Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
I would quickly accept the return of the Avios and leave it at that.
If that were the case, I'd have no quibble. Unfortunately, I'm neither being offered offered the Avios back nor a voucher. I'd prefer the Avios, but I'd settle for a voucher.
I think you were correctly IDBd. There is a dispensation from various restrictions to Covid for those in transit in QR (notably the requirement to self isolate). You were not in transit by the usual definitions. Moreover if QR could point to one piece of procedure indicating the QR government would deny admission then you wouldn't have much to go on. QR have long been careful, perhaps over careful on restrictions. I well recall having a trip to the USA from DOH, where my slightly unusual USA visa resulted in over an hour of internal discussions, phone calls, photos taken of my passport.
Similar thing here, a couple of hours sitting about before getting the no-can-do.
The BA rep on the phone when I returned home made a number of wild assumptions about the trip before I was allowed to explain, particularly that she was saying it was a one way ticket, when it wasn't, it was on the same PNR, and that it was the "next day" I was returning, well yes, it was... arriving at 5pm and leaving at 1:40am, not at all an unusual transit time for DOH. That was what frustrated me the most to be honest, the BA rep jumped to several conclusions without trying to understand the situation.
Truth be told, I've done similar trips outside of covid many times where I never step landside, including three or four times to DOH, in fact DOH is one of the better airports for doing it as you can transfer through security without even having a boarding pass.
I guess I'll file a complaint and see where that gets me!