I recently flew with Saudia and wanted to share my experience, especially around pricing, schedule disruption, and customer support.
1. Price
The main reason I booked was cost. The ticket was around 40 percent cheaper than competitors like Emirates and Qatar Airways, which is a significant difference for a long-haul route.
2. The problem
My original itinerary was:
Vienna → Jeddah → Dhaka
A few days after booking, I received an email stating that my Vienna → Jeddah flight was rescheduled by one day. The issue was that my connecting Jeddah → Dhaka flight stayed on the original date, which made the connection impossible. This effectively broke my itinerary.
3. Attempting to fix it
I tried to resolve it through their website, but rebooking failed repeatedly due to errors. I also attempted to log into my account, but OTP verification never arrived on my phone. I could not find a usable support email, and the chatbot was not helpful.
At this point, I was essentially locked out of self-service options.
4. What finally worked
As a last resort, I started calling Saudia offices in different countries. After a few attempts, the Kuwait office answered. The support there was responsive and understood the issue quickly. They manually fixed the itinerary.
Since no suitable Saudia connection was available, they rebooked me onto Emirates at no additional cost, which I did not expect.
5. Final thoughts
Pros:
Very competitive pricing on long-haul routes
Helpful and effective support once you reach a human agent
They ultimately took responsibility and resolved the issue
Cons:
Website and booking system can be unreliable
OTP and login issues can block access to accounts
Chatbot support is not effective
Reaching real support can take significant effort
Overall, it feels like a “low cost but high variance experience.” When everything works, it is a great deal. When something breaks, it takes persistence to fix, even though the resolution itself can be good.
I am curious if others have had similar experiences with Saudia.
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