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I booked a Qatar flight via BA which I will now probably cancel. I know the cancellation fee is £35pp. However, I received an email yesterday from BA stating that the flight had been rescheduled (as it turns out only by 15mins or so). When I check with BA there are no options to cancel as the change is minimal (as expected). But when I check on the Qatar site it has an option to ‘Request a refund’. I’m curious to know what happens if I action this. Will it initiate a free cancellation or will BA still charge their usual fee?
Since you booked via BA it’s their fees that apply.
Got an email from BA yesterday that there are changes to my Qatar Airways flights.<br fgid=”29666″>
“If you’d like to book a different flight, please call us.”<br fgid=”29673″>
Thought I’d see if I can be moved onto an earlier flight back to London (there were two).Contacted Qatar Airways through live chat on the app. This is because they respond very quickly and seem empowered to handle changes.<br fgid=”29687″>
Got an agent from the QRPC team in under a minute. Two minutes later he advised (as expected) that I should contact BA as that is whom I purchased my flights through.<br fgid=”29694″>
OK, so that was expected but good to get confirmation in under 5 minutes that it is indeed BA who I need to talk to.Phoned BA. After about 30 minutes, I got through to someone from the sales team (despite ringing the number in the email from BA and selecting the appropriate option to make changes to my flight).<br fgid=”29708″>
After around 20 minutes of being placed on hold, the agent advised that I would need to contact QRPC, because BA can’t change my flights if the overall delay is under 5 hours.So that was a waste of an hour.<br fgid=”29722″>
Further evidence that the site-wide view about it allegedly being easier to handle changes and cancellations through BAEC rather than QRPC is incorrect.What was the outcome here, I am stuck with a QR redemption booked via BA with Qatar moving my flight by 18 hours leaving me with a 25 hour stopover and BA saying they can’t do a single thing about it, it’s infuriating
to be honest handling any changes to a Qatar redemption regardless of how you book is a challenge!
If you book via BA then you need to ask them to call Qatar via the oneworld liason desk and move you to a suitable flight. BA can then reissue the ticket. Neither BA or Qatar will be able to touch the ticket without this liason as Qatar does not publish any rebooking guidelines that BA as your travel agent in this scenario can follow and Qatar cannot touch a BA ticket until the flight is under airport control 24hrs before the departure.
But Qatar are infamous for refusing to be helpful in this scenario of an extended layover so you may just be stuck waiting for availability to appear or left on the sub optimal itinerary.
Got an email from BA yesterday that there are changes to my Qatar Airways flights.<br fgid=”29666″>
“If you’d like to book a different flight, please call us.”<br fgid=”29673″>
Thought I’d see if I can be moved onto an earlier flight back to London (there were two).Contacted Qatar Airways through live chat on the app. This is because they respond very quickly and seem empowered to handle changes.<br fgid=”29687″>
Got an agent from the QRPC team in under a minute. Two minutes later he advised (as expected) that I should contact BA as that is whom I purchased my flights through.<br fgid=”29694″>
OK, so that was expected but good to get confirmation in under 5 minutes that it is indeed BA who I need to talk to.Phoned BA. After about 30 minutes, I got through to someone from the sales team (despite ringing the number in the email from BA and selecting the appropriate option to make changes to my flight).<br fgid=”29708″>
After around 20 minutes of being placed on hold, the agent advised that I would need to contact QRPC, because BA can’t change my flights if the overall delay is under 5 hours.So that was a waste of an hour.<br fgid=”29722″>
Further evidence that the site-wide view about it allegedly being easier to handle changes and cancellations through BAEC rather than QRPC is incorrect.What was the outcome here, I am stuck with a QR redemption booked via BA with Qatar moving my flight by 18 hours leaving me with a 25 hour stopover and BA saying they can’t do a single thing about it, it’s infuriating
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I eventually cancelled and booked a new flight to a different UK airport (this time directly with Qatar Airways as my own individual Avios balance had increased sufficiently so I didn’t need to use the HHA). I think.
All I can remember is thinking I should never book QR flights through BA ever again.to be honest handling any changes to a Qatar redemption regardless of how you book is a challenge!
If you book via BA then you need to ask them to call Qatar via the oneworld liason desk and move you to a suitable flight. BA can then reissue the ticket. Neither BA or Qatar will be able to touch the ticket without this liason as Qatar does not publish any rebooking guidelines that BA as your travel agent in this scenario can follow and Qatar cannot touch a BA ticket until the flight is under airport control 24hrs before the departure.
But Qatar are infamous for refusing to be helpful in this scenario of an extended layover so you may just be stuck waiting for availability to appear or left on the sub optimal itinerary.
So the first agent I spoke to sent an email to oneworld requesting the flights were unmarried and apparently this was refused, is that a different process to your suggestion?
@kraut JDB and SamG are correct in that for the ticket to be changed it would need to go via the OneWorld liaison desk.
Be aware that this may not be the last time Qatar messes up your booking by rescheduling flights (or even tossing you off them onto other flights without any good reason). They have plenty of time to repeat this type of thing as you’ve booked far ahead and we get quite a few reports of this.
If they do it on the return leg not departing from the UK or EU then EU / UK 261 don’t protect you for compensation and/or rerouting. For flights within the legs departing UK or EU then you do have this protection. Qatar might try to ignore and refuse but you should win if you’re willing to take it far enough.
The thing that occurred to me is doesn’t a 25 hour bresk mean your fare construction is now a stopover rather than just a connection iñ Doha as it’s gone over 24hrs? I am wondering if it’s still a married segment then which would add to the ticket now needing fixing. Wondering if this means you could ask for the flight from Doha to be to a different UK or Eur destination instead.
Please post what happens. My gut feeling is QR is going to mess with your flight timings again later too.
@JDB just for my understanding, why are the BA guidelines not correct when they have a section for BA/QR Joint Business, this is BA ticketed, and this would appear to be a joint business flight? The joint business covers LHR-DOH-AKL. Not sure what I’m missing?
@kraut JDB and SamG are correct in that for the ticket to be changed it would need to go via the OneWorld liaison desk.
Be aware that this may not be the last time Qatar messes up your booking by rescheduling flights (or even tossing you off them onto other flights without any good reason). They have plenty of time to repeat this type of thing as you’ve booked far ahead and we get quite a few reports of this.
If they do it on the return leg not departing from the UK or EU then EU / UK 261 don’t protect you for compensation and/or rerouting. For flights within the legs departing UK or EU then you do have this protection. Qatar might try to ignore and refuse but you should win if you’re willing to take it far enough.
The thing that occurred to me is doesn’t a 25 hour bresk mean your fare construction is now a stopover rather than just a connection iñ Doha as it’s gone over 24hrs? I am wondering if it’s still a married segment then which would add to the ticket now needing fixing. Wondering if this means you could ask for the flight from Doha to be to a different UK or Eur destination instead.
Please post what happens. My gut feeling is QR is going to mess with your flight timings again later too.
Anything up to 72 hours is considered a single flight when we booked. Any more and you’d have to purchase as 2 individual flights and pay the increased Avios/fees.
@JDB just for my understanding, why are the BA guidelines not correct when they have a section for BA/QR Joint Business, this is BA ticketed, and this would appear to be a joint business flight? The joint business covers LHR-DOH-AKL. Not sure what I’m missing?
Because the guidelines apply to BA flights and the section re schedule changes is a BA policy and not statutory. QR has its own policies.
It refers to Joint Business, so if a BA JB flight were involved, you can be rebooked on another JB flight including on QR. In essence, BA can’t tell QR what to do or rebook willy nilly after schedule changes, notably for reward tickets. Cancellations are different.
Oh okay, so even for JB flight, if book QR via BA then deal with BA but QR policy and if book BA via QR then deal with QR but BA policy.
Doesn’t feel very joint…
Thanks for clarifyingYou need to ask BA to ask QR via the oneworld desk to rebook you. Look up the specific flight numbers you want and give those to the BA agent.
That said though having re-read the joint booking rebooking policy in the event of a schedule change
Option 1 – Rebook QR/BA Joint Business QR or BA Joint Business operated services
Routing Same point of origin and destination via a Joint Business routing (see routing below)
Period
If total schedule change is more than 120 minutes (2 hours) from original flight time, then can rebookwithin 2 days before or up to 2 days after the original departure date
Allowance Rebook into the same class as original or if not available the lowest class available in the same cabin
Important information
For schedule changes less than 2 hours no invol options are available with the exemption for cruise bookings, same day return customers, or customers with invalid connection timesIf originally a BA*QR codeshare, also rebook using the BA*QR flight code if still available on the same route. If not available, rebook onto QR prime
Includes any connecting services that are Joint Business ‘Back and Beyonds’ if issued on the same ticket (see destinations below)
Transfer point must remain the same unless alternative routing allowed in the fare rulesI’m actually not clear why this wouldn’t apply here – LHR-Auckland is a JBA route
@SamG – this is a redemption, and those are BA’s, not QR’s guidelines notwithstanding the fact that this is a JBA route. BA schedule change guidelines are very generous and QR has its own ideas in addition to the married segment issue used to protect seats. If this were a cancellation, then different guidelines would apply.
@SamG – this is a redemption, and those are BA’s, not QR’s guidelines notwithstanding the fact that this is a JBA route. BA schedule change guidelines are very generous and QR has its own ideas in addition to the married segment issue used to protect seats. If this were a cancellation, then different guidelines would apply.
Yes that is what I thought too. But these are the specific guidelines for a schedule change, this is a 125- issued ticket on a JBA route and there is no mention of same booking class, only to remain in the same cabin. Although these are travel trade guidelines they do usually reference if they apply to redemptions or not.
But I’d have another go with asking BA to feed QR specific flight numbers via the oneworld liason desk. I know they do co-operate with BA to rebook in this way when the connection becomes too short, but they don’t really have a choice in that scenario
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