Qatar Airlines screwed me over.... and my friend in Thailand too
Travel right now is not easy that much is for sure. If you are trying to travel with an animal it gets even more difficult. This is why I booked in advance and then checked on the phone and by email almost every day to ensure that everything was going to be sorted out. It was getting to the point where I started to feel bad for the call center because I was reconfirming my flight every damn day and sometimes being told that "I don't need to call anymore."
Apparently I did need to call anymore
src - altered, obviously
In order to get a dog on a plane you have to have all your dog's vaccinations up to date, which I think most responsible dog owners would already have done already, so that is no problem. But as I mentioned in my previous post, for reasons I do not understand the various airlines need to have a bunch of other paperwork and they need to look at the dog first to make sure of.... I dunno what. You pay for these things as well. The paperwork is $60 which isn't that much money and it is done in a couple hours but still, it's more than free.
With my daily badgering of the airlines was done because I needed this flight to happen and I have heard horror stories of people getting stranded because of various reasons and I know that my international travel actually happens. I was not thrilled by the fact that there was no on-board option and knew that Nadi was going to be even less thrilled about it than me.
I need to get into the USA before the 14th even though I have no desire to live in USA because after that date, the only way you can get a dog in is by means that take months and is basically designed to prevent anyone from bringing dogs in.
Everything was all set, everything was paid for, I had tickets, I had completed the paperwork and gone all over the friggin town with my dog so that the airlines could use their complete lack of any sort of veterinarian inspection to accomplish I don't even-know-what. I was told over, and over, and over, and over again that everything was fine.
Then two days ago, the day my domestic flight was meant to be leaving Da Nang, Qatar airlines sent me an email saying that the cargo hold was now full and the dog can't travel with me.
They offered no apology, no alternatives, no options, no nothing. I don't know if they were expecting for me to just abandon the dog or what, but if you know anything about me, that is NOT going to happen ever.
So now here we are, it is too late for me to get any flight into the USA because there aren't very many flights leaving Vietnam at all and after a week of telling me that there WAS SPACE for my dog on the cargo section of the plane, they wait until the 11th hour to tell me that somehow there now isn't?
Screw those guys. I will avoid using Qatar in the future because I would understand if they told me there was no space at the beginning... fair enough... but after more than a week of assuring me over and over again that everything was fine, you can't just come at the last friggin minute and tell me the opposite of what you have been telling me since the beginning!
Also, a friend of mine who is leaving Thailand for the same dog medical reasons was told over and over and over again that his dog, which is very tiny, would be allowed on board the plane with him because he had it classified as an Emotional Support Animal for one of his children. The classification is probably bullshit just like most people who have this done with their animals, but the fact remains that the classification was legit, verified by a psychiatrist, and the paperwork was all there. He too was assured by Qatar that everything was all set and and done.
He too received an email a few days before his flight that ESA dogs are no longer allowed on flights, after being told for nearly a month that they would be.
This sort of screwing over your customers at the last minute for any reason is unacceptable but even more so when you have told your customers one thing for the entire time but then wait until it is too late for them to make alternative arrangements to completely reverse everything.
Now Nadi and I are stuck again, in a country that unless they reverse their stance on this really soon, no longer wants us here. We'll get through this, but Qatar Airlines has forever tarnished their name in my book. You simply can NOT do this to your customers. To them the dog is just a dog, but to me, my dog is my child and once you mess with that... I will never forgive you.
In their mind I should just leave this darling behind? She's the whole reason for the flight you jagoffs!