NetJets Germany

What wisdom do you base this judgement on? QR have honoured the Sake-fare tickets, after all.

Kacee

Bad publicity among which customers? FT'ers who jump on mistake fares? That's business QR won't mind losing at all.

Well I think this pretty much explains it . . . .

We're now at step 5 . . . with reports of cancels rolling in.

solewalker

FWIW, I bought these:

7.30 PM EDT SGN-DFW-SGN: booked, paid for immediately, still intact
8.20 PM EDT SGN-JNB-SGN: booked, paid for immediately, still intact
9.30 PM EDT SGN-SEZ-SGN: held, cancelled (I went out, and couldn't decide if I really wanted to fly anymore this year)

By the time I started searching for the third ITIN, they were already pulling flights from inventory, because dates were disappearing as I was searching for SEZ, and I highly doubt this route was getting pulled from high demand of other flyers.

Max M

Absolutely!

10PM EDT 30 July 2017 After fares started disappearing like hotcakes, "Golden Ticket" fare found, and 48 Courtesy Hold assigned-- confirmation from QR that hold would expire 02 August 2017 9AM "local time".

4AM EDT 31 July 2017-- Went back to QatarAirways.com, purchased held ticket, payment charged; Reservation Ticketed; Confirmed E-Ticket Numbers Issued, and Email confirmed status of "Booked" sent to email address

11AM EDT 31 July 2017- Reservation Still Showing "Booked" as status on QatarAirways.com, along with ticket number still appearing

6PM EDT 31 July 2017 - Checked Reservation on QatarAirways.com after seeing other FT'ers cancelations, reservation showing statement "This Reservation May Have Been Canceled" and reservation completely disappeared from my QatarAirways.com Reservations List

9PM EDT 31 July 2017- Card issuer shows and confirms via DM that payment to QR indeed went through and charge for tickets made.

December 2017 to January 2018 SGN-DFW:

Reservation Canceled by QR after Payment Made to QR and eticket numbers issued, and email sent from QR confirming purchase.

NetJets Germany

Only that it (probably) wasn't only FT'ers who booked this fare, and that complaints from many people who had already paid for and received their tickets would likely hit QR's social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, etc) as well as the press in general by storm.

Think of all the positive PR that this Golden Ticket promotion / mistake fare has generated for QR! @:-) And how little they had to spend (Comparatively speaking) to get this high level of publicity. Thanks to this a lot of people are looking at QR again as an option, and may well have found that even their regular sales fares, which happen to be on in quite a few countries right now, (And even "regular regular" fares) are quite competitive in comparison with many other carriers in their league.

QR have been up the proverbial creek for a good while recently thanks to a bunch of Qatar's neighbours blockades and sanctions, and the airline can only benefit from some positive news that will bring more paying pax back. To risk all of that newly generated goodwill by cancelling a fairly low amount of tickets overall, and because of what would look like QR going back on their word, given that QR's social media had only shortly prior indicated that something very special was in the offing, would quite likely create a lot of reputational damage among the flying public and lead to a further loss in future sales IMHO.

The amusing list of stages that you have included does, after all, also show that positive outcomes are possible (See 7a and 8), so I do not really get why you are so certain that all the tickets bought under this promotion / mistake fare will get cancelled eventually.

solewalker

True story. I saw this deal shortly @FlytheTail (thank you! thank you! thank you!) posted it, and shared it with a few friends before blogverse went nuts on it. My phone exploded with queries from my friends - not because they were THAT excited with this deal, but because they were asking me questions like, "Will my plane get shot down?" or "How much travel time will this add to my trip?"

On a related note, I'm interviewing for new friends.

Brookhouse

Bought SGN - DOH - CPH - LHR - DOH - SGN USD 700 - Depart Jan18 - Electronic Ticket issued with E number. Just accessed Manage your Booking - and all is intact. All looks good to me. When I purchased the ticket it had Golden Ticket Highlighted as if it were a very special rate - Hence why it didn't appear to be an error fare.

pl840502

Just received email asking me to verify my credit card payment again, so i sent over my credit card bill, passport and screenshot again. I think if they want to cancel my tickets, they can do so using this reason.

msm2000uk

Without being difficult, the vast majority of FTers and Error Fare Hunters live by the same mantra when it comes to fares - IF IT'S A DEAL, I'LL BOOK IT AND WORRY AFTER.

Therefore the PR disaster that you may be implying, would simply be non-news.

The general public will fly on whichever airline offers the best price, and will do their research after booking the fare. As long as they get a refund, no harm no foul in their eyes.

Remember, for the 'average' passenger, QR is a great airline. It has won a load of awards (Skytrax etc), and are renowned for offering an excellent on-board product. As such, they will continue to book. Now, as seasoned travellers we may discredit Skytrax, for example, but we are not average flyers.

For FTers and those who follow the various Fare blogs, they will likely do the same. They'll wait for a cheap fare on an airline, and then jump on it. Sure, some may err on the side of caution if they have a fare cancelled, but that will be a minimal number.

QR do not need goodwill at present, and are going on the offence opposed to simply lying back and letting the neighbourly blockade further tarnish their business. Sure, it has had an impact, but summer travel from blockading countries, is always low.

Come September, it will be a different story - but a lot can happen in a month.

Like I'd said earlier in the Thread, my information is that the fares booked won't be cancelled. As for those who had fares on hold, I honestly haven't asked the question. Evidently for some, the Pho Fare was precisely that, faux.

M

keitherson

Apparently booking a fare immediately vs booking a fare after placing it on hold is different?

We're not talking about canceled holds, here.

okrogius

There are a number of examples of actual tickets cancelled.

NetJets Germany

With all due respect, as you make some very valid points elsewhere in your post, at least when it comes to the highlighted section above, my personal experience is simply a different one to yours.

I live in Singapore (But I am not Singaporean) and travel a lot, both for work and leisure. In Singapore, the vast majorities of leisure travellers that fly long-haul will almost always pay a - sometimes hefty - premium for flying SQ over any other airline, as they are simply too scared to fly on most other airlines. Similar things can be said for Hong Kongers and CX, as well as pretty much any of the advanced Asian economies' citizens and their respective national carrier(s), even if Singaporeans do seem to take the biscuit when it comes to almost fanatically clinging to their local carrier. So price is not always the driving force, even among Average Joe, especially not in countries with reasonably high average incomes.

A second consideration which plane to fly on is (perceived) safety and security. You cannot tell me that MS, SV, TK and MH have not suffered in terms of dropping overseas passenger numbers as a result of foreign policy and/or security issues (Bombs, plane crashes, ...). At least in Asia, many people will not fly carriers such as the ones mentioned just now because they are worried about their personal safety and security onboard and during transit. QR, like EK and EY, had previously been eyed with more suspicion given their location in the Middle East, a region which many people in East and South-East Asia are not too sure about, but given the high level of comfort and service of these three airlines, more and more Asians have become more open-minded about flying on these airlines. Obviously, the Gulf blockade has not helped QR in that respect in this part of the world at all, as you can see from comments such as solewalker's friends. So QR can use all of the positive publicity they can get over here, and I am pretty sure they will try to avoid as much negative publicity as they can.

In terms of business travellers, QR does have a very good reputation here in the region, but also they are worried because of the intraregional disputes in the Middle East, as well as the laptop ban. Never mind that the latter has been lifted now - it was in all the media when the ban was introduced, but when QR managed to get that ban lifted for their flights (Like for the other Middle Eastern airlines who have been successful in that respect), hardly anyone took notice. So again, QR has all to gain from positive publicity and much to lose from any more negative press.

My 2c.

msm2000uk

I'd seen that, and have advised my sources at QR to provide me with an explanation.

M

Varus50

Same here. I submitted all requested details right away after receiving the email yesterday, and again today.

Do I need to call in?

hew204

Two hours ago, Qatar replied to someone's tweet with this: "Hi, the surprise is yet to come. Please stay tuned. "

If I had to guess, I'd say there will be a Golden Ticket promo, but someone at QR screwed up and released seats out of just Vietnam too early. Now QR is scrambling to get everything back in order before officially launching the Golden Ticket treasure hunt, which would explain the delay with the "surprise". Purely an optimistic guess though.

This has probably been the most interesting promo marketing I have ever seen. More might be to come....

Side note: my SGN-LHR-SGN is still showing confirmed. Ticketed at 9:56pm EST