Originally Posted by
108912
@ Dr HFH. Hard product swaps: Find me an airline that doesn't swap equipment at the last minute from time to time.
I agree wholeheartedly. The issue with QR is that a product swap can take you from amongst the very best the airline industry offers (QSuite) to the most outdated you can find anywhere (2x2x2).
I am glad (probably wrong term!) that the only IRROPS you have experienced with QR involve a detour that was not caused by the airline itself. However, I will give you an instance of where I have found QR difficult to deal with just in the past month or so. I had a business class award booking via Privilege Club DOH-HND departing 02:00-ish arriving in HND 18:00. Advised that QR would no longer be operating this route and that JL would be the operating carrier and that I had been transferred onto the JL flight. However, the JL flight departs DOH at 09:00 arriving HND 01:00. A significant time change from my original booking, and an ungodly hour to arrive at HND with no access to public transport etc. So, I have a look online and see that QR flies DOH-NRT at an almost identical time to my original QR DOH-HND flight. I contact QR asking whether given the circumstances they can switch me to the NRT flight instead of the JL HND flight. It was a hard 'no'. I had a similar situation just after COVID where a DOH-BNE flight I was booked on was cancelled a month prior (frequency was reduced briefly) and the only re-routing option was stupid (LHR-DOH-HKG-then CX to BNE) again asking to just switch to LHR-DOH-SYD-BNE (QF) was met with an equally hard no.
As crap as BA can be to fly with I have always experienced a lot more flexibility when these kind of situations arise.
Anyway, conscious not to take this thread off on a different tangent but there are times with QR that I find very frustrating due to their lack of flexibility.
I get flexibility from the QR Platinum line. You just need to get a willing agent to help. You have to be ready with options and they will accommodate you especially if it's on QR metal. Never accept no from QR especially during IRROPs. If you don't get the answer you want, hang up and try again.