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I foolishly believed all the hype on the Skytrax website and chose to fly with Qatar from Singapore to Paris in June 2012. Turned out to be more like the worst airline I have ever dealt with.

What I discovered is that they are simply corporate sharks after the dollar. They have absolutely no customer service skills nor a desire to truly assist their customers.

My husband and I missed our flight from Singapore to Paris and it was completely our fault. This had never happened to us before and since our flight was leaving at 02:20 in the morning I simply made an error with the date. That being said, it was the way Qatar's Singapore office staff dealt with the situation at the time and then later the way that the Qatar Customer Relations Department dealt with my subsequent complaint upon returning to Sydney that I take issue with.

As you can imagine, my husband and I were completely distraught about missing our flight. This had created a domino effect which meant that our hotel booking in Paris was lost as was our connecting flight the following morning, etc. We had been planning and saving for this trip for quite a while and this was not a good start.

The Singaporian customer service rep at Qatar's office was cold and indifferent. She showed absolutely no compassion whatsoever. She was not the least bit interested in our predicament. She advised us that because we missed the first leg of our flight then our return flight was also cancelled and then proceeded to tell us that it would cost us an additional $5,000+ Singapore dollars to get onto the next flight. We pleaded with her to speak to the Manager and see if she could come to the party in some way and waive the cost or even reduce it because this was going to blow our budget. She spoke to the Manager who turned out to be just as indifferent and we were told that nothing could be done - take it or leave it. We had no choice and so we had to pay.

There were also other issues as follows:

1. The 'so called' Business class lounge at Terminal 3 in Singapore was a joke. Qatar Airways shared the SATS business class lounge and I don't know how they can, in all good conscience, call it a business class lounge. It was a dump. Absolutely horrible and there was nothing to eat!

2. I am allergic to crustaceans and although I told the stewards this when they came to take my meal order, the first thing I was given was a crab croquette. The outcome could have been devastating for me.

3. We encountered constant problems with their on-line check-in system that simply didn't work. It neither opened on time nor did it recognise our booking reference numbers nor our ticket numbers.

My husband and I sent various emails to the complaints department whilst we were still overseas advising them about the problems we had experienced with their on-line check-in system. We also noted that every Qatar employee we spoke to either in person or over the phone in France, Germany and Singapore all said that the on-line check-in system doesn't open early enough and doesn't work properly and that they are constantly receiving complaints about it. Regardless of this, each response we received from Qatar Airways basically said that their on-line check-in system was not experiencing any problems at the time and worked just fine.

On our return we also sent them an email to the Customer Relations Department listing all the problems we had encountered and although we shouldn't really have been surprised by their response we still were. It was totally useless and meaningless. They were simple towing the party line, not wanting to take any responsibility or provide any real satisfaction. They even had the gaul to end their email sincerely apologising for the inconvenience caused and they hoped that this would not deter us from using their services again in the future. They have to be kidding. Neither I nor any of my employees will ever set foot on this airline again!