Doha Bank extends its dining offers to your preferred restaurants and cafes in Qatar

In 2014, Doha Bank launched “Dine with Doha Bank Cards” – an exclusive savings programme featuring offers and discounts from hotels and restaurants in Qatar. The main feature of this programme is that Doha Bank credit and debit cardholders can enjoy and benefit from savings up to 25% on a multitude of cuisine around Doha.

Since then, the programme has grown from strength to strength and branched out to all segments of dining and includes savings from coffee shops and cafes to fast food chains, ethnic, international cuisine and even selected fine dining restaurants such as Patagonia - at the Pearl Qatar. Five star hotels around the country such as the Wyndham Grand Regency, Millennium Hotel, the Marriot Marquis City center Doha Hotel and the Governor West Bay are just some of the fabulous premium properties where Doha Bank cardholders continue to enjoy savings throughout the year.

Building on the dining programme and going a step further, Doha Bank is now the first and only bank to publish what it calls a “Repeat Customer Index”. This index features all the Bank’s restaurant partners both in terms of those that encourage redemptions on the Bank’s loyalty programme as well as those that extend annual discount offers. The aim of the index is to keep track of how many Doha Bank cardholders regularly visit a particular restaurant to enjoy dining out.

The findings of the index come as no surprise as they match the dining behaviour that one is used to seeing in Qatar, with fast food chains such as Domino’s Pizza ranking the highest in the published index. Coming in next are the ever popular coffee shops and cafes. Again, not totally unexpected since the word ‘Coffee’ itself is derived from the Arabic term ‘gahwa’. In our part of the (Arab) world, offering guests coffee is considered a sign of honour and welcome and coffee-drinking is both a social and cultural habit. Some of the trendy coffee shops featured on Doha Banks “Repeat Customer Index” include Farggi Barcelona at the Gate Mall and Hamad International Airport as well as the ever popular Costa Coffee, with cafes in every nook and corner of Doha. Doha Bank cardholders can redeem their loyalty points at Costa to enjoy a free latte or perhaps a cappuccino.

Next in the index come the restaurants that serve ethnic or international cuisine, with restaurants serving Arabic, Indian and Chinese food scoring more repeat visitors such as D’chopsticks at Holiday Villas, Taj Rasoi at the Doha Marriot Hotel, the Oriental Pearl on the Corniche, and Dunia which serves up authentic Persian delights at Villagio.

Speaking about the novel idea of the “Repeat Customer Index”, Mr. Suresh Bajpai, Head of Retail Banking at Doha Bank whose brainchild the index was, said, “This index is the first of many which we plan to publish in different categories such as hypermarkets, electronics and shopping. The index primarily serves two purposes – one, to get a taste of where cardholders like to dine; and two, to persuade those restaurants to part with deals to keep customers coming back, ie, repeating their visits.”

Commenting on the “Dine with Doha Bank Cards” initiative, Mr. Sherif Sabry, Hotel Manager at The Torch Doha, said, “We are excited to be featured in the programme and to offer Doha Bank customers the opportunity to experience The Torch hospitality while enjoying special restaurants offers. We hope members enjoy the privileges offered by the hotel and find the initiative rewarding.”