Originally Posted by
Evan Wilson
Hi all,
I am a Miles and Smiles Elite member and fly mostly with Turkish. From time to time I end up on a Qatar Airways flight, and whether in business or economy, I find the comparable flight with Turkish is of lower quality, and I always consider moving over to Qatar Airways as my primary airline. The service is just far better, the organization and management of the airport, and especially the friendliness of the staff at Qatar I find far better than Turkish, which has really declined over the past few years
TK used to have a delightful level of service in economy, but that is long gone. QR makes something of an effort to treat its status customers well in economy.
I am wondering if anyone has made this move and what their overall experience is? How do you compare the perks of the higher tier of their rewards programs? Any otheror any considerations? My main issue would be leaving the Star Alliance network which I find more vast than One World.
All comments welcome!
They are both flakey. But unless you speak Turkish, QR is far easier to deal with, A good proportion of TK's agents are not entirely comfortable using English as a
lingua franca: this goes for cabin crew as well as call centre agents. It's got better in recent years, and there are of course many exceptions where employees have well developed language skills. On the other hand QR's personnel are truly international and as well as exceptional skills in english the cabin crew are likely to have members with fluency in a number of other languages.
The Turkish FFP is more generous and easier to climb through than QR's, but it is spoiled by archaic mechanisms and poor transparency. TK's "upgrade with evoucher" is a welcome perk, but it can be a difficult perk to employ: it certainly helps if you have a nearby TK office you can deal with. I have still to discover any sweet spots in QR's programme.
This year I'm rationalising my adhesion to FFPs. QR and TK are "fringe" programmes for me, duplicates in alliance terms of my long-standing Lufthansa and British Airways memberships. I'm finding it far easier to give up QR Platinum than TK E+; I can see no compelling reason to remain with QR, but I find it difficult to ditch TK. QR has managed to irritate me over recent years in personal interactions and in its wider approach to customer service and marketing. I admit to a soft spot for TK and things Turkish, so perhaps i am more forgiving of the airline's shortcomings.
At the end of the day, you'd be crazy to fly with an airline/alliance that doesn't match your travel profile.