Qatar Airways refuse to rebook cancelled flight

[vetjames]

I recommend sending a firm email to the BA CEO and anyone else you care to include on the BA Board/ExCo. You can easily find the CEO’s email address with a quick google. This approach worked well for a similar but different issue I had.

[Lady London]

You’d be correct about the good airlines flying East BJ. Especially as I am a big fan of the A380.

My trips on Qatar are self financed. It worked because of the quality difference onboard Qatar – which is still there – and also because I maintained British Airways status and collected avios.

Going forward I am uncertain whether I will prioritise BA or anyone else. I may not fly enough, and the recent devaluations are changing my numbers. I may look at going back to Star Alliance.

And horror of horrors, given the cash pricing of Business Class tix these days I may find myself flying long hauls in Economy. This would be unfortunate.
As even with status on BA, Qatar has removed access to the decent lounges in Doha for those flying Economy. And Doha layovers may be short when the ticket is purchased. But then Qatar alters flights and the layover becomes 7 hours, or more, through horrible early morning hours.

So you are right : on my routes I’d switch to Emirates, which is also nicer in Y than QR may be, or more likely, to SQ. I was considering switching to CX in Premium Economy, which is one of the few where PY is decent, but the PRC risk is just now too great to base any preference or strategy on CX.

I’m restricted on cards these days as my days of substantial throughput through work predated my interest in frequent flying. Whilst I am thinking of looking again for work as a contractor in the UK I’ve had to spend most of the past few years outside the UK, I’d give it some thought about reapplying for cards in the UK if that happens though.

I’m watching QR carefully now. I didn’t like their appalling treatment of all the women on an Australia- bound flight at Doha 2-3 years ago. Also not liking Qatar regular disrespect of passenger rerouting rights for which they are responsible under EU261 when they reschedule too frequently. But you make a good point that we may hear more about Qatar doing this because there is a lot of interest in flying Qatar amongst HfP readers.

[BJ]

@LL, thanks for that, I understand . Here’s my tuppence worth in event it helps. I am not a fan of ME transit going East in business class, preferring one short and one longhaul sector from EDI. However, were I doing this in Y then I would prefer the ME route, and EK a380 would be the nobrainer for me as it’s both the best aircraft and best Y experience IMO. What I find interesting is your lack of consideration for AY. They have more competitive fares in business class than most on a regular basis, they now have PY, HEL is great transit airport, they have a very modern airbus fleet, I believe the best safety record or thereabouts in the industry, and I now think SofaLounge is my favourite business class seat. Furthermore you can credit to Alaska MP at 300% but unfortunately they still haven’t sorted out a full OW award chart, and you need 2 Alaska sectors for status. The rewards that are available have low fees, and still lots of sweetspots. Buying Alaska miles to cover the full cost of a flight can make sense sometimes in a 60% sale. My partner likes AF, he flew them PY four times when it was the hardshell product in PY. On 3 of 4 he was offered an upgrade to J for under £400. This was back in day of angle seats about 2014-2016. PY is now the more typical style and J is flat beds but I have no up to date info on chances and cost of upgrade. However, basic cost of AF PY was always very competitive and may still be so perhaps worth a look. With the cost of fares at the moment combined with devaluation of miles I am increasingly disinclined to exhibit any loyalty, preferring to shop around for best deal/schedule on any airline and in any class, and keeping any miles for short or regional sweetspots. We are ok through sumner 24 on miles but after that it may be all change. A business class seat to SE Asia is not worth more than £2k to me and I will never pay it, PY no more than £1k. If I cannot realise those targets then I will fly Y on EK or QR and take my chances on a paud upgrade.

[Lady London]

Yes I think we’re moving in the same direction BJ. Just I’m doing it more reactively to negative changes with avios and not as blindly happy with Qatar as I was, and you’re doing it more intelligently as part of a plan.

At one time I was going to stop earning with BA and switch to Alaskan and was just about doing enough US flights, then well ahead it was announced Alaskan is going into OneWorld. So am still expecting their program and all its nice non-Alliance links to be gutted.

Really interesting to hear you really like the Finnair SofaLounge seat and like Finnair generally. I’ll look closer at flying AY if I stay in BA/OneWorld. And particularly interesting to hear your partner had good experiences with Air France – something we don’t seem to hear a lot of. My next Transatlantics were likely to be on Skyteam/AF, a couple of years to go but I wasn’t looking forward to it (though I like Delta a lot), so I won’t try to avoid AF as much in future 🙂

[hypercrypt]

Got a similar issue with QR at the moment. Booked with Avios for two + infant (well, a few months away from her second birthday) to Cebu in J. QR to Doha, then Cebu and back to Doha. Finally BA home from Doha. QR changed the outbound, longer layover in DOH but not the end of the world. Then they changed CEB-DOH to arrive two hours after the BA departure home. No one can do anything at all apparently. BA have admitted that the T&Cs they say I should have read are not actually available to customers and QR say that BA is apparently allowed to use revenue tickets to rebook but BA deny this as others have reported here. Flights not until June but this is insane.

[NorthernLass]

Is this all on one booking?

[memesweeper]

@hypercrypt even if it’s June I wouldn’t waste any time on getting a letter into BA legal requesting they rebook you on X and Y flights for the return (where X and Y fit your needs). If there’s more than one combo which works with a oneworld airline(s) offer them all. Give them two weeks to reply.

Follow that with a letter before action seeking the cost of the return flights (which could be just the leg from Doha). The return flight should be a refundable flight with any carrier that suits you (doesn’t need to be fully flex). Be ready to actually buy this flight(s) and seek redress through the courts.

I don’t think the BA T&Cs for Avios with partners allows BA to cancel the entirety of the itinerary if it becomes impossible to make connections.

261 protection may not apply in your case but contract law does. The application and interpretation of BAs T&Cs needs to be reasonable.

Lady London may be along shortly with better advice. But if I were you I’d draft that letter now. BA can be incredibly slow even when they are willing to help.

[memesweeper]

NorthernLass wrote:

Is this all on one booking?

Caveat on my response: I assumed it was.

[SamG]

When did the change happen? An impossible connection would usually get picked up by a robot and rebooked automatically at some point

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/traveltrade/bookings-policies/policies/standard-customer-guidelines#cancellations – curiously Cebu is not on the list of Joint business routes that BA policy does allow a rebooking into the lowest available (fare) class – i.e. to use revenue buckets. But I’m not sure if that is just an omission as Cebu was quite recently restarted IIRC. If it’s correct then that leaves you/BA following the “prime other carrier” policy which only allows BA to book into the same fare class – i.e. they need Avios seats available.

So firstly check again on CEB-LON for redemption seats and see if there is anything that works for you, even if it’s on a different carrier.

If not then their obvious option would be to book you onto the next BA service DOH-LON. If you’ve got any flexiblity you could check to see if there is any CEB-DOH redemption availablily that would better match up to that. Otherwise you’d be left with a long layover. As it’s a non-EU carrier who has caused the misconnect I don’t think BA would be on the hook for a hotel during the wait

BA could also request QR open seats on your preferred QR flight via the oneworld liason desk, though from what I know QR doesn’t usually do this but since you’ve got an impossible connection due to their changes they may

What I would say though is there are often reports of BA using cash availability to rebook QR flights even when it isn’t correct per their policy. So I’d try calling again and I’d also have a go at sending letters as the others are saying

[Lady London]

I’d call them again and be helpless rather than aggressive. As @SamG says they do have the ability to help you if they want to. I agree with @SamG you’ll have to pay any extra overnight in DOH but BA would be really unkind if they let it be more than 1.

Give it a HUACA a few times helplessly whilst preparing your backstop letter along the lines @memesweeper suggests, I’d try calling through to end of March then send the more formal letter end of first week of April or so, schedules more firm then and why deteriorate relations possibly to not soon enough good effect if helplessness travelling with child might find an agent who can take pity on you.

@JDB will be along to tell me this won’t work but if airlines don’t work then insurance might help or maybe s75 claim on credit card for flight back from Doha. Checkin at Cebu might even spot it and fix it.

Without your infant I’d be very ready to just fly it as far as Doha back then consult ground staff who will spot your ticket would never have worked and just put you on the next flight of QR or BA. Ground staff have greater powers at the airport on day of travel to solve things like irrops and this will be an irrop by then.

Lastly there’s still plenty of time for Qatar to change schedules again especially as the transition to summer flying season is still to happen in last week of March.

[SamG]

That was my other thought – just turn up. at that point you’d almost certainly be put on the next QR. But my worry would be that flights are very busy at the moment so this could be in economy or on a later flight & such an approach with an infant in tow probably isn’t ideal!! So even if you’re on the next BA and need to do a hotel stopover at least you’d be able to make a solid plan