abstraction
Junior Member
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2011
- Posts
- 45
I had flown with Qatar many times before as a no status flyer, and once as silver. Apart from poor connections and being dumped in the Doha warehouse for hours, I was impressed. So I was looking forward to the five star treatment as an (economy) emerald frequent flyer. Tbilisi, Doha, Melbourne.
Seriously disappointing.
The 1.5 stars is for check-in at Tbilisi in the business queue (the only lone queue I avoided on the entire trip), a shadow seat & economy food is always superb on Qatar (ok, that has nothing to do with Emerald).
So the treatment was essentially no different to when I had lowly silver status with Qatar.
Summing up = Nowhere near the quality of treatment by Qantas, Emirates (though not part of OW) & Cathay, the three runaway best in OneWorld from my experience.
Even British give much better treatment of oneworld Emerald.
And then American Airlines & LAN - two airlines i consider poor - do more for emerald, although the overall experience on AA remains worst.
Qatar - I have better options in future for my very many flights each year through Qatar routes.
My big question is - should Qatar be in OneWorld if they don't deliver. OneWorld needs some standards.
Seriously disappointing.
The 1.5 stars is for check-in at Tbilisi in the business queue (the only lone queue I avoided on the entire trip), a shadow seat & economy food is always superb on Qatar (ok, that has nothing to do with Emerald).
- No first class lounge access in Doha. Qatar emerald passengers get access to first class lounges with British, Qantas, Emirates & Cathay, but it isn't reciprocated by Qatar.
- Sent to the Doha economy warehouse instead, with long queues through immigration.
- When I asked about first class lounge access I was looked at strangely - "You only bought an economy ticket." "But on other OneWorld airlines I would have 1st class lounge access for Emerald." They thought it best to repeat their first answer in case I was slow of understanding. Another person said the same thing and took me to 'customer service' (the transfer desk) with another extremely long queue. It was obvious I was being fobbed off, and I'd had rude treatment before from the transfer desk. I get it - Emerald means very little to Qatar.
- Lounge access? A now seriously overcrowded business lounge with another long queue to enter and a seat was almost impossible to find.
- No priority boarding. No priority anything. More long queues. A cattle class experience.
- In the air the service was below par, frankly. The only difference from any other passenger was that I received an immigration priority form only because I specifically asked them for it, it wasn't offered. This from an airline that claims to be five star.
So the treatment was essentially no different to when I had lowly silver status with Qatar.
Summing up = Nowhere near the quality of treatment by Qantas, Emirates (though not part of OW) & Cathay, the three runaway best in OneWorld from my experience.
Even British give much better treatment of oneworld Emerald.
And then American Airlines & LAN - two airlines i consider poor - do more for emerald, although the overall experience on AA remains worst.
Qatar - I have better options in future for my very many flights each year through Qatar routes.
My big question is - should Qatar be in OneWorld if they don't deliver. OneWorld needs some standards.
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