I bought a very cheap fare on American/Qatar that was replacing a return on Singapore Airlines that I couldn’t use because they wanted $1,650 to change it so I could make it back for my brother’s funeral. The clock was ticking. It took me 2 days to get an answer from Singapore airlines. I waited another day while looking at fares for the funeral date to be decided. For the day that I had to look and buy a ticket, one of the filters that I used was baggage allowance. One carryon and 2 checked bags that didn’t work out good for me. I also came to Flyertalk to see other passengers experiences with Qatar. I never saw them described as the Spirit Airlines of the Middle East, which they are.
my main complaint with them was not allowing me to take the 20% excess baggage discount at check in or by arriving at the airport 10 hours early. It clearly says on their website that their airport offices are open M-F business hours. When I pointed this out to the person who finally extorted the $550, instead of $440, out of me and explained the reason why I was going back to the U.S., he shrugged his shoulders and said he had no leeway. So, by the time that I reached the gate, I wasn’t in a very good mood to deal with employees that shrugged their shoulders and say they have no leeway