Just got back from a whirlwind trip to Dubai and Doha, with Qatar Airways taking the reins. Buckle up, because this one’s a rollercoaster of epic deals and epic fails.

Scoring the Steal

Let’s start with the win. We snagged a multi-city trip for a measly $450 per person! To put it into perspective, it’s even cheaper than a round trip to some nearby countries in Africa, if not all! All credit goes to my savvy wife for snagging such a deal.

Related: Qatar Airways Contact Details in Nairobi, Kenya

We got the Qatar visas ourselves, which were a breeze. Kudos to Qatar for making it very easy to do so. Although, for the UAE visa, let’s just say the system and I weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Ended up paying an agent, but hey, at least I had the visa in 24 hours.

Related: The Dubai Digital Nomad Visa – How To Apply

Fasten Your Seatbelts (Literally, Do This)

Classic us, rolled into JKIA Nairobi right at departure time (shocker, I know). Being fashionably late to get to the airport has almost caused us missing our flights. You’d think we learned our lesson, right? Well, not quite. Our tardiness ended up causing us a bit of trouble, but more on that later in this post. Security took a cool ten minutes, then the usual visa and passport shuffle. Once we cleared check-in and immigration, we had a brief wait where I grabbed a coffee before boarding our A350, configured with a 3-4-3 seating arrangement.

Related: Traveling From Kenya to Dubai

We zoned out with the massive selection of movies on Qatar’s Oryx entertainment system. So far, so good.

Qatar Airways Food Review

The food was very basic. I’ve eaten better food on “smaller” or less prestigious airlines. A solid one for the food.

Related: UAE based airlines

The Great Disconnect

Here’s where things went south, and fast. Our fault entirely, we missed our connecting flight from Dubai to Doha. But the way Qatar Airways handled it? Not great. The staff had zero interest in helping us rebook. Rude, nonchalant, the whole package. To top it off, they didn’t mention our entire multi-city ticket would be toast. So, once you miss a flight in a multi-city trip, you break that sequence and that renders your following flights void.

Buying a New Ticket to go Back Home

As if that was bit enough, before checking in, the staff tells my wife, who came from Kenya a couple of days before, and was born in Kenya, that she cannot go back as she does not have the right papers.

We go ahead and show our marriage papers and the dependent pass which their thick heads could not comprehend.

The trouble does not end there. We are told that because we broke the flight sequence by not taking the flight, we need to book a new one way tick back to Kenya.

When we missed our flight, we used FlyDubai to get to Doha as booking a Qatar Airways flight was about $1500, more than the entire price of the multi-city trip. How? That is why we opted to use a cheaper option.

Related: FlyDubai To Start Direct Flights To Mombasa

Refunding Shenanigans

Guess what? Missing that flight meant buying new tickets home, lovely. Oh, and they said they’d refund the unused portion of our original trip, minus a cool $90 “refund fee” per person. Our $390 refund magically shrunk to $145. Math, am I right?

Then there was the check-in at Doha to return to Nairobi. One agent was an actual ray of sunshine, but the rest? Rude, dismissive, or just having a terrible day. Let’s just say courtesy wasn’t on the menu.

The Verdict: A Split Decision

Dubai and Doha themselves were fantastic, but when it comes to flying, we’ll be sticking with Emirates for now. Qatar Airways? It would be the last resort. The staff really left a bad impression on us.

What’s interesting is that when you go to the Google review section, you find that there are so many similar instances to ours.

And recently, a popular Kenyan YouTuber, Miss Trudy, faced a similar issue as my wife. She was left by the plane, I think twice for not having the “right” papers to go back to Ghana, a country where she resides in and has a husband from.

You be the judge!

Also, I have more articles coming your detailing our amazing time in Dubai, Deira, Doha, Lusail and more.

Related: The UAE Free Transit Visa