zeddie999

Hi all,

Please can someone help me and let me know how I can escalate a complaint I have made to QA privilege club? I wrote to them (to the privilege club members address and the "tell us" complaints address) on the 4th of Oct and have not received any kind of an answer as yet to my complaint.

Basically I am a burgundy member and 50 points away from silver status. I booked a flight from London Heathrow to Dhaka return in November in an ECONOMY SAVER category ticket from the website as that would get me the 50 points I need according to QA's very own Qpoints/Qmiles calculator on the website. To my surprise when I received the E-ticket, the ticket category was (O) which is an ECONOMY PROMO category! This would not get me my 50 points or give me any options of an upgrade using milage.

I called QA and they assured me that as i had booked on ECONOMY SAVER and paid the extra, i would certainly get the required points despite the booking class being O. A few hours later the guy calls back and says he is very sorry but the head office or someone has said I now have to pay £179 extra to get it to the right booking category! Quite clearly this is wrong as in my first call he assured me I would be getting the 50 points since i booked in Economy SAVER and not PROMO. QA's own website says ill get 50 points if i book an ECONOMY SAVER ticket, which i did and paid extra for!

My original letter is below. The only i reply i received was 10 days ago to ask me the date and time of the call and the phone number i rang. I gave them all this and invited them to listen to the recording where the adviser on the phone clearly agrees with me and says Ill get 50 points for the journey as i paid for economy saver. (despite my ticket coming through as booking class O) After that, despite all the chasing I didnt get any replies. All they have to 2 is listen to the recording where the agent says I am certainly entitled to 50 Qpoints and also look at their own web site where they will see in the Qpoints calculator that if i book in ECONOMY SAVER to Dhaka from London, I would get a ticket of N,Q, or S category and not O! Thats why I paid extra to book in this category!

I was hoping to resolve all this before my flight to Dhaka on the 17th of Nov and some of my Qpoints expire on the 31st of Dec. Please could the members of this forum advise how I can escalate this to get a response?

Many thanks



Original Letter:

Booking ref: XXXXXX
Privilege club membership number: XXXXXXXXXX

I spoke to one of your agents who advised me to book my next ticket (see above booking ref) on a “Economy Saver” category so that I could obtain silver membership and so that I could upgrade my return leg with miles if I should wish to. He said this is because under the Economy Saver ticket my ticket category would be “N, Q, or S” which would entitle me to the 50 Qpoints I need for silver membership. I went ahead and booked this ticket as you can see under the Economy Saver category with booking ref LPFA8K.

To my surprise and horror when the ticket came through by email, it was categorised as “O” which is an Economy Promo ticket. I called the agent again and he confirmed that even though it is “O” category, because I booked as Economy Saver and paid the Economy Saver fare I will definitely get the 50 Qpoints I need for silver membership upon completion of this trip as I booked under Economy Saver category. The same agent then called back a few hours later and advised that now this was not the case and I would have to pay a further £169 to make my ticket into Q category! Naturally I was furious.

I should NOT be having to pay anything extra. I selected economy saver on your web site so the ticket should be as an economy saver booking class. The below screenshot is from your own web site which clearly shows that Economy Saver tickets should be categorised as either N, Q, or S. Based on this, either you are engaging in false advertising or there are errors on your web site, or your agents are advising me incorrectly. You are welcome to listen to the phone call assuming you record them. It was placed today afternoon UK time.

Whatever the problem is, based on the above I would like my ticket to be corrected to the correct category that corresponds to the Economy Saver fare (NOT Economy Promo) so that I can firstly get my 50 Qpoints for this trip to get silver membership and so that I can upgrade my return leg if I so wish to.

Asking the customer to pay extra money to correct a fault with your system and processes is not very professional. As a regular customer of QA, I am really not impressed with the service from privilege club and the advice given. I don’t wish to escalate this further and I am hoping that you will address this complaint seriously and professionally. Please change my ticket category to the correct one ASAP.

I look forward to your reply in writing as soon as possible.

Best regards,

FlyerTalker37

Hi,

That is a common issue with the O, T booking class that is moving between Eco Promo or Eco Saver fare bucket.
My experience on this is that you have to receive the Qmiles/Qpoints based on the booking class. i. e O class Qmiles

Someone reported in an other thread that the Qmiles/Qpoints should be manually adjusted to the fare bucket according to the QRPC staff but I am not sure of the outcome.
​

zeddie999

Thanks for your response. So are you saying that even though I paid a higher fare for economy saver, my ticket still can be in O class? I was only following the table in the qpoints calculator on their own site! Just search the trip from london heathrow to dhaka return as a burgundy member. It will show:

Economy Saver - N,Q,S - 5,680 miles earned, 50 Qpoints earned.

Isnt this then false advertising?

I think QA should acknowledge this. I really hope they do.

FlyerTalker37

Unfortunately I think it all depends on the agent your are speaking to. Honesty I am not sure either how it should be. On a automated point of view, it make more sens to grant points based on the booking code.
You can still try to argue with them though.

Keep in mind that you paid a higher fare to also benefit from better cancelation / modification policy.

Dr. HFH

You don't really believe that QR set out to deceive us, do you? No possibility that it's just an error, perhaps in the explanation or IT coding? Why not give them a chance to fix it?

Your last paragraph:isn't going to help you. Look, -- you're asking them to admit that there's a problem and that someone may have made a mistake. 1) Calling them unprofessional, 2) threatening escalation, and 3) telling them to get on the stick and get it done "ASAP" isn't going to advance your cause any. (Although I could imagine that repeatedly typing QA when you meant QR might provoke some laughter about "the passenger who is demanding professionalism but can't get our name right.") A polite and professional approach is much more likely to be successful, even if you do have to escalate.

zeddie999

Sorry Dr. HFH but I don’t entirely agree with you. I wrote this letter after calling him 3 times and getting different answers from different people. That in my honest opinion is very unprofessional. Maybe that wasn’t clear in my original post. If that letter was the first thing I tell them hen yea I’d agree it’s harsh but it wasn’t. Give them a chance to fix it? It’s been a while.. They have made no attempt to fix it yet. I have chased twice.

QA stands for Qatar Airways. That’s what I meant by it. The only laughter it’s provoking is me laughing at you! Is it a must that I must address them as QR? I spent 18 years of my life in Doha and know exactly how they work. The replies I got from them were just a few lines. Luckily I have a full recording of the calls myself and the one where the agent promises I will get 50 points since I used my work phone.

I’m a frequent flyer with virgin and emirates too and Qatar’s customer service is lacking way behind competitors from my exp.

Dr. HFH

I don't disagree with you. My point is that there's never anything to gain by telling someone that s/he's unprofessional. IME it's counterproductive to back someone into a corner from which there's no graceful exit which allows him/her to retain dignity.


I almost never handle something like that over the phone. I want the written record.

There's no "must" here. The goal is to do/say whatever will maximize your chances for an acceptable solution. The staff at Qatar Airways is in the airline business. I suggest that it's most likely they refer to their company as QR, using [airline] industry "lingo."

SvenAge

Zeddie999, it is completely understandable that you are frustrated by this episode.

However I'd be mindful of expressing your frustrations in this way as it may only hinder your chances of fixing this issue quickly. I expect that the fare code is what matters here which is normally a mix of letters and numbers with the first letter representing the designated code. If this is an 'O' then I would expect it to get 'O' points and miles regardless of whatever any agent may say.

With regards to 'Economy Saver - N,Q,S - 5,680 miles earned, 50 Qpoints earned.' I would think that 'Economy Saver' is probably a denomination based on the fare code, so not false-advertising, with any error most likely lying in the mis-labelling of fields in the flight selection window.

The other poster here is trying to help and seems to be getting an ear-bashing for it. QR is the airline code and general agreed short-form of Qatar Airways.

I do think the best approach would be to get some clarity from QR before launching into a speech about blame, errors, and actions. I've found QR to be fairly generous and reasonable in my dealings with them and much better than many other airlines. If you come across as hostile then fixing the issue may become more difficult. Good luck.

zeddie999

Thanks guys. I wasn’t giving an ear bashing to anyone here. In fact I’m the one being told off for using QA instead of QR. I’m not a professional flyer like you guys. my point was that the email was after 3 different phone calls to 3 different people to try and resolve the issue in which I was very calm. Any how, thanks for the advice and I’ll wait and see what happens.

zeddie999

On this topic.. for future bookings is there any way to work out what booking class your ticket will be before you press the "buy" button on the website? On this occasion it was only after i received my e ticket where i could see the booking class.

spec119

I had ( havd) a similar issue economy saver fare booked in T class but I've had an email from QRPC telling me mileage and points are awarded as per type of ticket and not the actual booking class code incidently you can indeed see the booking class code before payment if it's on the app you just click the downward arrow it will display the information

zeddie999

Ah ha! Thank you so much for this.. So i AM right in thinking i should get the right milage and qpoints for the ticket category i booked. But they told me on the phone its definitely based on the booking class code and not type of ticket. Is there any way you can help me and let me know who emailed you this response and what they said exactly?

I dont know what to do at the moment. How long does it take to "investigate" and listen to a recording and get back to me with a final answer? It seems they themselves are confused.

appreciate your input

spec119

Yes of course please see their email response below

Dear Mr. Xxxxxxxx

Thank you for writing to Privilege Club. We value your business.
We sincerely apologize for the delay in our response and for any inconvenience caused to you.

We would like to inform you that the number of Qmiles and Qpoints you earn is based on the Region, booking class of your ticket, your tier level with privilege club and the type of fare purchased.
Hence, if you will book your tickets in Economy Saver class, your flights will be eligible for Economy saver class only.

Similarly, if you book your flights by selecting economy saver fares are eligible for upgrade by redeeming Qmiles / Qcredits.

We thank you for your understanding and co-operation in this regard.

Phil the Flyer

QA has been/is the IATA code for Aerocaribe and Cimber A/S - it is not the IATA code for Qatar Airways.

The first words of your first ever FT post are ‘Please can someone help me ...’ and yet you appear to take unnecessary offence at a perfectly reasonable attempt by a respected frequent contributor to the FT QR forum to correct your terminology. You won’t win much sympathy on this, or indeed any, FT forum with an apparent ‘know it all’ attitude.

In one breath you are ‘a frequent flyer’ (with VS, EK and QR), in the next ‘not a professional Flyer like you guys’.

zeddie999

Really bud? Don’t you have anything better to do than nit pick my post? A few people on here have genuinely understood my complaint to QA ie Qatar Airways in my own mind (lol) and offered to help. Get off your high horse. I didn’t take offence. Just expected not to be attacked for semantics.

Being a frequent flyer doesn’t mean I need to know the IATA code for every airline I fly on. Im sure QA staff have enough knowledge to work out when a passenger is saying QA he means Qatar Airways when he’s writing to Qatar Airways. Makes sense?

As I said I’ve spent 18 yrs in Qatar and know exactly how they work in terms of addressing people’s complaints. My email was after 3 Phone calls getting absolutely nowhere.

Let me know if you have any trouble understanding any of my clarification points @Phil the Flyer.