Originally Posted by
KingCanute
To qualify for STPC from QR you need to book the shortest possible transit available on the day of departure (and it still be over 8 hours), irrespective of price, and your ticket also needs to be issued by QR.
Perhaps AA offer something different for their own customers? I'm sure you can appreciate that it's not really QR's job to look after other airline's customers who have chosen a long transfer to save money.
Hotels in Doha are generally cheap compared with the US so booking your own stopover is probably good value given the lower fare.
I have an upcoming one that's not ticketed yet so haven't been able to test this. How does QR evaluate having to book the first available flight in cases where they have only 1 flight per day to and from my origin and destination, but they have a codeshare that leaves before the QR flight to my destination? An example here that I was considering is LAX-DOH-CMN. There's an AT metal flight with QR codeshare that leaves at 1:10am from DOH, making the connection a bit under 8 hours, but the actual QR flight leaves at 7:35am making it nearly 14 hours layover.
I know for certain if a QR flight operates then it's a no-go. I had this happen last year from NBO-DOH-CAI because of the after midnight QR flight that was 'possible' on QR metal. But have never attempted when there is a partner OW metal codeshare that would make it under 8 hours.