Getting Visa on arrival - Doha

Novi's Hubby says,

Thank you for your help pwb78, and confirming this cash issue, it is much appreciated.

I have past the information on to my friend, and all the above correspondence has answered the initial query very quickly.

Thanks to everybody.

I called the meet and greet ladies - you can use cash for the service and paying for the visa beforehand.

I know the daughter cannot use cash if she does the visa on her end. I'm ALMOST certain that meet and greet takes cash. I think I paid for my mom's with cash. :)

Hubby here again, sorry Novita, but you did not know that cash can be used for obtaining a visa.

This was the point of the question.

Thank you Pwb78 for confirming that you can use cash when using the meet n greet' service, to obtain visa. You are the only person to confirm this so far.

Thanks Winnie also, as Novita said, we have used this service before, but this was before they introduced the card only payment by passengers for visa on arrival. Now that Pwb78 has confirmed cash can be used, my friend will no doubt use them.

Again, good advice for anybody with family and friends arriving to use this service, it certainly speeds things along.

You just have to quietly point them in the right direction where everybody will tell them what you already did. It has to be their idea. :)

I did meet and greet for my mom too and she was very happy.

Pwb78, this one is hubby's post ... i told him exactly the same. But somehow he won't believe me. I did the same with my mom 2 yrs back (since my mom dont speak english and Al Maha service have staffs with different nationalities, i asked Indonesian staff to look after her in her arrival). I gave the money to Al Maha service and she look after my mom from came out from the plane until she met me outside.

It is no problem for this girl's dad (he work with my husband) to arrange Al Maha service. My husband now probably realize that he is getting the same advice with what i told him

Sometimes ... man have a weird way of thinking ... listen to everybody else except your wife. :P

If this girl is young and traveling for the first time or whatever, I would go ahead and get the meet and greet service for her. You can pay ahead of time for her visa and the cost of the service. Just get her to pay you back and she won't have to worry about a thing when she gets here.

Winnie

The Al Maha service (meet 'n greet) service is pretty good . The hostess stands at the end of the steps of the plane with the name of the person(s) written on a card. So long as your friend is aware of this, that is all she needs to look out for. She will be escorted onto the bus then taken to a seperate lounge where she will hand over passports, ( and plane tickets to locate luggage). It usually takes about 30min for normal procedures with valid visa. Depending how busy they are. I can't help with the visa bit if you come in without one but take Margaret07's advice about contacts plus an additional contact number here in Doha.

From your side you need to go down to the airport to pay for the service in advance. I can't remember how much but it is pretty cheap

To my knowledge you just pay for the visa with a credit card at the passport control counter.

I don't know what the procedure is with the meet and greet service.

I personally know of a friend's daughter (Canadian) in her twenties who had a problem on arrival. Sometimes they suspect young single women arriving alone are prostitutes. She had to phone her parents who had to intervene in order to allow her into the country. So this young woman should make sure she can provide the passport control officer the name and address of her hosts and she should have the phone number of her host,just in case. Other young women, my own daughter included, have not had this problem.