Hopefully someone can give me a hand. I have a family member that needs to travel back to their homeland Serbia by Qatar. Due the the covid-19 Serbia has closed its borders and the airport is closed. However the flight has not been cancelled so basically he can not fly to his destination. That's happening in the next 3 days. I've tried contacting Qatar airways and seems impossible to get a hold off anyone. Any advice would be much appreciated.
They closed all airports, no way of getting in, not even residents
Yikes!
https://simpleflying.com/belgrade-airport-closes-abruptly-le…
As you said, airports are closed, meaning your family member just has to stay where they are
That's happening in the next 3 days.
No it's not ;)
You just need to keep trying Qatar and get a refund or some such
Unfortunately Qatar Airways seems to be ignoring everyone at the moment. Best bet so far it's for him to stay put in Melbourne and somehow get a refund or a voucher. If I get in touch with them that is. Was thinking perhaps to change his flight back home through Bulgaria but again zero help from Qatar Airways at the moment
what will he do once he is in Bulgaria
Exactly, it's like OP is ignoring the fact that Serbian airports are shut!
well they share a land border, but if borders are close, you are no better off,
and what if bulgaria is closed
reading from news, I don't think there's anything you can do (legally).
turn up to the airport, until flight is cancelled by Qatar, I would d go there and act dumb, then get qatar check in person to deal with getting you a refund
I’ve just cancelled my Qatar flight to UK and Italy.
Qatar have a COVID policy that you can cancel your flight for travel up to June 30th.
Log on to manage booking and see if there is a flight change notification. They have stopped emailing the changes
If there is do not acknowledge it. Click the refund button.
If Qatar has cancelled the flight you can get a refund or a credit voucher but you have to put a code in the comment
There’s 2 COVID codes, one for refund and a different one for voucher.
If Qatar do not have the flight as cancelled, you can still cancel and take the credit voucher without penalty or you can get a refund and pay the cancellation fee that is in the PDF of your eticket
You can not get hold of them by phone I tried for days.
My outward flight was in May to Edinburgh and return from Rome in June. The Rome sector was cancelled by them but the first flight was not and had a $800 cancel fee on a $1200 total.
I had no option to take the voucher even though they will deffo not be flying into the UK.
I think the voucher is OK, they shouldn’t go bust cos they are government owned and Qatar and Iran share the biggest gas reserve in the world.
Qatar is seriously affected by COVID, they continued to fly in and out of Tehran.
The last I heard Qatar wasn’t even going to allow transit passengers in and the flights would only be returning Quataris home.
It may be too late for him to get home.
I cancelled 4 days ago. I have no confirmation other than the last page confirming what I did. I took screenshots of the every page as I worked through.
if the airport is closed and no flights and no one at all is allowed into the country.
then its not happening..
it dosent matter what the status they forgot to change on the qatar website says.
does he have good accommodation in the country he is in? cos he might be there for a while.
Even when the EU had closed their borders Qatar still did not cancel the flight from Aus to France. I opted for a voucher 3 days before travelling (waited last minute incase they would cancel the flight) as I pretty much had no choice - I tried to change the flight date but there was a big fare difference (the change fee waived) and I would have been charged a cancellation fee if I cancelled from my end. I managed to get through to Qatar twice with 10 minute hold times after 8pm AEST on 1300 340 600. I'd stay in Melbourne and opt for a voucher and book again until he is able to travel. link to req the refund: https://www.qatarairways.com/en-us/refund-request.html. Enter the keyword COVID1052 in the comments
Thanks everyone. We tried to get the voucher. We got a confirmation email that we submitted it. So now wait and see. Take care everyone
We are in a similar situation. Flying out in May, the airline says "partially confirmed". I'm debating whether to play chicken with a flight cancellation to see if that some how puts me in a position to force a refund (or CC charge back) but I'm not hopeful.
I'm beginning to regret not taking the partial refund through their site (i.e. refund on taxes which make up 60% of the fare) when I had the chance at the start of March as I'm not confident they will still be flying the same routes next year, or whether I'd want to fly next year anyway. A 2 year voucher would be a lot more reasonable.
Serbia is only closed to foreigners right? Does your family member have residency?