orbitmic

I booked a ticket for two of us with QR yesterday. Purchase went through, confirmed, and e-tickets issued.

Then, in the afternoon, I received an email from the Qatar Airways "support" email saying that they wanted to verify payment and, as a result, that I needed to reply to the email with copies of my passport and credit card statements within 48 hours. I suspect it is either random (one of the passengers is not me) or due to the card expiring before the trip is taken but either way, while I do not typically enjoy the thought of sending personal financial details by email to a given company, no problem doing it.

Or so I thought anyway: my email was automatically rejected "because it seems to contain credit card information" and according to financial regulations etc. I called the QR helpline, they made me change the title of the attachments, change the browser, send from another email address, send to another email address, but the problem was always the same. Agent on the phone was nice and told me that she would follow this up for me but basically, I am no more advanced that at the start of the process, and am still not sure what the problem is for QR as my bank confirmed that they authorised the credit card transaction immediately.

Does anyone have something to suggest as my past experience of QR's back office is not great and I would not like them to randomly cancel our tickets? Many thanks!

Alex Walker

If you're sending a scan of a credit card statement try rotating it 90 degrees so that OCR software doesn't pick up credit card numbers

orbitmic

Ah, thanks I'll try that!!

remdk

orbitmic I think the key to you being required to verify payment is "one of the passengers is not me"! I have been told that airlines are required to carry out checks when the cardholder is not a passenger. There has been talk about the controls not being required if travel is more than 6 months after purchase but this may apply to check-in checks only.

I would imagine that you could avoid the problem by using a third party payment system such as PayPal since your credit cards are not used.

orbitmic

I -- think -- that your tip has worked! At the very least I have not received an error message this time!

@ remdk - many thanks and happy to take your word for it! I must say that while I always book direct with QR and always pay with my credit card, it is the third time (out of many) that I have had an issue. The first two had to do with discrepancy between country of credit card and country of departure (despite both being European!). The first time it was sorted out very easily, the second time it was not and I ended up needing to book through lastminute instead after wasting many hours on the phone over several days! I hope that this third occasion will be sorted out imminently now!

AndyFlyer

The same thing happened to my neighbours, as they booked directly on the QR website. They were very unhappy sending id documents and credit card statements to an email address. Other friends who booked via a travel agent had no issues whatsoever.

s0ssos

I verified in an office (because I happened to be somewhere they had an office). It was actually painless.

But for the Taiwanese airlines, and Qatar, in the future I would just book through an OTA. Saves one hassle.

s0ssos

I verified in an office (because I happened to be somewhere they had an office). It was actually painless.

But for the Taiwanese airlines, and Qatar, in the future I would just book through an OTA. Saves one hassle.

bdm82

Indeed I had this issue yesterday with QR who explained my passport and credit card statement were required as a protection against fraud. I had a long chat with QR agents about the irony of protecting themselves against fraud, but leaving me at greater risk of fraud by sending them such personal information.

In the end we agreed that I would present the credit card used to make the booking at checkin!

Lefly

I booked the PSA-AKL deal for my mother yesterday, and received the same request from QR about the CC. Same happened last year for my first flight on QR (was AMS-BKK).

In the e-mail you received asking for CC "validation", at the very bottom, you should see: "You can also view the details of this request online by following this link http:// support.qatarairways.com/hc/requests/....number..."

Following it you have to create an account for Support, and once done it you then re-click on the link in the e-mail and you arrive in a page with a form where you can upload your PDFs for passport and CC statement.

JohnRain

I did the same and it worked perfectly, but it is of course a bit annoying as it nullifies the advantage of booking online.

Slotski

I have booked QR a few times and heard about these additional checks. Subsequently I have always booked through expedia or AMEX travel and never accounted such problems. Also for the bargain ex-AMS flights an extra bonus is not paying the 2.99% foreign transaction processing fees

capin

This caused me all sorts of issues a few months back.

I have a web based credit card and nowhere is there a statement with my address on it. QR eventually agreed to me producing my cc at check in.

QR are the best airline from Check in to baggage collection and probably the worst I've dealt with outside that.

irishguy28

Booking with an OTA rather than direct with the airline can also cause hassle (i.e. trying to get flights rebooked due to schedule changes - of which a LOT are coming up in the next year!)

orbitmic

Thanks! Very useful to know for next time!! ^ Meanwhile, happy to confirm that the rotation worked and QR have validated my payment so we are now ready to fly (or at least will be in a few months!!)

I also had a payment validation with UL but the system was far more painless Imust say!