Originally Posted by
dolfinco
Qatar admin, off plane services and Privilege club are a complete .... show im afraid.
Doha stand boardings are a joke for Business class customers.
Silver isnt "silver" - Never worked so hard to get to silver only to learn that once you do, you dont even get to take guests into a lounge.
You can buy a First Class/Business fare and not have lounge access
When you purchase lounge access on a JNB to DXB flight, it doesnt even get you into JNB lounge
Then when you arrive in DOH for your connecting flight, you realised MMB has let you book a lounge thats somewhere in the bowels of the airport you dont go near when you come off a connecting flight and its too late once you are through Business Class security to notice or get back to.
Also, theres a flight thats 2 hours earlier to a local airport DXB instead of SHJ and they wont even entertain looking at a potential change of sector - Straight NO can do.
Like the opening post, once on the plane, for me, its the best in the world, but off it is a compete shambles.
I've done JNB-DOH a couple of times as non status and with Silver. My experience varies greatly with yours.
As Silver, I got access to Shongololo lounge in JNB and then also got access to Silver lounge in Qatar including two guest passes you can use. They're not great lounges but it's better than nothing. If you fly non status out of JNB you can always buy access for Bidvest lounge for ZAR400-500 (can't remember exactly) which I don't think is too bad since it's better than Shongololo.
With regards to MMB and lounge access I think Qatar is one of the more clearer airlines to show which lounge you buy access to (probably because they have so many lounges...)