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My girlfriend booked a flight from MUC to CGK:

  • MUC -> CGK: 22.05.2021
  • CGK -> MUC: 13.05.2021

Yesterday Qatar Airways wrote her that the flight MUC -> CGK is no longer available. They offer her to fly one day later (23.05.2021, "Acknowledge changes") or "Request a refund":

enter image description here

She wants to fly one day earlier instead (21.05.2021) and keep the flight back. This is available and even cheaper. So we clicked on "Request a refund". Then we get redirected to the general help page:

enter image description here

There I can see a German call center. I called this multiple times during the day, but they always directly hang up. I don't even hear them taking the call.

I've reached out to them in private on Twitter and pinged them in public on Twitter. No reaction.

What can I do?

Trying to edit / change the flight

I tried to change the flight, but there is no button to do so:

enter image description here

Martin Thoma
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  • Did you try changing your reservation online to the desired outbound date? "Request refund" typically means you want to cancel the whole thing. If you can change it online they will normally refund the price difference if the new flight is cheaper. – Hilmar Mar 15 '21 at 19:56
  • I cannot see any way to change the reservation online. I would love to do that. There is no button for it. – Martin Thoma Mar 15 '21 at 20:04
  • Typically, you'll get the best assistance by contacting the call center in an airline's home country, I assume because that's where the most competent agents are located (or the agents with more permissions to change bookings etc.) I've had the same experience with China Southern, where the German-speaking call center could not help me with an issue at all, but the Chinese one solved it in no time. – Mophotla Mar 16 '21 at 11:12
  • I had 2 tickets under one booking. Flights were cancel. They refund me for 1 ticket and had promised they would pay for 2nd soon. 6 mounts has passed and I’m still waiting… – Miko Nov 24 '21 at 18:32

2 Answers2

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I've just received an alternative number from a friend. The guy from the call center thought I was calling through 0049 (0) 69 260 90 44 00 (the official German call center). However, I was not calling that number. When I called the official number the call was cancelled directly.

He wanted to forward those issues. It might be that their call center is misconfigured.

After speaking with the support, things worked out as expected: I will get a refund, although it might take 2 months (!) until the money is back. The refund is for free / without any fees.

Martin Thoma
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  • Did they tell you why their website doesn't work to get a refund? – Franck Dernoncourt Mar 16 '21 at 10:36
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    @FranckDernoncourt No. At first, the guy in the call center also didn't believe me that there is an issue with the number. It took me a bit of effort to convince him to look into it / to tell others about it. I'd be curious what happened there. Maybe a block of phone numbers was blocked and my number happened to be in there? Does something like an "ad/spam blocker" exist for call centers? – Martin Thoma Mar 17 '21 at 07:23
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    Btw: I'm a software engineer. I happen to have contacts to people who have worked on software for airlines. This is a complete mess. I'm not surprised that something which does not give money, but "drains" money, does not work. I'm not saying it's intentional, but it's likely not as high in the priorities to monitor/fix issues there as in the money generating path. – Martin Thoma Mar 17 '21 at 07:25
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https://www.qatarairways.com/en/travel-alerts/COVID-19-update.html:

Qatar Airways is offering passengers unlimited date changes and fee-free refunds for all tickets issued before 30 April 2021 for travel completed by 31 December 2021. We are also offering the option to exchange tickets for a travel voucher with 10 per cent additional when booking travel via qatarairways.com.

To change booking: https://booking.qatarairways.com/nsp/views/retrievePnr.xhtml

Franck Dernoncourt
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  • I logged in there. There is no way to get to a refund. When I click on refund, I get redirected to the help page. On the help page are phone numbers of phone centers. When I call there, they immediately hang up. I've tried it multiple times. – Martin Thoma Mar 15 '21 at 22:07
  • When we booked last week, the Twitter support confirmed the awesome free refund policy just a few minutes after I contacted them. When I was asking today, I haven't received a reaction in several hours. – Martin Thoma Mar 15 '21 at 22:09
  • I feel ghosted by a multi-billion dollar company. My girlfriend is afraid that she might not be able to visit her family and lose a lot of money. – Martin Thoma Mar 15 '21 at 22:10
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    @MartinThoma being ghosted is why I asked https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/162808/1810 I had hoped the website would work better because I will have to change some flight too and I booked Qatar Airways specifically because they seemed to have a friendly cancelation/change policy this year :-/ – Franck Dernoncourt Mar 15 '21 at 22:23