In accordance with Qatar Airways’ coverage, including an toddler beneath 2 years doesn’t require reserving one other seat. For that reason, the pair assumed altering their reserving wouldn’t be a problem.
“The standard coverage is 10% of the grownup fare, which we completely perceive, that’s completely advantageous for us to pay that,” Sarah mentioned.
Nevertheless, after visiting the airline’s web site, Sarah discovered she couldn’t add an toddler to their journey.
“Qatar Airways’ reply was we can not and won’t e book the toddler onto your current reserving, the one choice is to cancel your complete reserving and to rebook the very same flights on the very same day,” she mentioned.
“We must pay over $2500 extra only for the toddler to take a seat on my lap.”
The couple had paid $10,000 for the unique flights. They had been instructed by the airline to cancel their tickets for a $1200 charge after which buy one other set of flights that included the toddler.
“It appears like they’re penalising us for having one other child,” Sarah mentioned.
Qatar Airways doesn’t fly direct from Queenstown to Dublin. Realizing this, the McGuinness household booked by the airline for the complete journey within the hope it could keep away from any journey issues. Jetstar would fly them from Queenstown to Auckland because the codeshare airline.
A Qatar Airways spokesperson mentioned at the moment no modifications could possibly be made to the McGuinness household’s reserving as a result of it didn’t function the Queenstown to Auckland leg of their journey.
“Including an toddler ticket to a brand new or current reserving is feasible, offered that every one sectors on the ticket are flown and operated straight by Qatar Airways,” the spokesperson mentioned.
“On this explicit reserving, the sector between Queenstown and Auckland is operated by one other service. Thus, Qatar Airways is unable to accommodate the addition of an toddler ticket to all sectors however will provide a full refund to the passengers to rebook their ticket.”
Sarah mentioned whereas Qatar had provided them a refund of their tickets booked in March, they’d now need to rebook at inflated June costs, cop a $1200 cancellation charge and fork out for the separate extra flights from Queenstown to Auckland.
The McGuinnesses declare this left them hundreds of {dollars} out of pocket due to the upper costs of the brand new flights they wanted to rebook.
The estimated complete for his or her Eire journey would now value greater than $22,000 given all of the rebooking issues, Sarah mentioned.
She additionally mentioned when she spoke to Jetstar straight, the airline mentioned including an toddler wouldn’t be an issue.
“They mentioned that they’ve completely no challenge with reserving the toddler onto the Jetstar flight, however they can not do it for us as a result of they weren’t the first reserving agent,” she mentioned
The McGuinness household mentioned they took the problem so far as they may with Qatar Airways however felt the corporate’s name centre was of no assist.
“You possibly can clearly inform they’re simply studying off a pc display screen … that’s why I used to be making an attempt to escalate it additional to talk to somebody who’s not simply giving a generic reply however we’re simply getting nowhere,” Sarah mentioned.
“They’ve obtained no empathy they had been heartless, unreasonable, simply no need to even attempt to come to the desk to assist us out.”
The McGuinesses mentioned they determined to examine with different airways to match their tips on including an toddler to an current reserving.
“I’ve been involved with Emirates, Singapore, all of these different airways to simply discover out what their coverage is,” she mentioned.
“All of them have come again saying, ‘yeah, it’s completely advantageous … you possibly can e book your flights at times when your child is born, simply name us up and we’ll add the child on. No challenge in anyway.’
“I might hate for an additional household to be within the scenario that we’re in. It’s hectic sufficient fascinated about getting on a aircraft with two youngsters and a new child with out all of this stress beforehand. And , and the monetary burden is large as properly.”
