Qatar Airways booking: points upgrade farce

[Only1JFD]

I’m in the middle of a farce and would appreciate any advice on next steps or rights.

I’m flying with my partner to Windhoek via Doha return (4 flights). We paid for and selected nice economy seats. I then noticed upgrade availabilty for flight 2 so upgraded us.

I then decided to try and get an upgrade for flight 3. The issue now was that I didn’t have all the avios in my account. I had enough for me and my partner had enough for her. We couldnt create a family account on Qatar because we dont have a marriage certificate (the system requires one to be uploaded!). So we decided to upgrade separately. First my partner upgraded for flight 3. We were told that because we were only upgrading one person our original booking would be split with a new booking reference issued for me but with all details remaining the same. So far so good. But when I tried to upgrade myself there was no upgrade availability meaning my partner and I would be separated for flight 3. We knew this was a risk, albeit we had estimated an unlikely one especially as we could see most of the business class seats were not reserved.

My partner requested that her flight 3 upgrade be reversed. They agreed to do this for £58. They then sent a link requesting payment and showing that both (!!!) upgraded flights (2 and 3) would now be downgraded back to economy. Furthermore if the payment was not received before the expiry of the link then the whole booking would be lost!

My partner was on the phone to them for hours and got them to reverse this downgrade so that once again her flights 2 and 3 were in business, they could not just re-upgrade one it was neither or both (cost £58 despite this being their fault).

We would have loved to draw a line under it at this point. However, when checking the booking all of her already paid for seats on the four flights are no longer on the booking and the “manage account” facility is not showing the ‘choose seats’ option like it normally does. So we are both on the same planes but we won’t be sitting together unless we can get them to change the booking again, if possible, presumably for another £58.

How I regret trying to upgrade flight 3! We are going to complain to try and get the seat bookings back. In the meantime I would appreciate any tips.

[BajiNahid]

Good Luck, Qatar customer service is notorious, do you have status with other oneworld airlines? try going through their websites and see if you can change the seats. If not, then do it at the check in desk at the airport.

[NorthernLass]

I had seating issues resolved twice recently via QR’s chat facility in the app, they were really good once I got them to understand that I am BA Silver and not QR Silver.