Hold on to your ticket is one of the options on the Qatar Airways travel with confidence web page. Many airlines have these pages right now, which outline what choices you have with your booking.
Another alternative is the ability to change your booking for travel any time up to 31 December 2020 at no cost, which is excellent. In addition, you can convert your ticket into a voucher where the airline will give you 10% extra, or you can exchange the value for frequent flyer miles.
What Does “Hold On To Your Ticket” Really Mean?
The web site states, “Keep your ticket and use it when you are ready with our extended ticket validity, now valid for 2 years from the date of ticket issuance for greater flexibility.” On the surface, this sounds great, I can extend the validity and use it at any time in the next 18 months or so.
What it actually means is that the ticket will become open. Rather than confirmed dates, it’s an open ticket, and when you can fly eventually, you call the airline and they put you on the flight.
My understanding of an open ticket is that you’re all paid up and all you need to do is pick your dates and off you go. Curious!
Perhaps Qatar Airways Are Being Cagey?
I’ve worked in customer service before, and I like to think I can read people at least as well as anyone else. When the agent was pointing out that “you may have to pay extra” if I choose the hold on to your ticket option, her tone wasn’t too convincing.
On the other hand, when I mentioned the voucher option, she became far more enthusiastic. She pointed out the two year period begins when you convert to a voucher and that is just the booking period. You can book at the end of the two years for travel even later.
However, since hold on to your ticket means you will have an open ticket, I personally don’t believe any additional charges are due at all. An open ticket lets you select the flight you want when you want, with no cost. Obviously seats have to be available, but that’s that.
The Conundrum
I’m in the unenviable position of having snagged a discounted fare to Australia. You know, that country that makes you stay in a hotel for 14 days quarantine on arrival, no ifs or buts.
I can change my flights without fee on Qatar Airways for travel though to 31 December 2020, however I feel the quarantine will last longer than that. I could switch to a voucher of course, but then I will more than likely have to shell out more for a replacement ticket.
Who knows, perhaps the flight will be cancelled altogether and I will be eligible for a refund. Unusually, that’s my least desired option. I want to fly Qatar Airways business class again, at the price I originally paid.
Overall Thoughts
My trip is not until November, so I still have quite some time to make a decision. There could be a miracle and Australia could drop its quarantine requirement. Though I’d be very surprised if so! Alternatively, Qatar Airways could adjust their policy again. We’ve already seen many changes recently, so more could come depending on how the pandemic progresses.
Qatar Airways state, “Rely on us when you need to fly”, making a big deal about being there for people. Let’s hope they deliver on their promises and extend the free changes into 2021. It could be restricted to countries like Australia which make people quarantine on arrival. You can be rest assured that as soon as the quarantine is lifted, I’m heading out there.
What do you think of the Qatar Airways hold on to your ticket option? Have you asked the airline about it yourself and what did they say? Is my understanding of an open ticket correct or not? I’d be interested in your opinions, so please leave any comments or questions below.
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Hi, Did this ever come to light?
I too, have a Qatar airways flight, cancelled this morning, and am wondering which option to choose… I also snagged a great fare and any new flight is over 3 x what I paid….
Will my open ticket allow me to rebook without fare change?
According to the comment below from Oliver, the open ticket means you will be able to use the value of that ticket against a new ticket. Therefore using that for a new flight will mean you would pay the fare difference. Whether this is the case in practice or not, I don’t know, but he seems to know what he is talking about. Good luck!
I’ve booked rather cheap business class tickets on a Qatar Airways flight between south east Asia and Western Europe and we decided to cancel the trip.
Not so easy as it seems. Esp. since we booked via an agent which had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the voucher option. It is one of those online travel sites you see when you search on Skyscanner. Now, I did have to deal with a (temporary) Central European call center of the agent. English only so I wonder how certain people deal with that who booked at their countries’ local agent. Qatar Airways Support told me they could not help me since we booked via a travel agent and that they had instructed all agents how to apply for the vouchers. You wouldn’t say. So in the end I had to educate the call center employee on the terms and conditions etc. The reversed world.
Finally after a lot of back and forth we received our voucher codes. So far so good but at the time they stated you HAD TO CALL QA for a new booking. Luckily now it seems you can enter the voucher code online before the payment info. But what I read also (early October), is that it only works if the price is higher than the value of the voucher (so they will deduct). The other options to partly use your voucher should be added later. Also, I wonder if you still can book with the voucher via a travel agent? We’ll see.
One lesson learned though; book if possible directly with QA.
I’m glad to hear you ended up getting your voucher, even though it took a bit of work. What Qatar Airways said was right, you usually have to deal with the Travel Agent if you book through them. I always book directly with the airline when it comes to flights, though I will use tour operators and such if I have to book anything like that. Good information on the vouchers and being able to use them online. Hopefully that will be expanded as things go on. I think other airlines also make you call in to use the vouchers, as they’re not something that was really done before. Good luck with eventually getting to go away. A lot of us are playing the waiting game in that area right now. Thanks for sharing your experience!
While not airline industry specific, a recent experience of mine is certainly related. So I bought concert tickets for Hall and Oates/Squeeze(!) for a July show back in February. The tickets were nonrefundable. So once the “mess” hit, the concert was delayed and I received a communication from the ticketing agency to hold on to my tickets, blah blah blah.
Then the concert was cancelled outright. They offered me a credit plus a 25% additional credit for a future show. Will there BE any future concerts at this point? So I went on the website to chat with a rep. I asked for a refund, was again asked if I wanted the credit/bonus and I declined. Then the bonus was upped to 50% of my original ticket price and I again declined and eventually got my original charge credited to my card.
It seems NO company these days wants to part with your cash once they’ve got it. And I understand…BUT!
Interesting they upped it to 50%, now if any airline gave me 25% or 50% I’d be switching to a voucher in a heartbeat, especially on my Qatar ticket! I am with you though, I’d rather the money back in my pocket at the moment. I’m only going to spend it again with the airlines anyway, and those that gave me a refund with no questions asked (which is both of them so far) will be getting my business again. Any carrier that made it hard for me would make me hesitate to book again in future, that’s for sure!
I can assure you the cost of my tickets were a drop in the bucket compared to DUB-OZ-DUB airline tickets. 50% bonus for those, and yeah I would’ve taken that offer!
Haha I thought as much 🙂
Hey hey – great post and I thought I’d chime in with my methodology. I’ll firstly state, I have a similar situation with flights that I re-routed for Maldives in late September…and second to that, I’ve been a successful Corporate/Entertainment Travel Agent for +16 years here in Los Angeles, and owned my own business doing that for the past 9 years. So my take on the “open ticket” option would be exactly like cancelling a domestic flight here in the USA….you hold an open ticket, the value is available for future travel…but fare difference applies.
They offered the original “Cabin for Cabin” waiver originally (meaning you could change to any route within the 5000mi, any available seat in your cabin, even the LAST business class seat), but then changed it for Booking class to Booking Class to help them restrict and mitigate their losses down the road. But essentially, converting to a voucher, vs holding an open ticket really represent the same thing in my personal opinion. And if you use my example of when you cancel a domestic flight, you have an open ticket…you utilize that value plus fare difference when you exchange it.
But I agree, I think they need/should extend the Booking Class to Booking Class waiver into 2021 under the circumstances (meaning you can indeed continue to change for no penalty, no fare difference using that)
HOPE that helps or makes some sense 😉 Good luck with the trip!
Oh Oliver, I was hoping someone in the travel trade would chime in on this with some actual experience with these kinds of tickets! I really appreciate your input. In actual fact then, if there are no changes to what they will and won’t allow between now and when I am due to travel, the voucher would be the best option, as it gets 10% extra value and has a longer validity. It makes it seem like the open ticket option is also to mitigate losses, as those who take it will miss out on the bonus. Interesting!
I did take advantage of the original waiver, just to change my original destination from another European city to the one I actually live in, but even when I did that it was fare class to fare class, rather than cabin to cabin. It didn’t make any difference to me though, so I was lucky.
Let’s hope they extend things into 2021 with no penalty! Could be waiting a while though 🙂 Thanks again for taking the time to comment, I really appreciate it!