I thought it might be useful to share my recent experience with Qatar business class. I booked two roundtrip tickets for myself and my son in business class from US to Cape Town via Doha. I initially booked them as Business Classic fare, which just like Business Lite does not include free seat selection. Both my son and I are Alaska Gold 75K, so oneworld emeralds, leading me to assume we would be able to select seats for free regardless. Would that life were so simple. I spent the next few days emailing Qatar customer service, sending facebook messages, and direct messaging them through Twitter, only to get bland responses multiple times that Business Classic fares have to pay for seat selection, but that I was welcome to select a seat 48 hours before check-in, which is ridiculous as these cabins are booked full. Calling them was equally unhelpful There are numerous online discussions relating the same. Qatar is clearly trying to avoid honoring this oneworld status perk, despite the fact that their own CEO is the de-facto head of Oneworld. Disappointing to say the least.