Originally Posted by
slhu82
Thanks for your help. Because of this 34000 miles error, I have to use the AI version. Both new version and AA allow me to fly LAX -> xMIA -> LIM and LIM -> xMIA -> IAH. I guess because I do not have stopover, it does not count as 2 trans-con?
I quickly use EF to search RT fare difference between QR and RJ. It actually differs a lot. That's might be reason why online tool does not allow to have QR as first leg. We will see once we get back from AA
QR has always had a higher base fare ex-CAI than the others (but never by $2000). Everyone else uses an EGP base fare, QR to my understanding uses USD and that appears to be the old USD base fare. To even see that on EF you have to specify QR in the search, it doesn't come up with the other OW carriers in the general CAI-CAI search. If I look at historical fares in EF, back a couple months ago the QF fare was $4570 on DONE4, so QR being $5220 seems about right.
That actually is an interesting data point then, someone else mentioned they ticketed with AA and if QR was the first segment the price spiked (this is before ticketing), and that now makes sense as AA would have been using the QR fare instead of the RJ or BA base fare. But to my understanding, if you make a change right after ticketing (and pay the $125 fee) then it'll still use the original fare and you can switch to QR from CAI. (I did that myself, and my base fare remained at 141,000 EGP for DONE4 or 145,000 EGP for DONE5, so it clearly did not switch to the QR base fare)