Kacee

I've written plenty of those "it's the passenger's responsibility to comply with applicable requirements" posts over the years, but in this case I totally agree - QR should have notified impacted passengers immediately. They also should have been more flexible in resolving the totally predictable consequences.

IAN-UK

yes, you're right

I wish I were smart and tech-savvy enough to understand why identical links give different results....

IAN-UK

I agree. The airline and its passengers were caught out by the immediacy of the Qatar government's change in position. The airline is in a position to relieve the hardship this has caused passengers by shifting dates and honouring paid upgrades: a very low-cost solution, and one that would win it confidence, love and future business from the customers it rescues.

In short, a smart move.

I'm guessing the OP doesn't really expect the airline to assume responsibility for ancillaries such as hotel costs, any more than they should take into account the gf's dedication to nursing.

But this is Qatar Airways. It's a carrier holed beneath the waterline by truly awful customer service. It'll be the first airline and FFP to be ditched when I rationalise my collection of shiny cards.

There's a small measure of hope that eventually QR will see sense and offer some form service recovery. But initiative is hard to find in the lower ranks of the airline's hierarchy.

InternationalLiving

Thanks Ian... yep, I expect that most of the people booted of yesterday's flight(s) are not loyal FF, so will instead just fly with Emirates/Etihad/Gulf Air/PAL/CebuPac for their next flight, and avoid Qatar in future (and let their friends know too - Filipinos are always a close-knit community in whichever city they settle). As you state, it would be a low-cost move for Qatar to implement in good faith, but TBH I don't really credit them with making smart customer loyalty decisions too often!

The aside on my fiancee's dedication to nursing wasn't aimed at the airline, but rather at a few of the comments here. While we all love to be right about things (myself included), sometimes it's necessary to take a step back, and see that while you can be pedantic and be "technically correct" (yes, the information is somewhere on QR's website), it's not actually in the right place on QR's website for customers to be able to logically access in a way that fits with normal expectations/standards. In asserting that one's "elite FF knowledge" is correct and that most customers are wrong, amounts to "being right for the sake of being right". The fact that most customers have been caught out (rather than just the normal one or two) indicates that such a view is in fact wrong, since the end goal is actually to transport customers to the end destination without disruption, so if that's not happening, someone is failing in their duty. Hence, my analogy to my fiancee's dedication to nursing was more a critique of the unhelpful "being right for the sake of being right" attitude, showing that if she had such an attitude to her patients, they would feel more like criminals for even being in hospital. I also find such smart-alec, un-empathetic comments directed to her, and the other Filipino passengers who were booted off, particularly distasteful considering that they so often work very hard doing the jobs that not many others want to do (nurses, nannies, caretakers, chefs, merchant marine, ME cabin crew, maintenance engineers, etc), and like many other non-white ethnic groups, have been disproportionately affected by death and serious illness during the Covid pandemic.

On a different note, while I don't want to go too much off-topic, if I do decide to leave Qatar PC, I wouldn't mind your input! My main origin airports will be either LHR or AMS, and destination airports MNL and to a lesser extent perhaps BKK. I might also make some trips to the US again now. I've sworn to avoid BA after they screwed me over in 2018, and have stuck to my word (although I still have some Avios to use up). Not interested in KLM, and AF don't appeal either. While Skyteam is pretty crap still, Korean are great and have good connections to MNL, while Delta seem to be the best of the big-3 in the US now (with the best ac - A330neo and A350). Plus VA are a partner too. I see that Emirates are also a Korean partner, and the new Y+ on their A380s looks amazing (and I love flying the A380)... AAB will eat his words I expect, and be forced to have a Y+ also, especially given how cramped the 787/777 are inside now.
An alternative might be Star Alliance, using LH/LX and maybe ANA and Air China.
OneWorld would probably be out, as I guess I'd only be left with Iberia, Finnair and JAL as the good ones (CX seems an iffy choice at present), and I don't think any of them have particularly good connections to MNL or the US as far as I'm aware...
The question remaining would be which FF programme would be best with the Skyteam or Star Alliance options. Opinions welcome! (Or feel free to PM me!)

crackjack

Just FYI: your vB tag for the url actually pointed to a different page.

Not sure how that occurred, but FT’s new design will not change what’s inside the tag if the printable text portion of the tag changes after the tag has been created; since you can’t see the tag’s value unless you specifically go into ‘source’ view in the editor, this will sometimes happen when updating a url.

Easiest way to make sure the url you want is used is to fully delete the old one, then paste the new one in. Even then, probably a good idea to test it in preview to make sure it works as expected.


And sorry that the OP’s gf is in this position (and especially for the death in her family which caused this); hopefully she can get back out without too much further delay.

oreomilkshake

this was me! i actually ended up winning the chargeback against QR and ended up getting all my money back in ~2-3 weeks after filing the dispute, which was a very welcome surprise. the bank (TD) agreed with me that it was the airlines responsibility to notify me of the COVID test requirement change, or to at least not let me past check-in so I could avoid paying the no-show fee.

InternationalLiving

That's reassuring to hear! Hopefully HSBC will be similarly generous if QR aren't (I'd be a bit surprised if QR offer anything, but worth trying first I suppose before going through the card issuer then the courts...)

msm2000uk

With all this talk of courts and legal reproach, I do hope you that if QR put up a fight, you follow through after all this talk.

Good luck

M

ISTFlyer

I'm glad that you got your money back.
Just wondering, did QR respond to your chargeback claim and then the bank agreed that the airline has a fault or did the funds have been refunded because they have failed to respond to the chargeback complaint?

InternationalLiving

Thanks M! I'll update the thread with any eventual outcomes...

SpeedAdvantage

I hope all works well tonight and she gets to enjoy her EY flight after all this brouhaha. I'm based here in MNL and have open tickets with both QR and EK. Still hoping to fly them instead of getting a refund.

sadiqhassan

Had a similar experience when a family member was denied boarding early hours of 4/29 from KHI connecting in Doha on to the USA as COVID test was obtained 52 hours prior. Understand that rules change but we were not able to get in touch with QR to discuss options (at the airport were told to call QR to rebook) until well after the departure of the flight (tried twitter, Qatar #, Pakistan # and USA #). At that time were charged $500 for "no show fee" to change or refund ticket even though QR is offering free refunds due to COVID ("too bad for you this doesn't apply to no shows" per QR agent). Booked a ticket on TK instead and flew 3 hours later instead. Pretty poor showing from QR.

oreomilkshake

QR essentially ghosted me by not responding to any emails that were sent by the OTA (Expedia for TD), so I doubt they'll offer anything. Wish you the best of luck with dealing with HSBC though-- I felt desperate when first filing the dispute but it ended up in my favor in the end

oreomilkshake

i'm assuming it's because QR didn't respond as they issued the credit back to my card ~2 weeks after I originally filed the chargeback, and said that if they didn't contact me within 60 days the credit was all mine (it's been 90 days and they only called once to confirm some minor details)

ISTFlyer

Nice to hear this,

I guess that it's cheaper for QR not to have a department in Canada to respond to this claims or it might be a miscommunication issue between Expedia and Qatar Airways but you are super lucky.