AA Qatar Award buyer beware (ensure baggage allowance)
 

Here is the short version:

1. Booked two F (saver) one-way awards using AA miles on Qatar Airways between BKK and VIE (routing: BKK DOH, DOH VIE). Booking was made around early April.
2. Showed up for my flight in BKK about 5 hours early and proceeded to the F check-in counter (June 15th), I was the first customer for the day.
3. While waiting to get our boarding passes the check-in agent called in a supervisor and had an exchange in Thai that I couldn't understand.
4. I checked in two pieces of luggage but the agent informed me that I have no luggage allowance in my first class fare (something I have never heard or experienced before. And I travel a lot, both revenue and non-revenue!)
5. I requested a copy of the contract of carriage and the fare rules governing my baggage allowance. My request was repeatedly denied by agent and the supervisor. The supervisor also refused to identify herself, citing privacy concerns.
6. I figured that I'd pay for the luggage and then deal with the airline to address the issue after I arrive at my destination.
7. Proceeded to load my luggage on the belt (two roller carry-on Tumi cases, combined 39 kg) and was quoted ~ $1565.00 (USD) for the two pieces of luggage. 1kg = 1360 THB x 39 kg = 53240 THB.
8. I refused to pay and requested the station manager and a printout (again) of the luggage conditions and the contract of carriage for my fare. Refused again. The supervisor then claimed to be the station manager.
9. Requested that they check my fare with Qatar Airways' ticketing office but my request was refused. There was nobody else at the F check-in line and plenty of time to contact Qatar's ticketing office.
10. The same supervisor also informed me that they will weigh in my backpack and my wife's purse and if we exceeded 7 kg ea., they will charge us at the same rate for the excess carry-on.
11. I requested again, a station manager and a call to their ticketing office, again refused. The same supervisor advised me to call American Airlines (the airline issuing the award) and sort the issue out.
12. I promptly refused the pay, took the luggage from the belt and left the check-in counter.
13. I called AA and was given 32 minute waiting cue. After connecting, I explained the situation the AA agent who was just as surprised as I was, stating "I've never heard anything like this". At that point I requested the baggage policy for my award ticket but this was not something the AA agent could readily produce. I was placed on hold for about 20 minutes after which point the call was dropped. There was no attempt from AA to call me back. Luckily I was advised that I can cancel the award and get my miles refunded back without any issue (as long as I don't fly).
14. I called AA again, this time I was given 42 minutes of wait time and I placed myself on the callback cue.
15. While waiting for the callback from AA, I managed to get two business class seats to Vienna for the same evening via my United Airlines MP account.
16. AA called me back after about 40-ish minutes and I canceled my Qatar award. My miles were credited back to my AA account within 24 hours without any issues.
17. AA representatives were highly professional and courteous, both times but I could not get to the bottom line issue of my luggage allowance.
18. The staff at BKK servicing Qatar Airways and specifically the anonymous supervisor was unprofessional, rude and disinterested in resolving the issue. I can clarify the entire experience as dehumanizing.
19. Needless to say, my first impression of Qatar Airways, an airline I have never flown, would likely be my last impression.
20. I have directed my company to avoid Qatar Airways for its future business travel.

I hope this post could save some headaches for future travelers in the same predicament.

Cheers=Delta141

Given that this was an AA award -
the fare rules and baggage allowance are between you and AA - it is AA that failed to include baggage allowance
With zero allowance, the QR staff were quite correct in assessing baggage fees on a per kilo basis for that journey - excess fees are high
refusing to refer to QR ticketing saved you time since it was nothing to do with QR ticketing
Your problems were those created by AA and is there that you should address

It sounds like QR staff simply acted factually - if you wanted to check luggage in, then you had to pay for it
I would expect the staff to be disinterested - they shouldn't be having opinions on who caused the problem
That they wouldn't just cave in to complaints does not make them umprofessional - it would have been unprofessional to just give in to people who complain enough

If AA's service had been high quality and professional, you would not have had the problem of having been issued a ticket that had no baggage allowance

dealing with award tickets on partner airlines can and will always be a mess..
happened to me on a MLE to DOH on qatar.. AA it seems didnt issue the ticket properly..
but unlike i your case... the staff was very helpful.. and had us sorted.. with about 15 mins to spare

What did your email confirmation say?

QR is a great airline for the most part. However, their ground staff are like asking chat GPT for an answer, they have zero capability to think and will keep repeating the same thing on loop. IROPS can be frustrating with them

This is not a new issue for AA rewards. Most ground staff will realize that this has to be a mistake and just check your bags anyway. But if you are unlucky and get a stickler for the rules, then its usually too late to try to have AA fix the issue.

The e-mail confirmation you receive should have a baggage allowance issued. If it does not, then call AA to have the ticket reissued with a correct baggage allowance.

IIRC this is actually an Old Issue that AA side has problems to properly include baggage allowances with the tickets issued to Qatar. There is bugs in AA system when issuing tickets to fly QR. Really are known issues for several years.

If the OP googles it he would find A Ton of such issues in the past, long BEFORE Covid. I am really surprised that this issue is still not fixed after these many years.

The lesson learned here, ALWAYS check the baggage allowance on the ticket - whether it is an award or a revenue ticket - do NOT take it for granted. I have a feeling that if the OP goes over his tickets AA sent at the time of booking, he would be shocked to see the baggage allowance was Zero. Had he done that he would immediately contact AA to get that error corrected, like so many had done so in years past.

Hm I'm also flying BKK-DOH in QR F on AA award in a few weeks. No checked bags, but I have heard the BKK check in agents ask to weigh F carry ons and force pax to check them in if too heavy. If that ends up happening, I will need some checked luggage allowance!

How/where can I see on my email confirmation if it was ticketed properly with the luggage allowance?

Look at the bottom of your AA confirmation email.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b8a6c259a5.png

I must have redeemed over 2 million asia miles on QR and not once have i experienced any such thing. The real incompetence lies with AA. If they had ticketed it right you would never face what you did. Well its a learning experience. Good luck on your future travels

I agree that the issue is more likely on the AA side or some system integration issue between AA and QR. There are too many possible failure points to be completely certain exactly who is at fault.

The reason I posted my story is to hopefully help others avoid the same issue. Check your tickets, call the airline and re-ticket before you show up at the airport.

As far as QR front line service people at BKK, I've seen better humans.

Here's what I see. Guess I do need to have it re-ticketed. Hope this isn't too much of a pain, I feel like the agent won't understand what I'm asking :rolleyes:


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ad3437e887.jpg

Thank you for OP. I will stay away from Qatar for both cash or award tickets

Dave, thank you for your post. I do agree that AA likely originated the issue. I am not quite sure how you come up with the 'complaints' section of your post. I personally prefer when staff is interested in helping with solving problems. I do realize that not everyone shares the same values and that's OK. I wish to alert others to this issue and encourage checking baggage allowances on award tickets, even in first class. That was the lesson for me.

I wouldn't take that step personally.

QR is still the best airline (or top 3) in terms of overall flight experience. Just keep an eye out before traveling and cross check your tickets.

Ummm... that isn't my take away, particularly as someone that never checks a bag. My takeaway is "measure twice, cut once."

Regards

OP thanks for alerting us to this potential problem. I have flights MAD-DOH-NRT and HKG-DOH-MAD in Nov/Dec and just looked at my confirmation email again.
I do not have the info in red box that #8 posted. Instead I have the same as poster #11 has:

Time to call AA and get it sorted.

The joys of dealing with AA :rolleyes: Guess I'll just see what happens. Since I won't actually have checked bags I'm not too worried. It's just if QR considers my carry on too heavy and forces me to check it, will it be a problem


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...254df23edd.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3897c9e649.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6c1616a80b.jpg

But QR check in staff offered to help you solve the problem. You purchased a ticket with zero baggage allowance and they offered a solution involving paying for checked baggage at the airport.

Repeatedly asking check in staff to produce documentation that they probably don't have acess to isn't going to make you any friends.

Is it really considered normal to be charged $1500+ for checked bags? I don’t understand that. Is this a cargo rate or something?

Agent69, thank you for sharing your perspective of what constitutes help. I certainly did NOT purchase a first class ticket that had no baggage allowance. Perhaps you know more than I do about my intent and specifics of travel?

I remember having this issue on an AA award for travel on EY. It was a real pain to get it reissued - a number of agents didn't even understand what the issue was.

Make sure you always check the confirmation and sort it out well in advance.

So if it wasn't nil, then what was the baggage allowance stated in the ticket you purchased from AA?

Come on, common sense has to come into play at some point. Have you ever seen a first class ticket with zero baggage allowance? Obviously there was a mistake somewhere. And while it might not have been on QR's end, I wouldn't say that the check in staff offered to help solve the problem at all. Unless you call charging $1500 to check in luggage on an F ticket "solving the problem."

Service quality aside, QR is notoriously strict with baggage allowance (and indeed any and all types of rules) with severe consequences for staff who fail to apply rules correctly, so I don't think it's all that surprising that the check-in agents would not go out of their way to solve the issue.

Please.

Ridiculous.

$1500 to check luggage is not a solution.

I was hopeful that this discussion here would provide others with some advanced warning to help avoid situations like mine. Perhaps, I was too optimistic...

I agree that having a ticket in F without baggage allowance is crazy, but it appears to be possible given the comments earlier in this thread. However, ranting and raving at check in staff isn't going to solve the problem. Most experienced travellers carry copies of their ticket information with them, which would have made it easy to prove to check in staff what your entitlement was. As I see it there were 4 options:

1. don't travel
2. travel without bags
3. pay the baggage surcharge (despite what you say it was an option, although not particularly appealing)
4. contact the ticketing airline and get them to speak to the carrier, to correct any error there was in issuing the original ticket

It appears that the problem was caused by AA, and the OP was unfortunate not to spot it. However, that's not an excuse to try to implement a boycott of QR, who were probably just following their rules

No, it’s way above cargo rate. This is excess luggage rate, which has been a thing since forever. And it’s always been horrendously expensive.

If the systems says it’s a no-bag ticket, it doesn’t matter if you’re flying cattle or class - no bag means no bag. Check-in staff, particularly those catering to the ME carriers, are not going to bend or break any rules to save your skin, as it will cost them theirs.

It is not Qatar's problem. It is AA's problem and it has been for many years on this bag allowance problem.

IMO Qatar is probably the best airline in the OneWorld universe. In fact in our household the only saving grace of AA miles is the ability to redeem QR flights. Of course you without any experience with QR would not know why there is an ongoing dedicated thread on How to Redeem Qatar flights in the AA forum literally for YEARS.

Now with QR using BA's Avios system and the 2 programs are freely transferred at 1 to 1, plus AS miles can also book QR award, it makes life much easier when one want / need to book an award to fly QR, even though AA might still have the least cost but not a big difference. Plus QR has more availability to its own members, naturally.

The outstation staff can not help you because they have NO POWER to rewrite your ticket for the baggage allowance. They can only act as what the ticket said. They could be super nice to talk to you but they still would not be able to resolve the issue for you. That is the essence of Dave's post is all about.

Yes. When travelling on a weight based allowance the price is per kilogramme. As per https://www.qatarairways.com/en/baggage/excess.html the rate is $40 per kilogramme for South East Asia to Europe. $40 x 39kg = $1560

It is not normal but this is what Qatar rules are, because it is on a Weight-Based system. Such crazy numbers were reported in the past when this issue happened. The more astonishing part is, this issue is NOT NEW. It first came up Many Years Ago, Several Years Before Covid.

The issue at one point was fixed. I pulled up the email from AA in March 2022 for travel on QR in October, 2022, the checked bags info were at the bottom like this:

1st bag 2nd bag
No charge No charge

Maximum dimensions: 62 inches or 158 centimeters calculated as (length + width + height)
Maximum weight: 70 pounds or 32 kilograms
Bag information Checked bags
Bag fees apply at each Check-in location. Additional allowances and/or discounts may apply. Bag and optional fees If your flight is operated by a partner airline, see the other airline’s website for carry-on and checked bag policies. *Online payment available beginning 24 hours (and up to 4 hours) before departure

So unfortunately somehow the issue comes back for unknown reasons. Though it can definitely be said, IT IS AA's ISSUE that its antiquated IT system caused that.

Your whole post was about how bad QR and how wonderful AA was

For the QR staff, you turned up to check in with a ticket with zero baggage allowance. This is not anything that QR was in a position to fix since tx. The staff were disinterested, as they should be. ( whether they were also uninterested is another matter ) . The agensts saved you wasting even time byt not pandering to demands for QR contacts since the contact you had was with AA

The agents simply took position that you had no luggage allowace and that if you wanted to check luggage in you needed to pay - alternatively was up to you to get AA to fix the issue that it created

The only airline that was causing a problem was AA by not correctly issuing a ticket

Excess baggage fees are notoriously expensive

If you had purchased a ticket from QR and there was an issue with the ticket, then QR would have been in a position to assist - of course it is also very unlikely that it would have had any problems with issuing a ticket for travel on QR and so the problem would not have existed in the 1st place

The AA rep who chatted with you had Zero clue on what is the issue. You probably would get better result by calling and explain it to the phone agent, ask the agent to see the bag allowance section.

An F ticket does NOT give you free checked bag in all airlines - each airline has its own policy not to mention in QR system, partner award ticket is at the Very Bottom of the Totem Pole. You will be the first to be bumped if they need to unload some passengers. Happened many times and being reported on the net here and elsewhere. You are second class citizen in QR's eyes.

I haven't seen it mentioned but the first thing I would do with QR reservations made with AAdvantage miles is to check the QR reservation directly. I always asked for the QR reservation # in the past but AA is helpful now in adding it to your AA reservation. I watch this directly most of the time after booking because it is the first place to see schedule changes
If you look at QR directly, it will have your baggage allowance - then you know everything that QR sees. Baggage allowance, booking code, etc

This!

People just keep thinking about "common sense" for their own convenience, without any thought / consideration, on how the staff of the ME3 could be punished harshly if they are found not following the strict rules.

Put you in their positions, if you bend the rules, because of "common sense" to serve the customer, but the customer's ticket is issued without free checked bag - then if such "assistance" be discovered, the person may lose his job. That is the very possible consequence. Would you bend the rule if you know the consequence would be, you being sent out the door?!

Sometimes I do feel we the Americans do have the mentality of entitlement, hardly think from the other side's angle and be more considerate when all circumstances are taken into consideration.

The other bad habit we have, is generalization. When that backfires, the first thing we do, is not to look at WHY this happens, different from my "years and gazillions of flights in premium cabins", but immediately having an prejudice on the staff who "refuses to help me".

You dont ever think you are literally asking those folks to risk being punished just to help you out for a mistake caused by AA and also by you who fail to check the conditions of your ticket!

The whole thing of this thread is NOT necessarily serving the purpose to warn people, but more of ranting on how badly you were treated by Qatar (the outstation staff who even have less power to do anything) and on how ridiculous it is, that an F ticket does not have checked bag allowance because "all your previous F flights did not have this issue."

Well, now you learn something - Qatar indeed can have F ticket does not have free checked bag, unless specifically included, on the partner award...

Curious if the OP had paid the $1500 checked bag fees so they could fly, how much luck they would have had in getting reimbursed by AA because this was a mistake on their end.

Unfortunately AA seems to have no idea how to fix this issue, other than cancelling the ticket and rebooking. Called just now and agent said help desk told her to advise me to reach out to Qatar :confused:
Explaining that AA as the issuing carrier needs to show the baggage allowance from their end fell on deaf ears.

You may want to do some googling on this, because this issue is not new, also happened to AA issued tickets on flying EY. It can be fixed but rather convoluted process IIRC. Bloggers wrote about this at the time the issues were rampant. If you were able to unearth those info then armed with such, call AA again.

Reread OP's first post. He did not pay but canceled the AA award. At the end they flew another program's award tickets in J.

They can waive the charge.

Hwever that's usually beyond the capacity of QR frontline staff, that are absolutely useless/forced to be rigid when common sense things occur. I got into an argument with the GAs in DOH who kept trying to put me in 2A when the lounge agent had reissued me a BP in 2F. Ended up boarding with a 2A BP only to *surprise!* find someone in 2A. Then I went to 2F and the FAs were confused, resulting in me having to deboard, wait for a while and then end up in 2F. Brilliant waste of everyone's time.

Basic Econ passengers in F on AA (upgraded as a companion) have boarding passes that say Group 9, First Class. Common sense says that you board with F. QR would make you board with Group 9.

Reading through this forum, it sounds like it is a known glitch for AA. The compounding problem is that we expect airport agents to be able to work miracles -- and they often do in the u.S. In foreign countries, I've found that the airport staff have far less leeway in resolving problems. They have to do whatever the computer says.

Even though, we criticize the inflight service on US carriers. The airport staff are usually solid at handling issues.

Agreed. While it opens doors to shenanigans, which we all hate, AA airport staff (especially the Admirals club AAngels) are able to help us by using common sense or being flexible. I've flown PHX-LAX-JFK-CLT due to IROPS as it was the fastest way to get there, the club agent thought I was nuts, but understood and allowed me to do it as it was the only way I could make my meeting the next day in CLT. Such help is largely non-existent on QR.

That said, QR is worse than any other airline I've flown (sample size > 70) in terms of flexibility.