I had heard much about QSuites, Qatar’s game-changing business class product, and found the chance to try it out by securing an Aadvantage award ticket for 70K miles and USD 7.65 in fees. The flight from San Francisco to Doha, which clocks in at 14.5 hours, was the second leg and highlight of a round-the-world trip that started in Vancouver and continued on to Bali (via Istanbul) and Singapore, before returning to Vancouver.
Trip legwork – a frustrating process
Booking the ticket was the easy part. Closer to my departure, preparations for the flight itself were somewhat stressful as I would arrive in Doha just two days before Qatar would shut down for FIFA, allowing only those with a special pass, called the Hayya Card, to enter the country between November 1 and December 23, 2022. As my stay in Qatar overlapped FIFA season, I was uncertain if I needed the Hayya Card. Calling in to the Hayya hotline two weeks before my flight was frustrating because the English customer service option repeatedly connected me to the same Spanish-speaking agent who informed me he was not working the English line and could not advise me, apparently hamstrung by rules to advise only people who spoke Spanish.
I finally was able to connect with another agent who spoke adequate English but, surprisingly, did not know the answer to what I presumed must be a common question. She tried to palm me off on consular services, causing me to hang up in frustration. If there’s anything I’ve learned from dealing with government bureaucracy, it is to never give up and keep calling until you find someone who can help, and eventually I did connect to an agent who gave me a reasonably definitive answer (yes, I would be let into the country), but not before consulting with her supervisor. The equivocality of these different responses did not engender great confidence when I arrived at SFO, as ultimately it would be airline staff who would vet me for entry into Qatar. What if they are similarly hazy about the rules?
Fortunately, this ultimately proved to be a non-issue. Unfortunately, Qatar’s pre-arrival registration and contact-tracing app, Ehteraz, was experiencing technical issues when I tried to enter my information. Why, you ask, did I keep it to the last minute? Well, you can only apply on the app with the results of a negative PCR or RAT test, which I had just gotten at the airport. Using the website on my laptop was similarly problematic, as the size of the file (a jpeg, since it was a photo as I wasn’t issued a digital copy of my test results) was too large. It was one such difficulty after another, but I found the workarounds and finally completed the application. To my relief, I got an instant approval:
Ironically, as you can see from the expiry date, my status was only valid for one more day after my arrival since Qatar would no longer require arrival registration and Covid testing effective November 1.
Ground Service
With my documentation in order, check in at the business class counter was a breeze. After security, I proceeded to the Air France-KLM Lounge, which Qatar contracts with for its business class passengers since it does not operate its own lounge at SFO.
The lounge experience was far from relaxing. It was overcrowded, there was hardly anywhere to sit, and the food was inferior. From a health standpoint, it was hardly ideal. When I left the lounge, they were calling names off the waitlist. Why would anyone go to a lounge that is packed to the brim like this? Well, I have a theory.
People are quite addicted to any privilege they are given. They would rather have a crappy lounge and bad food than not, and they would not give up the privilege of complaining about their experience (which is exactly what I’m doing here, since I’m one of those people) to wait in the relatively more sane environment outside the lounge. Waitlists and entry restrictions, which many lounges now enforce, only seem to increase the sense of exclusivity and don’t appear to do anything to dissuade lounge usage. As long as they have the privilege of entering a lounge, a lot of people seem to have infinite tolerance for these conditions. For their part, lounge operators understand this psychology, so they are hardly motivated to improve things.
After a quick bite, I left the lounge. I was going to be on the road for two and a half weeks, so I didn’t want to get a cold, flu or covid. I did some work at one of the public tables in the terminal, then proceeded to the boarding gate. Most of the passengers look like they are heading to India and other south Asian countries. This reflects the business model of Qatar Airways and other super-connectors like Emirates. Unlike American or Canadian airlines, which have sizeable populations to justify their scale, the super-connectors operate out of sparsely populated countries (e.g., Qatar only has a native population of 313,000 people) but pack their planes with travellers connecting through their massive hubs.
The Seat
After a seamless boarding process, I arrived at seat (or rather suite) 5A, which I had assigned for myself. When it was first introduced in 2017, QSuites was an immediate sensation and game-changer because each seat came with a self-enclosed cabin with a door, and the seats in the centre rows could also be converted into double beds for those travelling together. Five years in, the seats and the look of the cabin are still stylish. I absolutely loved the purple-grey colour scheme of the cabin.
Seat Features
The most notable feature of the seat is the door, which affords added privacy when you want to be left alone. I valued it when it came to working and sleeping, as cabins – even business class ones – can be busy places at times.
The cabin layout is 1-2-1, with front-facing seats alternating with rear-facing ones. I wish I had the opportunity to take more photographs of the seats in the centre row. For couples travelling together, the partition between the two seats can be lowered to create a private cabin for two people, and even a double bed when the seats are put in sleeping mode. Also, as rear-facing seats alternate with front-facing ones, the partitions between two rows can be lowered to create a private cabin for a group of four. That’s pretty cool as long as you like your travel companions.
My seat, 5A, was rear facing. I selected it because it had the most privacy, since the storage area for rear-facing seats is situated on the side of the door, creating more of a barrier between the seat and the aisle, and providing unobstructed access to the window as a bonus.
And no, you do not get motion sickness sitting in a rear-facing seat.
The seat easily converts into a bed using the controls. The bedding provided includes a seat cover, plush duvet, and a pillow that is reasonably firm for head support. In bed mode, the seat felt incredibly comfortable and afforded me 7+ hours of sleep on the 14.5 hour journey. In semi-reclined mode, it was also perfect for watching movies on the IFE system.
In-Flight Entertainment
Qatar’s audio-visual on-demand system, known as OryxOne, has a vast selection of movies, TV shows and music playlists that span the globe. The headphones were good quality noise-cancelling ones. The IFE can be controlled via touch screen or using the handheld remote control attached to the seat, which is handy if you’re in recline or bed mode. I didn’t use the IFE much other than watching the movie adaptation of Dr. Sleep, Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining (it was a terrible blending of supernatural genres, not recommended).
Amenity Kit
The amenity kit came in a fancy cardboard box, and these are its guts: indoor socks, eau de toilette, and various creams by Diptyque Paris. I also got Qatar Airways-branded FIFA loungewear, which felt very comfy so I ended up wearing it off the plane. Hey, I’m in a country where nobody knows me – who cares how I look?
Dining
Certainly the highlight of my flight was the food. Qatar has dine-on-demand but I opted to eat at the standard service times. There were two main meals – dinner and breakfast, with light options between meal services.
For dinner, I had the porcini and chestnut cream soup, a scallop starter, and the Dungeness crab salad followed by the California lobster Thermidor. Everything was exquisite. My meringue dessert was a sight to behold and tasted great.
I was tempted but skipped the light options, opting to wait for breakfast. My selections were Greek yogurt, a fruit plate, and a very ample smoked salmon bagel.
Fortunately for winos, er, oenophiles, Qatar isn’t a dry airline like Saudia. I’m not a drinker but if you’re curious, I present the wine selections:
Service
Service was, in a word, impeccable. Consistent with Qatar’s reliance on foreign nationals to fuel its economy, the Doha-based flight attendants were a pretty diverse group. I heard Filipino, Spanish and American accents, as well as others I could not place. What this multinational crew had in common was a strong focus on customer service and an incredible work ethic, reflecting Qatar’s customer-centric values and rigorous crew training program. The two Filipino FAs who worked my section were warm, attentive and gracious. They simply could not have been better at their job.
Conclusion
I didn’t want this 14.5 hour flight to end – that’s how good my experience on Qatar Airways was. It more than made up for the stress of dealing with Qatari bureaucracy, technical glitches, and the abysmal lounge on the ground. Flying long-haul in QSuites was a stellar experience made all the sweeter by the bargain price of the ticket. Count me a convert to Qatar and not a skeptic of the polls that rate its business class product as one of the best, if not the best, in the world.
