Phil the Flyer

[To facilitate understanding of this post, today's EGP (Egyptian Pound) exchange rates are: USD = 7.13 / EUR = 9.70 / GBP = 12.21]

This is a first for me. I have just received an e-mail from <[email protected]>, offering me a Business to First upgrade on QR003 DOH-LHR next week - this is part of a CAI-DOH-LHR-DOH-CAI itinerary. QR003 is currently showing F7 J9 - it is being operated by an A346 (having, at time of booking, been scheduled to operate by an A388 - but that's another story).

'That's nice of them', I thought; I might take them up on the offer. The e-mail promises, amongst other things, 'Access to premium lounge' .

There's only one problem; the price of the upgrade. EGP14,001 to upgrade one sector of a current First/Business/Business/First itinerary that only cost me EGP10,975 in total to begin with!

If I visit qatarairways.com (as I have just done) and price-up an otherwise identical (substituting First for Business on the DOH-LHR sector) itinerary to the one I purchased, the total price is only EGP16,559 - an increase of just EGP5,584 over my existing itinerary, and just 18% more than the price of the one sector upgrade QR is offering!

Thanks QR - at EGP4,000, I might consider an upgrade offer; at EGP14,000, you can forget it. This is one offer I can most definitely refuse.

Phil the Flyer

Just for good measure QR have sent me another upgrade offer e-mail this morning - for my return QR002 LHR-DOH flight next week.

Once again, EGP14,001 for a one-way J to F upgrade.

I'll give QR 10/10 for perseverance (and optimism).

HpW1981

Interesting! I was looking at some last minute reward flights earlier and noted that first is available every day next week on QR002.

Have QR started employing tactics used by rivals such as EK, whom I understand also offer targeted upgrades?

Sixth Freedom

I reckon that this is a symptom of QR's ex-CAI fares being so cheap. London can otherwise be quite an expensive destination to reach on the QR network and EGP 14k (about GBP 1.2k) would not be an unreasonable upgrade fee on, say, DOH<>LHR.

Phil the Flyer

I'm sure your analysis of the situation is 100% correct. The main purpose of starting the thread was to enable me to highlight QR's 'one size fits all' approach to upgrade pricing.

Mind you, it looks as though nobody else availed themselves of the upgrade offer either: while Business was around 90% full (although the seat adjacent to my own 10E was empty), there was only one seat out of eight occupied in First.

Armodeen

16,559 is a pretty outstanding fare for first (heck it is for business, I'm still getting used to the ex CAI fares), what dates was that and was is restricted? Most of the dates I looked at we're around 22k first semi flex.

I fancy the a380 in F :P