[ytadesse]

Thank you very much for your opinion dc2las.

My expectations from Qatar Airways were not unreasonable at all, and that is why I have posted my experience for the public be the judge.

My points against the airline are as follows:

1. The terms and conditions of the airline are not as clear as they could have and should have been. Instead they chose to a make a vague statement on eligibility. Therefore customers can only make REASONABLE assumptions: mine were, (a) I have a 19-hour stopover (which is much greater than the prominently talked about 8 hours), and (b) I am flying Economy therefore I get 3-star accommodation (instead of 5-star for 1st class).


2. At the point of sell, any above mentioned vagueness about sold product/service, should be totally cleared up; i.e. how many bags are checked-in free, and yes weather the passenger is eligible or NOT for a free hotel room on their extended stopover in the airline’s hub city. If they had at least offered to add the hotel room for the additional $125 at some point in the checkout process, it would have been a way of un-hiding the surprise, or disclosing the true cost of the ticket (similar to taxes included/excluded). From their vast experience transporting millions of people every year, the airline could have REASONABLY guessed that any human being on a 45-hour inter-continental trip with a 19-hour stopover will need accommodations, unless that person is a super energetic and healthy young adult trying to save some money. Why not offer to sell the hotel room most people will need (because they are older, not as healthy, flying with kids, etc…) upfront? Because the marketeers at the airline are afraid it will balloon the price ticket a bit too much, and people might cancel the purchase and go shop somewhere else. That’s the unethical part of this whole story.


3. My final point, as indicated in the title of my post, is regarding the self anointed 5-star appellation/rank the airline bestowed itself. I certainly would not have been this outraged if I had bought my ticket on a budget airline. I have flown on these and am a very satisfied customer. However for a company that heavily advertises itself as a 5-star airline, you can reasonably expect certain things such as fair treatment of passengers to be standard practice. You should not worry about fine prints when you deal with a 5-star, you can have REASONABLE expectations and they should MEET or EXCEED those expectations. Otherwise they are just masquerading as a 5-star. By the way, I fly to Africa and the Middle East on a yearly basis, and airlines that fly that part of the world such as Kenyan, Ethiopian, and Emirates do provide complimentary hotel accommodations as a standard service for all of their passengers who have an extended stopover in their respective hub cities.


Note: There are people who accept fighting with companies over fine prints as a fact of life. But they fail to see the big picture; most if not all of these “misunderstandings” could be whipped out if companies were not profiting from them. Companies deal with customers all day, everyday; they have seen it all. People have been there before you arguing the same issue with the same company. Companies keep the vague sentences, the grammatically acrobatic phrases, because they do profit from them. They are like little traps they lay out for some of their customers to fall into, to generate extra cash. They have done the statics, the benefits versus cost analysis; It’s all about the bottom line. Remember the late fees and overdraft fees from banks? We have to punish those who abuse our trust (our REASONABLE expectations), by passing legislation that protect us (as in the case of the banks) and by exposing the truth to the wider public to name and shame the culprits (thank the internet for that).