, sorry we’re fully booked”.
5th
“No sir, sorry we’re fully booked”.
Ok let’s try this another way, “can you tell me WHEN it’s free? ”
“Sorry sir I’ve checked the whole month and it’s fully booked”.
“Can you try August?”
“Sorry that month is also fully booked”.
I stopped to think for a minute, maybe it’s summer time so everything’s booked. I had a stroke of genious.
“Can you please keep checking every day until there IS a seat free?”. He went up to January 2009 before saying “I’m sorry sir but there is nothing available”. It was at this point I had decided that it was obvious there were NO SEATS to begin with. Were Qatar Airways claiming to have seats between Doha and Japan and there are none? Are they deceiving their customers? Luckily, my father is one of the higher ups in Civil Aviation so after a quick phone call, I’m told that alot of people have voiced concerns and that even companies are considering abandoning QMile relationships in some cases.

I didn’t expect that this would be the result, however I simply cannot handle the fact that a company is deceiving their customers. Just add “Upgrade unavailable to Business class using QMiles between Qatar and Japan” and problem solved!

I still love Qatar Airways and I’ve broken down my ratings:

Checkin Economy: 4/5
Checkin Business or First: 5/5
Lounge: 5/5
Buying a ticket: 5/5
Privilege Card customer service: 5/5
Refunds: 1/5
Aftersales: 2/5
Onflight experience economy: 3/5
Onflight experience above: 5/5
Food on flight: 4.5/5

  • novita77

    The only thing i can say LMAO …

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