Qunar.com is a Chinese online travel agency headquartered in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. Qunar () means "Where to go" in Chinese.

History

The website was founded in May 2005. In 2011,

Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet services and artificial intelligence. It holds a dominant position in China's search engine market (via Baidu Search), and provides a wide variety of o ...

acquired a majority interest in the company for $306 million. In November 2013, the company listed its shares on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

. In October 2015, Qunar merged with Ctrip and its backer Baidu Inc. Ctrip holds about 45% of Qunar and Baidu holds 25% of Ctrip. In February 2017, the website was acquired by Ocean Management Holdings Limited (远洋管理有限公司), and underwent privatisation by de-listing from NASDAQ. In October 2021, Qunar joined the Hongmeng ecosystem and launched online travel atomic services.

Customer Service during COVID-19

The complaint reached its highest point during the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

outbreak in China, when the

Civil Aviation Administration of China The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC; ) is the civil aviation authority of the People's Republic of China, under the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Transport. It oversees civil aviation and inv ...

(CAAC) issued a statement on its website on January 21, 2020, requiring airlines and travel agencies should handle their refund requests free of charge for passengers who have already purchased flight tickets to or from

Wuhan Wuhan; is the capital of Hubei, China. With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the List of cities in China by population, eighth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine National cent ...

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

and wish to cancel their trip. Following the outbreak, many domestic airline and international airline cancelled their flights to/from or within China. Since January 21, the number of customer calls to Qunar has surged and the highest peak is nearly 25 times of a typical day's handling capacity. Recently, the Qunar website has been frequently complained by customers that the refund has not been received for more than 40 days. As of April 4, 2020, the complaints totals 28,713 on Black Cat (黑猫, Hei Mao), a website by

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for customers to file complaints, and nearly 9,650 complaint cases remain unsolved. Most of the customers complaints focus on the topic of Qunar is not following the airline's policy and refuse to refund or change the plane tickets. Some customer reported that request to refund are denied without a reason being told, and others reported that even if a refund is granted, Qunar cannot guarantee when the refund will arrive to their bank accounts.

References

{{reflist, 1 2005 establishments in China 2013 initial public offerings 2017 mergers and acquisitions Internet properties established in 2005 Online travel agencies Chinese brands Trip.com Group