Another LoyaltyLobby reader has been in touch who was refused lounge access in Seattle on American Airlines issued business class award on Qatar Airways.
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Here’s the email from the reader:
Has there been a recent change with Qatar Airways “U” class ticket benefits? I was denied lounge access in SEA (The Club SEA lounge) while traveling to DAC connecting through DOH on QR in U class on an AA award. I contacted support and the response I received is below.
There is a post in LoyaltyLobby from March 2021 where a reader with an AA award ticket was denied lounge access in SFO but later he found out that he should have been granted access. Just wondering if there has been any change since then.
Response from the Qatar Airways customer care:
There still appears to be unclarity when it comes to lounge access on Qatar Airways business class flights. The confusion arises because the lowest paid business class fares don’t include one.
One of our readers had a similar issue previously in San Francisco:
Reader Email: Qatar Airways Denies Lounge Access In San Francisco On Business Award Ticket?
He received a $300 Voucher for the inconvenience after contacting the customer care:
UPDATE: Qatar Airways Denies Lounge Access In San Francisco On Business Award Ticket?
Qatar also incorrectly first insinuated that awards would not include lounge access that they quickly backtracked:
Qatar Airways Removes Lounge Access From Business Class Awards
Qatar Airways Business Class Fares With No Lounge Access (Pay $500 – $2,000 Extra)
Conclusion
Qatar Airways is absolutely fantastic in the air, but God helps if something goes wrong and the “robots” replying to emails don’t have the correct template ready. It is an utter shit show.
The reader should have had access to the business class lounge both in Seattle and Doha. The business class access is only excluded from the cheapest business class fares but included on awards.
Not sure why it is so difficult to get this information to Qatar’s outstations, and it seems that there is an issue with people replying to customer service messages that don’t surprise me.
From the start they should have never introduced a business class fare excluding lounge access it creates all this mess and we feel now every partner reward ticket holder will be at risk facing such situation.
Nothing worse than starting a trip with argument and humiliation and Qatar staff can be so stubborn and unflexible.
Totally disagree, as you get what you pay for. If you give me a $500 discount and tell me that I will not have access to the lounge, I will purchase said fare and then give AA $50 for admiral Club access and save $450 and not bad mouth Qatar for diminishing the business class experience. I will then use the services and amemities that my purchased fare entitled me to my hearts desire.
Indeed, I know that a carriage normally has wheels but we charge extra for them. Each wheel costs…
I think “pella” is different than “puta” and means “lump.” How apropos!
I think you are missing the point. If we use points for a business class award, we don’t always know what “fare” it will be classified as, especially when booked through a partner like AA. Any business class award ticket should still carry business class amenities.
My point was introducing this kind of fare created the mess,should they have trained their staff accordingly and apply it to the letter then no problem but result travellers with partners reward facing these situation is just not good and not acceptable.
Even if you and some others do what you think you will do in this case, many others won’t do that. They will be caught up in surprise in the airport when they realize they cannot access the lounge and will bad mouth Qatar. Be it their fault or Qatar’s fault, Qatar has more to lose from the bad mouthing, which makes this policy a bad business decision, for customers and for the airline.
Good point but not always do they allow you to purchase access. I think the point to the discuss is does Qatar disclose this clearly when you redeem miles for a ticket? Does the customer know up front that lounge access is not included? This can be confusing because other One World partners allow access on redemption tickets and this is where the confusion comes it. The policy should be the same across the board.
This sounds ridiculous that you are flying business class but if you used a redemption you are not awarded all of the benefits of a business class ticket. What is next, are they going to start serving coach meals to business class customers that are flying on an award ticket? IMO if you are flying on a business class ticket you should have lounge access no matter what. It is not like letting these passengers in is going to overcrowd the lounge, they would have to let in all of these customers if they were on paid tickets. I guess it is just a case of using it as an excuse to cut costs, but how much are they really saving by doing this? The PR is bad enough because it is a turn off. In order to use an award you have to have miles and these need to be accumulated some how so the airline is still getting your money.
I agree with you entirely. This sort of false-economy never really works in the long-term. Before Covid, I was thinking of doing a few flights with Qatar but they now won’t be on my list of possibles, if and when travel gets back to some normality. I have, like many people, a problem with this sort of penny-pinching… for example, I have not taken a flight in Lufthansa First since, about 5 or 6 years ago, they told me they didn’t have “regular” Champagne as they only ever have pink OR white and “today we have pink”. I suggested they get some from C class, which they did. I noticed there was also another pax doing the same thing as me. Of course, the F experience wasn’t enhanced by salad being spilled on its way to my plate (on the serving trolley) and then the FA picking it up with her fingers and putting it on my plate!!! It may be that corner-cutting and cr*p service will become even more rife in the future… If anyone has been in the F/C lounge LH uses in Dallas and had a food choice of either potato chips or peanuts and a drink choice of one type of beer, 5th-rate wine or water (spirits are rationed and locked away in a private kitchen area only accessible by staff), then you’ll know what I mean.
I think I would have lost my appetite if I saw the FA picking up food with their hands. No excuse for that, just leave the stuff off of the plate or go get you another salad. I do agree that some of the lounges are terrible, but I have had some that are very good.
If you’d have taken the time to read the text properly, you would have seen that the issue was not with with the “spilling” but with the fact that the FA served the salad with her fingers! Maybe this is perfectly OK in your book but I would hazard a guess that the majority of people would prefer that the person serving salad from a salad bowl would not do so with their fingers. (The object of this blog is to share knowledge and experiences. It is not a place to post abuse and insults.)
Qatar is a two out of ten low cost carrier in terms of their customer service, as admiral akbar would say.
This is the airline that returned ‘business class’ searches that included the 3 hour segment in business and the 7 hour segment in economy lol
Ugh! And Teddy Reid can suck an egg.