BA Avios Booking on QR – Schedule Change Means 25 Hour Stopover

[Kraut]

Summarised in here at the suggestion of @Lady London

Booked Business class LHR-AKL on QR with Avios for April 2026 using the BA website (108k points there v 180k on QR’s site direct) on July 2. 5 days later they informed me the DOH-AKL leg was rescheduled to 18 hours later, meaning I would now have a 25 hour layover – it seems all their DOH-AKL flights have been moved to that time of day, rather than it being just this flight

Obviously I immediately called BA, first agent said they would have to request Qatar un-marry the segments so we could rebook the LHR-DOH leg to match the new AKL flight time. This was done via email to OneWorld somehow and was apparently refused pretty quickly (and according to FT is par for the course)

Since then I have called twice and both agents have said the same, as the segments are married and QR wont change, BA can only offer me a refund which is useless becuase now there are no other Avios options at similar time (even to SYD). This is including quoting back BA’s own schedule change policy that @IamNotLuke pulled out for me

So I guess I am stuck with this massive stopover and of course its not the worst thing in the world, but my entire trip was only 12 days on the ground downunder for a wedding before coming back so it seems an annoying waste. It just seems infuriating that somehow no consumer rights apply when they could easily rebook me on another LHR-DOH flight the next morning so I have a 1.5 hour stopover instead, how can QR leave me on a flight pairing that they don’t even sell on their own site?? FT site seems to think there is nothing that can be done because QR don’t care about redemptions booked via BA, but I am open to any ideas!

[Lady London]

I can see you’ve already added this to
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/book-qatar-through-baec/page/2/

I’ll reply there.

[Kraut]

Boring outcome, I have cancelled the booking and changed my dates so that I could book directly with Qatar (actually cost me less points) which is just a better option overall. Still don’t understand how BA can allow themselves to be tied into a relationship where their Customers would get such shockingly bad service, especially when they share ownership

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

@Kraut

QR owns a share of IAG not BA and the 2 members it appoints to the IAG board operate to protect QRs shareholding not as its agents. These proprietary directors as they are called aren’t even QR staff. Their biographies are on th IAG website.

These arrangements aren’t perfect but they do allow you to use your BA avios to book a QR flight or to transfer your avios to book direct with QR so you can’t really complain about the link up because without it you wouldn’t be able to do what you’ve done!

You might not be happy with what’s happened to your booking but if QR changes the schedule again you’ll soon realise their customer service isn’t anything to write home about.