BA Avios reward, Qatar Airways cancelled flight

[bizwizz]

Hi Everyone
We booked via BA site with avios points, 2 adult and 1 infant ticket from Man to Haneda business class
We chose Qatar because of the Q suites

Booked this in April and just been told Haneda to Doha has been cancelled

Only option given is to fly BA business

Qatar still selling business class flights to Japan
After speaking to 5 customer advisors, i was told if no avios availability cannot book. We were only given one flight time option as well.

Can they deny us of this? Frustrating as we wanted to experience the Qatar business experience and not BA
Is there any law to say reward frequent flyer should be treated the same as a cash paid flight.
Advisor said if we had paid cash I would have had more options

[PB2]

How short notice is the cancellation? If they cancel an Avios reward flight I’d have thought there would be flexibility to put you in any available seat as an alternative, without the need for Avios availability – however this case may be complicated by the fact it’s BA being asked to re-book into a “cash” Qatar seat? Hopefully someone with more experience can help!

[e14]

bizwizz wrote:

Hi Everyone
We booked via BA site with avios points, 2 adult and 1 infant ticket from Man to Haneda business class
We chose Qatar because of the Q suites

Booked this in April and just been told Haneda to Doha has been cancelled

Only option given is to fly BA business

Qatar still selling business class flights to Japan
After speaking to 5 customer advisors, i was told if no avios availability cannot book. We were only given one flight time option as well.

Can they deny us of this? Frustrating as we wanted to experience the Qatar business experience and not BA
Is there any law to say reward frequent flyer should be treated the same as a cash paid flight.
Advisor said if we had paid cash I would have had more options

Let’s try and break things down here to make it easier to understand and reply.

You have three tickets from MAN-DOH-HND on QR in business J booked via BA using Avios points.

British Airways in this case is the issuing agent (sort of a travel agent).

There are processes which BA must follow if one leg has been cancelled –

So who has advised you that the HND to DOH leg has been cancelled
When is the travel for.
What is a suitable alternative for you if the HND-DOH leg is not available – HND-LHR-MAN ?

One point is that booking flights based on the proposed seating arrangement is often a folly, QR is notorious for aircraft substitutions.

Yes there are regulatory requirements that BA must adhere to and for the most part they are covered in their standard customer guidelines, so not sure why you are being advised about Avios availability.

[NorthernLass]

Was it BA or QR agents you spoke with?

This is complicated by the fact that cancellations are the responsibility of the airline – so QR – and also that you don’t have the same protections flying from HND on QR as you do on BA. You may have to accept the offered re-routing unless you can negotiate a better option.

*I see @JDB has risen so hopefully he’ll relent and pop over to explain the intricacies of the situation.

[JDB]

@bizwizz – you are running into practical solutions and personal preferences vs legal niceties.

The APR give you all sorts of rights but following cancellations they don’t give you the right to pick freely from an à la carte menu of flights to suit your preferred options. The purpose of the rules is to get your trip back on track without consideration of chosen airlines/routings/seat types.

The rerouting rules are also subject to availability so what you are running into here is QR’s refusal to make seats available to BA. That quite suits both airlines. QR, as the operating carrier of the cancelled flights, technically has responsibility but they won’t (and shouldn’t under IATA agreements) deal with you directly on this sort of issue as you have booked via BA but wouldn’t anyway be very helpful if you had booked directly. There’s really nothing you can do about any of that.

One question – has QR really cancelled the flights to/from Haneda or moved them to Narita? If that were the case you should push to reinstate your bookings.

If not, the rerouting offered by BA is entirely reasonable and compliant with statutory obligations. It’s probably a shorter overall journey time which might be a consideration travelling with an infant. BA might conceivably agree to rebook you on JAL which might be a better experience but might refuse when their own flight is available. They might also agree to reroute on an LH group airline but I doubt that’s really a better option.

You only get once chance on a rerouting/rebooking so you need to think carefully what the best or least bad option is as you won’t be able to change again absent further cancellations.

[bizwizz]

Thanks everyone

Yes from what I can see the route has been changed so QR fly from Man to Doha and then to Osaka or Narita

I booked the flight in April when the rewards were available for next March
They informed me 6 weeks ago of the Doha to Haneda leg being cancelled but didn’t state why, rebooked us onto Japan airlines but it’s 8 hours sat in Doha airport

Then 2 days ago I got an email to say Haneda to Doha has been cancelled

I asked to move my flight to Narita or Osaka but they said no business class seat available with Qatar

Only gave me BA option and only 2 morning flight times there and one flight time on the way home

Frustrated that I booked so far in advance and now forced to take a BA option
Even if I got a refund now, there is no availability for me to go business for next March

I had to speak to 5 agents to get to the bottom of it

Any advice would be much appreciated

[Matt]

QR are terrible at allowing changed to cancelled flights booked via BA – in theory you should be able to select what you like, within reason, but they at best give you one option and that’s it. In theory you should be able to book yourself and claim back, but that would be risking thousands of pounds with little certainty of winning and claiming the money back.

I would ask for the JL flights that suit you best, but if that fails go for whichever BA flights suit you best +/- a day or two of your original booking. If you end up on BA I’d check to see how many avios that would have cost, and ask about a refund of the difference if it’s less than QR cost you – no certainty of getting that though.

[bizwizz]

thanks Matt
I will be asking for a refund in avios because it took me 6 hours to get to the bottom of it
initially they said we could be booked via a different route with Qatar
We were told 5 different things so wanted to know if anyone else had experience or advice on it. I suspect their policies are not even very clear either

[JDB]

bizwizz wrote:

thanks Matt
I will be asking for a refund in avios because it took me 6 hours to get to the bottom of it
initially they said we could be booked via a different route with Qatar
We were told 5 different things so wanted to know if anyone else had experience or advice on it. I suspect their policies are not even very clear either

BA’s own policies are very clear but they can’t impose those on other airlines. Qatar policies are a little murkier, but reasonably well known and far less favourable. Ultimately, BA can’t force QR to make space available to you or to allow a change of gateway.

I would be quite surprised if BA offered you any refund/compensation in Avios or cash, least of all for the six hours you spent pursuing this.

Rerouting under Article 8 comes at no extra charge to the passenger so sometimes the cost or even the dates work in your favour. You might be moved to a peak day flight when you had originally booked off peak or to a day that you originally wanted that had no Avios availability. If you move the other way round from a peak day to an off peak one you won’t get a refund of Avios unless you cancel and rebook, then losing the benefit of not needing Avios seats to be available. It cuts both ways.

[Wiseoldman]

Qatar good hard product and teriible soft product (customer service!)

[bizwizz]

thank you everyone
i’ll let you know if anything good comes of it
in future know not to bother booking with qatar with avios, doesn’t feel we’re being considered

[bizwizz]

sorry everyone
is there an argument that when they changed the route Qatar should have prioritised us or at least given us the option to opt for that route
It looks like on their website, there is no offer to Haneda but they fly to Narita