Although Qatar Airways offers the most-awarded and we agree a ‘best Business Class offering’; and it has been a favourite airline for even the Thacks Awards panelists (Qatar’s inflight offering won a 2021 Thacks Award; and it came out tops in comparisons with KLM, Turkish Airlines and Etihad), there are some definite shortfalls.
Loyalty to an airline doesn’t go far when customer service is involved and two ‘gold’ statuses in one household doesn’t count for much when it comes to common courtesy in terms of proper customer service replies in the below examples: all experienced in one household.
Essentially, individual customers (even at premium status and being regular flyers) are seemingly still just a ‘drop in the ocean’ of the multi-billion dollar aviation industry – and beyond the canned response half-hearted/vague apologies for valid issues, nothing is seemingly done to compensate or fix a situation quickly. Service timescales of delayed months to valid concerns are only met with a half-hearted apology.
We haven’t heard of many cases of happiness or sterling customer service reviews when it comes to customer service issues experienced or reported at this multi award-winning ‘Airline of the Year’ – though there are two main things Qatar Airways have perfected:
- The onboard/inflight offering is superb – in both economy and business class the food and service are the best
- Doha airport is a pleasure to transit through – compared to hubs in Turkey, Holland, the UK and Germany, it is clearly very well-run and well-staffed with friendly people
What are the two main things that Qatar Airways can improve on?
- Website functionality/transparency (online features/capability and reliability)
- Pre- and after-sales customer service levels
If the website was seamless, customer service efforts would be drastically reduced and automation with transparency is key. It does seem that Qatar Airways are working on this and we noticed marked improved functionality since November 2022.
Through the end of the covid pandemic, much of the tourism and aviation industry had been a mess. Many airlines, restaurants, tourist operators and hospitality stakeholders had tried to streamline and needed to shed – often experienced – staff to stay afloat. Some didn’t make it through the pandemic and talks are still apparent globally of recessions in multiple economies.
Yet, the demand for travel has since surged and airlines have been among the many businesses now scrambling to hire new staff and not coping with the continued demand for travel – even at prices higher than at the height of the pre-pandemic times.
Airport chaos was apparent by the end of 2022 and many people have had their travel plans thrown aside – flight prices have increased and although there are talks of recession, people are still booking flights; and travelling. Especially those who have not been able to see their families or those who have desperately missed their regular travels. And those like government employees who have held onto their jobs throughout the uncertain times. So although hardships are being seen, many unaffected industry workers like industries providing consumer services with continued demand have continued earning full salaries and are already ready to spread their wings to exotic holiday destinations or family visits through 2023.
Qatar Airways offer the best in-flight services and their aircraft fleet are one of the biggest and best on the planet. Their onboard staff are brilliant and hard to fault.
But what about the flaws in their online capabilities and customer service?
This is something that Qatar Airways still needs to improve. Massively. We found that we have had huge disappointments in how online features work and how online customer service gaps exist even if you think you’re a ‘valued customer’. And this cost us financially in the following examples.
WHEN THINGS SIMPLY DON’T WORK ON A WEBSITE
Have you ever tried to do something repeatedly on a website and keep getting this message?
DON’T PAY TO TRANSFER MILES IF YOU CAN DO IT FOR FREE
Or, one day you might have enough airmiles for a treasured flight upgrade. Or you paid to transfer miles from a family member, thinking you could use your miles for a well-deserved upgrade.
I had booked flights for my parents and found out afterwards that because their loyalty profiles were linked to my account (and I paid for their tickets), I could have transferred their miles to my account for free. BUT this only became apparent after I’d already paid a few hundred euros for the transfer.
I called the customer service team only to be told there is nothing they can do. Once you hit the payment button on any online transactions, that is the end of it. Be very careful before paying unnecessarily for anything!
SUGGESTION FOR QATAR AIRWAYS: Warn loyal customers on the payment screen that linked account miles can be transferred from within the master account at no charge – and you could save a few hundred euros.
DON’T BOTHER CALLING THE CALL CENTRE IF YOUR UPGRADE QUERY DOESN’T LOAD
When you click the Dashboard to load your flight to try upgrade it, you sometimes keep getting a little airplane moving around in a circle but nothing loads.
I called the call centre but was told that if the page doesn’t load, it simply isn’t available. Though you don’t get an error message or a conclusion to the little loading plane. ‘Still, if you don’t see the page load it’s not available.’
SUGGESTION FOR QATAR AIRWAYS: Train your staff to be more helpful; if there’s a technical issue or if already-changed flights can’t manage online changes, fix it.
This time we tried to prove the call centre staff wrong. We booked two flight tickets from Madrid to Japan via Doha. We called to make a free change on the first ticket for the travel dates. That was successful! On the ‘circular/non loading plane debacle’, the unchanged ticket loaded perfectly for a successful upgrade on the first leg of the flight. On the changed ticket we were faced with the circular plane scenario. We travelled a lot with Qatar Airways throughout the pandemic, so to resolve the issue, we opted for the ‘cancel and refund policy’ which we’d used numerous times.
As normal, we cancelled and rebooked the ticket, expecting a full refund on the original ticket (same dates and customer, just re-booked it to test if the upgrade was possible on an unchanged ticket). The process is simple, you just say why you’re wanting to cancel the flight and a few weeks later you get the refund. Our suspicions on the online capability flaws were correct because on a new flight ticket, the little airplane loaded instantly and an upgrade for the leg we had the ‘circular plane’ hanging, was now instantly possible! Voila.
BUT when the refund on the original ticket eventually came through a few weeks later (after already paying for a whole new ticket at the same price) it was 300 euros short on the basis that the generous covid refund policy had been ‘withdrawn’ for all flights post September 2022. But this wasn’t made clear.
SUGGESTION FOR QATAR AIRWAYS: When going through the online cancellation process, WARN customers of recent or new changes without expecting them to read all the Terms and Conditions. Better yet, give an upfront indication of what the refund amount will be in relation to what was paid so that a full refund won’t be expected.
When you go through the online cancellation process you don’t get any warning that you suddenly won’t get a full refund as in the past – even though you’re faced with the same screen:
And if you do try to click on the ‘terms and conditions’ section to double-check, you get this type of error message:
So, you still won’t know about the non-refundable policy unless you’ve fallen into the trap once. The rule of thumb is thus: don’t try to use the online functionality.
The key is to try to make any changes or cancellations over the phone as you won’t be able to see what your refund amount will be and you might not even have access to the Terms page.
On a call you also don’t know how much you’ll be refunded as they say, they will ‘inform you of this via email within seven days.’ And don’t ever try to write to the customer service teams. In our experience this is pointless and quite often you won’t get anywhere.
SUGGESTION FOR QATAR AIRWAYS: At least fix the link to the ‘terms and conditions’ above and have some compassion when uninformed customers fall into a trap the first time.
WHAT YOU BOOK DOESN’T HAVE TO BE HONOURED BY AN AIRLINE
IF YOU BOOK AND PAY FOR A Q-SUITE TICKET (OR FOUR), YOU MIGHT NOT GET IT
Imagine booking a hotel room and paying extra for a king-size bed. You contact the hotel a few months before arrival and say you have four people and would love the rooms to be next to each other. You double-check that this will be OK… “No problem! You’re paying for the best rooms!!”
Only to be told the day before you arrive that you’re now getting one room with two double beds and two rooms with single beds. And they’re not even next to each other. And no refund or compensation. And if you don’t like it, tough… You may just cancel or change your booking even though you already have plans around your hotel booking (and still planned to travel!). Fortunately, that’s not how things work with hotels – or they’ll offer you the price difference in compensation. But on an airline like Qatar Airways, this scenario could happen – and it did to us.
If you’ve heard of Qatar’s Q-Suite offering that they advertise so well (online, on the aircrafts and at airports), you’ll know the airline offers a fantastic and unique product where, if you’re up to four people traveling, you can get a luxurious-looking 4-person compartment facing each other, including a double-bed and two opposite seats/beds where you can lower partitions and create a cabin. It looks like something from the future and a dream in the skies – and is sold as an amazing product that you can book… but if you book it, you usually need to pay more and you need to select the ‘Q-suite’ option.
Q-Suite flights and Q-Suite tickets are more expensive and are marked on the booking site with the luxurious ‘Q’ noting that this is a Q-Suite product.
Now imagine booking a Q-Suite cabin for four people. That is four premium Business Class flight tickets. Not cheap. You book and pay extra and contact the airline a few months before your departure to ensure that your whole family of four are seated with each other in one of these amazing Q-Suites that you’ve ALWAYS wanted to try with your whole family. You paid a small fortune for the honour and saved hard-earned cash to do so. You’ve told all your friends and other family about how you cannot wait for this moment – that you probably won’t be able to afford again.
BUT the day before your flight, you get an email to say that the plane was changed at the last minute from the modern Q-Suite compartment plane, to one of the oldest planes in Qatar’s fleet without any ‘suite-experience’ or privacy. And suddenly your family is scattered across the cabin – not even seated together. Luckily we were able to change our seats and were seated behind each other because we got to the airport early enough.
Although the onboard teams were very apologetic about the last-minute ‘equipment change’ and they were as fantastic as always, writing to complain about dissatisfaction in the sense that this was not just a single ticket purchase – but FOUR, was again a waste of time.
At first the customer service person just seemed flippant and didn’t understand the nature of my dissatisfaction in that it was four business class tickets, not just one. I had to reiterate that I paid more for FOUR Q-Suite tickets and not just one as per the first ‘never mind’ reply. Yes, I booked them in 4 separate transactions but they were still 4 of the same family members.
From a consumer fairness point of view if the customer was in the UK and Qatar Airways was a UK-registered company, Qatar Airways would need to advertise the Q-suite in all advertising campaigns with a huge caveat stating something like ‘Although you buy and pay for this product, you might not get it (or compensation) if a last-minute equipment change was necessary – so this is a risky purchase’.
IATA and local consumer law in Qatar continues to allow Qatar Airways to market their Q-Suite product as if you’ll always be guaranteed to be able to enjoy it if you paid for it – which wasn’t the case in our scenario.
SUGGESTION FOR QATAR AIRWAYS: Caveat terms to your Q-Suite offering making it clear that no compensation will be given – even for a family of 4 hoping to occupy a cabin together – when a plane gets changed a day before.
BE CAREFUL OF FLIGHT CANCELLATION EMAILS: DON’T RE-BOOK YOUR OWN FLIGHTS ONLINE
In October 2022 I received an email from Qatar Airways saying that my January 2023 flight was being ‘cancelled’. The email said I would get a full refund. When I went into the online functionality, the flight was still listed. I intended re-booking the flights around the same January date but thought to change my return leg. So I went through the cancellation flow thinking (as the email said) I’d get a full refund.
I still wasn’t sure of the status of my flight so then contacted the Live Chat helpdesk. I spoke to Deepak who said he could still see my booking. He said the cancellation email was sent in error and that the flight was reinstated – but for a few hours time difference. I mentioned that I didn’t want to pay more for the ticket so asked then that he reinstate it (I’d already booked accommodation and a separate connecting flight for the January date) and he even sent me an email confirmation. 10 days later I got a refund amount and my flight was cancelled – possibly from before I spoke to Deepak. All I could think is that my refund request to the cancellation email before the conversation with Deepak, was processed after the conversation with Deepak. What was worse was that I DIDN’T GET A FULL REFUND! Even though the cancellation email said I could get a full refund.
I immediately made contact again and lodged a service complaint in October. When I had no response or resolution 2 weeks later, and flight prices for January were going up, I re-booked my flight (SAME DATE, BUT AT A MUCH HIGHER FEE!).
I sent numerous chasers to Qatar Airline’s service teams with the same key questions:
1.To ask why I never received a full refund on the flight they emailed me was cancelled and fully refundable. 2.To ask why my in-depth conversation with Deepak was pointless. 3.To ask why I had to pay more to re-book my original flight for the same outbound date after they sent me the cancellation email.
I did receive automated acknowledgement emails for this case, but for more than 2 months I didn’t get a reply!! What’s worse is that the reply that I eventually received in January didn’t answer any of my 3 questions.
SUGGESTION FOR QATAR AIRWAYS: Reimburse customers who are out of pocket in similar cases where your processes/procedures are lacking or unclear and get your staff to respond to communications properly and quickly. Train your staff to respond to each element of a complaint.
My personal relationship with Qatar Airways in 2022 could thus be summarised as a love-hate relationship. As long as their functionality works as it should and they do what they say, everything would be fine as I love flying with them.
But I hate when things don’t work or when they don’t resolve or even reply to customer service issues.
And they definitely need to look at compensation in clear cases of inconvenience or ensuring their customer service teams deal with matters better and with authoritative courtesy.
Written by John T – one of the international Thacks Awards panelists, living in Spain. When not traveling and wine-tasting, John is an iGaming specialist reporting into director level in the sports betting industry with a degree in Information Technology.
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