Sunday, 2nd April, 2023
We arrived at Doha Airport just after 3:00am. The fligtht was
uneventful and as comfortable as coulde be expected in "cattle"
class. The airport has several interesting features as you can
see below.
This bear was outside Harrods (yes, the same brand as
the famous shop in London).
The aiport included a number of art
works.
This sculpture was quite large (as indicated by the presence
of Satoshi in the photo.)
These gardens are also a feature of
Doha Airport.
We were not the only people who were tired after their
flight!
The flight from Doha to Heathrow was also
uneventful and quite satisfactory. The food on both flights was
excellent and the usual security procedures were completed with
a minimum of fuss.
Once we got out of the airport, things changed for the worse.
Firstly, we tried to find where in the terminal we should go to
get a bus to the company from which we were to hire a car.
Asking three different workers at the airport produced three
different ideas! A check of the internet showed that there are
places at Teminals 1, 2, 3, and 5 but not, of course, Terminal
4, where we were! We decided to get a taxi (which cost over
£20!). Things then really deteriorated. The appearance of the
car rental establishment was unpromising. Upon presenting the
necessary documents, we were told we needed to pay a "deposit"
of £1500 for insurance which would be returned if the car was
brought back undamaged. We tried to explain that we were already
covered by two lots of travel insurance but the man at the
counter was having none of that. Reluctantly, I produced a
credit card, whereupon I was told,
"Oh, that won't work, it's not embossed" (ie the numbers on the
card raised above the surrounding area of the card.) I was
becoming quite increduous by this stage, The card was tried and,
indeed, didn't work. The man at the counter made the singularly
unhelpful suggestion that we could pay £2000 on another of our
cards but that we wouldn't get that back. By this stage, I was
ready to eat him alive and spit him out! We offered a number of
other solutions but none of them was deemed satisfatcory.
Eventually, I contacted someone at their head office who was
much more helpful. We tried one of my debit cards but my bank
declined the transaction. We tried to pay online but then got a
message from the bank that this was a suspicious transaction and
that they would send a passcode to my phone. Of course, that
didn't work since we were no longer in Australia. Not
surprisingly, neither the broker we booked the car through or my
bank in Australia was open on Sunday afternoon/night. Having
wasted a whole two hours, we had no choice but to leave. We
couldn't get to Portsmouth so we had to stay nearby at the Moxy
Hotel. (Of course, that cost an additional £99 and we won't get
a refund from Portsmouth (fair enough).
We now have to wait up until 11:00pm when BankFirst, in
Australia, opens their call centre at 8:00am. Hopefully, we can
get the problem sorted and get back to Easirent Car Rentals by
12:30am (yes, AM!) when they close. Another customer helped us
out of the door with all our luggage and commented that his
sister had looked at the reviews for the company on Trip
Advisor. Out of 136 reviews, no less than 120 rated the company
as "terrible". If only I had thought to look there before making
the booking! I will report further on this issue as time
progresses.
We both had lasagne for dinner at the hotel. Although Satoshi
thought he saw them heating it from a frozen packet (!), it was
quite tasty.
Later...
Having stayed up until 11:00pm, we have still not been able to
speak to the bank. A pending transaction did appear on the
credit card so we went back to Easirent. The woman on the
counter claimed she had no record of it on their side of things.
Off to bed now!