Xbox 1 Win and be caution about flight only wins

shapala

Hi all.

Want to say a belated thank you. I won an Xbox 1 sometime last year which turned up just after new year. I had no notification emails/calls and nothing in the box so no idea who to thank but thank you. I gifted it last week to my nephew and he's made up!

Firstly, sorry if it's a bit long-winded but wanted to be sure I cover all bases with this so here goes...

Two years ago I won flights with Qatar Airways to 'anywhere' they fly to, as long as you fly through their main hub in Doha, Qatar.

Excellent we thought. We looked at where they flied and thought New Zealand where my brother lives or Singapore where I have a cousin.

So, firstly, there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing by email to identify who I needed to organise the flight. After a couple of weeks we were finally given a number. This person then said it was someone else so it began to get a little frustrating wasting time for what you'd think is quite a simple request, especially since Qatar give a lot of flights away each year.

Finally got in touch with someone at reservations department and they said we needed to book within the next couple of weeks and prize for travel only valid for a few months ahead which worked against my wife's holiday days (she only had 4 days left) thus restricting us to a short trip, ruling out NZ. There was also no assurance on who paid the various taxes but I did mention this was clear in the T&C's that'd be paid by the promoter (lastminute.com).

We decided on a long weekend in New Delhi, India. The flight time was about 15 hours (due to the stopover on Doha mostly) each way. However, we did notice once the flights came through by email that we didn't have seat confirmation and wasn't too sure what that meant, other than being on standby which a friend, who works for an airline, said should be fine. Off we went to local airport and got our flight to Doha. There were EIGHT people on the entire economy class and must say the flight was fantastic.

However, it all became a nightmare from there on. In Doha, getting our connection flight, we were told the flight was full and we 'may' get the next flight in 24 hours but there would be no guarantee since we didn't have seat confirmation. A lot of time went by so will be as concise as possible, but one senior manager did his best but could in no way guarantee a seat for us to India the next day. We then demanded just to fly us back home as it could well be the same again the following day and we, in no way, wanted to spend a whole day in an airport with no assurance we may even get on the flight. They did mention there would likely be seats available in business and first classes but they cannot upgrade passangers as part of their business plan, even for those who pay for tickets. Nice to know....not

The bottom line is, if you win a prize which is flights only, PLEASE make sure you have confirmed seats because if not you may get stuck if any segment of your flight is full.

For us, it was a total let down and massively disappointing. We managed to get all expenses back after a couple months (hotel, VISA's, tours we got sorted etc) by sending an email to Qatar's complaints department but the time wasted really put us off through no fault of our own. Funnily, in the reply from Qatar, they did say they had no idea how this happened and they would investigate, profusely apologising. Bit late but it's good they put their hands up and were quick to repay our expenses.

Hope it helps and apologies for all the writing but really wanted to explain what happened to us so it hopefully doesn't happen to anyone who reads this and experience the disappointment we did.

Best of luck to all for the comping ahead.

mjm3346

:TCongratulations:T, shame about the flights.