Originally Posted by PHLGovFlyer

In October 2019 I booked 2 tickets for LAX-DOH-CNX, BKK-DOH-LAX (open jaw in Thailand) in biz class (R) for late February 2020 for $3400 per person.

Fast forward to February and we don't want to travel, so we pay the change fee of $545 per ticket plus additional fare to change to PHL-DOH-ADL-BNE, SYD-DOH-PHL (ADL-BNE on Virgin Australia, then open jaw) in Biz class (R on QR, D on VA) for early November. The fare increased to a total of about $4100 per ticket. Obviously, with Australia's travel restrictions we won't be taking this trip, but we'd still like to take it sometime late in 2021 or early 2022.

A schedule change has happened, and now the VA flight no longer exists, so QR cannot get us to ADL on the originally scheduled date (we'd need to stop overnight at ADL). Oddly, QF has a non-stop flight from ADL-BNE that meets the minimum connection time for ADL, but QR apparently hasn't considered that as an option.

A few questions:
1. I assume the change fee we paid would not be refunded if we cancel and refund the trip due to the involuntary change?

2. If we want to take advantage of the 2 year period of flexible rebooking would that apply to flights before October 2021, or February 2022? (IOW, is it based on the date of original purchase, or on the date we changed/rebooked?)

3. If I want to rebook the identical routing for a later date would QR consider booking us on QF for the ADL-BNE segment?

4. If I want to take advantage of the "Unlimited date change" provision and book for December 2021 how do I change the reservation prior to departure (Nov 2020) when flights in Dec 2021 aren't available to book yet?

TIA