What’s the catch with Virgin Australia’s free meal vouchers?
Doha transit passengers get to dine, but it's not all good news.
There's nothing worse than starving in a strange airport after you've been on a long flight. So Virgin's announcement this week that international passengers transiting through Doha will get a US$20 meal voucher to spend at airport restaurants sounds promising.
Virgin is starting 28 weekly flights to Doha from June, operated by its part-owner Qatar Airways, which is giving it a much bigger international reach. And that's great for earning points, but it does mean that to get anywhere else, you're going to be stuck in the airport doing that transfer. So much time is definitely calling.
Sure, $20 won't go that far in an airport. We all know that. But it should get you a coffee and maybe a snack.
However, there are a couple of downsides you want to be aware of. The first is it doesn't apply to absolutely every restaurant in the airport.
The second thing to be aware of is that, somewhat annoyingly, if you're traveling with your family, you have to spend each voucher individually. You can't put them together and say, "Hey, we've got $80 for the family meal." You have to spend each $20 buck voucher individually and if you don't quite use it up, you're not getting any change.
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Now, I would never pick a flight solely because I was going to get a $20 voucher because with shopping around, I could probably save more money than that on the airfare. That said, it always worth taking advantage of anything you can use to not spend too much money in airports. They are famously the most expensive places to buy food in the civilised world.
The other alternative, of course, is getting into a lounge. For most folks, your best option there is a credit card that offers lounge passes. There are a lot of cards on the market that will give you one or two lounge passes a year.
It is good to see that Virgin is trying to make these flights to Doha a little more attractive. Just remember, it's always better to compare, because the food itself is not going to save you that much, and you might do a lot better just racking up a bunch of credit card points through a bonus sign up, then get your flight for nothing. That's going to be worth a lot more than 20 bucks.
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