Nov 19, 2013, 3:20 pm
Last edit by: Prospero
Covid-19 Update:
For further information on AA awards see:
HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Help, Assistance & Discussion
and
AA oneworld and Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (2015 on)
N.B. Upgrades on QR book into fares not granted EQD/EQM by AA. If you're upgraded on QR, be prepared for pushback from some AA agents. You may have to submit a formal request with accompanying documentation reflecting you purchased an eligible fare class.
NOTE:AA has removed most EY and QR award access from aa.com due to a glitch booking these:
If you experience difficulties with the AA reservations system, you may be able to book by calling AA Australia (+61 2-9101-1948 ) then press 4 - or the New Zealand number (+64 09-308-4014) as an alternative - although the call center is actually in Suva, Fiji (South African agency Mindpearl) - as they can often see the inventory more reliably, and you can book.
NOTE: USA Canada travel on QR will earn EQ miles etc. in accordance with the fare class purchased.
Links:
Link to AA.com Qatar miles earning etc.
AA miles earning on QR changed 1 May 2016 (Link):
Minimum miles guarantee applies.
Checking QR award availability:
You can check QR availability on AA's site, BA's site, QF's site, www.awardnexus.com (which pulls from BA and/or QF), or the KVS tool. (A certain number of searches are free to FlyerTalk members at AwardNexus; click the "more signup options" link under the green Purchase button to sign up as a FlyerTalk member.)
When checking QR award availability, you have to check each segment individually. Both BA and QF can generate very misleading information if you try to check QR award availability all the way through [xxx-(DOH)-yyy] in one step. Be aware AA can only book 330 days out, even if you see availability farther out.
Awards on QR may not be visible to AA agents if a multi-segment itinerary is requested; broken into individual segments will generally reveal availability, however.
As well, AA Australia or New Zealand (actually MindPearl in Fiji) can often see and book AA awards on QR US-based ones might not be able to.
From danger: For AA awards, Economy is X, Business is U, First is Z. NOTE: Those with Z (First) awards may see "Z (Business Class)" shown on the QR website; this is a known glitch.
As well, QR sells intra gulf two class service as First and Economy, as AA does domestically. This can cause some issues with a Business flight including a Gulf "First" flight potentially incurring an F award redemption.
From hotelmotel: "Got my QR PNR from AA. Popped over to QR and selected seats." (AAdvantage award.)
Days of the week: To/from the USA, especially in business class, Qatar often only offers awards seats for Mon..Thu departures, not Fri..Sun departures. So makes sure you check different parts of the week, and not just always weekends (if you're not finding anything on weekends).
NOTE: At DOH / Hamad International Airport, lounges as follows:
Qatar Airways Al Safwa First Lounge (not a oneworld lounge): only accessible to those flying First Class on Qatar or oneworld airlines and QRPC Platniums flying in ticketed Business (not oneworld Emeralds flying other lower classes of service)
Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge (not a oneworld lounge): only accessible to those flying Business Class on Qatar or oneworld (not oneworld Sapphire flying lower classes of service)
Oryx Lounge: Third party lounge.
Qatar Airways HIA First Class Lounge (oneworld lounge): First Class ticketed customers, Emerald members, as well as their accompanying guests, travelling on Qatar Airways and other oneworld member flights.
Qatar Airways HIA Business Class Lounge (oneworld lounge): First and Business Class ticketed customers, Emerald and Sapphire members, as well as their accompanying guests, travelling on Qatar Airways and other oneworld member flights.
Arrivals Lounges (not oneworld lounges): only accessible to those arriving in First or Business Class on Qatar Airways (not oneworld Sapphire flying other oneworld airlines or other classes of service)
See FT: QR Lounges at HIA
Selecting Qatar Airways Seats
If you want to assign a seat after booking an award, you should first try the Qatar website or app. If you experience issues, please try a partner site like Royal Jordanian, Malaysia Airlines, or Sri-Lankan. You can also reach out to the QR Twitter team to fix your record in order to be able to select seats on their own site.
- Sapphire+ status pax are temporarily allowed to use the Al Mourjan Business Lounge
- Only tickets issued on QR 157 stock are eligible for the Extending Our Commitment (EOC) rebooking policy
For further information on AA awards see:
HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Help, Assistance & Discussion
and
AA oneworld and Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (2015 on)
N.B. Upgrades on QR book into fares not granted EQD/EQM by AA. If you're upgraded on QR, be prepared for pushback from some AA agents. You may have to submit a formal request with accompanying documentation reflecting you purchased an eligible fare class.
NOTE:AA has removed most EY and QR award access from aa.com due to a glitch booking these:
From One Mile at a Time (link)
Bottom Line
For the time being you’ll have to call American if you want to ticket AAdvantage awards on Etihad & Qatar that aren’t for travel to & from the US or Canada. It makes sense that American took these awards “offline,” and now it also makes sense why so many passengers have been having issues with checked bags on awards.
Bottom Line
For the time being you’ll have to call American if you want to ticket AAdvantage awards on Etihad & Qatar that aren’t for travel to & from the US or Canada. It makes sense that American took these awards “offline,” and now it also makes sense why so many passengers have been having issues with checked bags on awards.
NOTE: USA Canada travel on QR will earn EQ miles etc. in accordance with the fare class purchased.
Links:
Link to AA.com Qatar miles earning etc.
AA miles earning on QR changed 1 May 2016 (Link):
Minimum miles guarantee applies.
Checking QR award availability:
You can check QR availability on AA's site, BA's site, QF's site, www.awardnexus.com (which pulls from BA and/or QF), or the KVS tool. (A certain number of searches are free to FlyerTalk members at AwardNexus; click the "more signup options" link under the green Purchase button to sign up as a FlyerTalk member.)
When checking QR award availability, you have to check each segment individually. Both BA and QF can generate very misleading information if you try to check QR award availability all the way through [xxx-(DOH)-yyy] in one step. Be aware AA can only book 330 days out, even if you see availability farther out.
Awards on QR may not be visible to AA agents if a multi-segment itinerary is requested; broken into individual segments will generally reveal availability, however.
As well, AA Australia or New Zealand (actually MindPearl in Fiji) can often see and book AA awards on QR US-based ones might not be able to.
From danger: For AA awards, Economy is X, Business is U, First is Z. NOTE: Those with Z (First) awards may see "Z (Business Class)" shown on the QR website; this is a known glitch.
As well, QR sells intra gulf two class service as First and Economy, as AA does domestically. This can cause some issues with a Business flight including a Gulf "First" flight potentially incurring an F award redemption.
From hotelmotel: "Got my QR PNR from AA. Popped over to QR and selected seats." (AAdvantage award.)
Days of the week: To/from the USA, especially in business class, Qatar often only offers awards seats for Mon..Thu departures, not Fri..Sun departures. So makes sure you check different parts of the week, and not just always weekends (if you're not finding anything on weekends).
NOTE: At DOH / Hamad International Airport, lounges as follows:
Qatar Airways Al Safwa First Lounge (not a oneworld lounge): only accessible to those flying First Class on Qatar or oneworld airlines and QRPC Platniums flying in ticketed Business (not oneworld Emeralds flying other lower classes of service)
Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge (not a oneworld lounge): only accessible to those flying Business Class on Qatar or oneworld (not oneworld Sapphire flying lower classes of service)
Oryx Lounge: Third party lounge.
Qatar Airways HIA First Class Lounge (oneworld lounge): First Class ticketed customers, Emerald members, as well as their accompanying guests, travelling on Qatar Airways and other oneworld member flights.
Qatar Airways HIA Business Class Lounge (oneworld lounge): First and Business Class ticketed customers, Emerald and Sapphire members, as well as their accompanying guests, travelling on Qatar Airways and other oneworld member flights.
Arrivals Lounges (not oneworld lounges): only accessible to those arriving in First or Business Class on Qatar Airways (not oneworld Sapphire flying other oneworld airlines or other classes of service)
See FT: QR Lounges at HIA
Selecting Qatar Airways Seats
If you want to assign a seat after booking an award, you should first try the Qatar website or app. If you experience issues, please try a partner site like Royal Jordanian, Malaysia Airlines, or Sri-Lankan. You can also reach out to the QR Twitter team to fix your record in order to be able to select seats on their own site.
Qatar Airways / QR: Redeem AA Miles for Award (master thd)
Apr 28, 2022, 7:43 am
#2296
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: DCA/IAD & BUF
Posts: 1,400
Is this still the case??
I am starting the process to book an awards trip to MLE from DFW for the wife and I. Just doing a "pick a date" and seeing if there is available award seats is ridiculous and was going to get EF so I could actually see when there is open award inventory. I don't have a specific date in mind, just need to know when available and thought EF was the way to go. But, if EF cannot show me QR it does me no good.
I appreciate anyone's comments regarding EF and QR info/updates.
Thanks
I am starting the process to book an awards trip to MLE from DFW for the wife and I. Just doing a "pick a date" and seeing if there is available award seats is ridiculous and was going to get EF so I could actually see when there is open award inventory. I don't have a specific date in mind, just need to know when available and thought EF was the way to go. But, if EF cannot show me QR it does me no good.
I appreciate anyone's comments regarding EF and QR info/updates.
Thanks
Will be great if EF is working again for QR.
Apr 28, 2022, 8:14 am
#2297
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2015
Location: BOS, YVR, ZRH
Programs: *G
Posts: 17,403
You can always use AA's calendar function to search QR by month and class as a start. It works, but at least in my case, AA's calendar search takes an insane amount of time and patience to use anymore. But at the most basic level it does work. I got an IAD-MLE award online a few weeks ago.
Will be great if EF is working again for QR.
Will be great if EF is working again for QR.
Apr 28, 2022, 8:51 am
#2298
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: DCA/IAD & BUF
Posts: 1,400
It was much easier before AA's search engine has seemed to become ultra-sensitive to multiple searches with small variations in parameters. It was still tedious, but orders of magnitude easier just to plod through the process. Now it's just downright painful & almost a non-starter.
It'll be great if EF ends up working for QR again. Biggest downside then is having to search week by week instead of a visually quick and easy month calendar view. (But hey - can't be too greedy I guess! :-) It'll be good just to have it work.)
Apr 28, 2022, 9:58 am
#2299
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: So Cal
Posts: 937
Nice to see a fix is in the works. I just did a sample search and it is still not reflecting availability as outlined on AA.com. For example, June 10th shows one seat LAX-DOH on AA.com, however a search on your end shows zero avail. Look forward to when this is back to norm. And thanks for the service your provide, I find it a great value.
Apr 29, 2022, 4:43 am
#2301
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2003
Programs: BA Silver, EY Gold, HH Diamond, IHG Plat
Posts: 12,210
Apr 29, 2022, 10:25 am
#2302
Left Expert Flyer 4/23
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 2,741
The banner itself doesn't mean anything, we haven't removed it yet (we won't until we're confident in the fix). But we are working on some edge cases that are returning false negatives. We'll let you know when to try again, thanks.
Last edited by ExpertFlyer Voice; Apr 29, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Apr 29, 2022, 5:37 pm
#2303
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 190
I got an email saying my qatar flight was cancelled. When I called up AA they said it looks like Qatar always swapped me to the morning flight. Can I call and request to be switched to a night flight because my original flight was a night flight? There's a flight 1 hr after the one that got cancelled so I'm not sure why they didnt swap me to that one. We are 3 business class seats so I would need qatar to force open seats for me like they must have to switch me onto the morning flight.
Apr 29, 2022, 7:20 pm
#2304
Join Date: Aug 2004
Programs: AA (EP), Hilton (Diamond), Marriott Bonvoy (Titanium)
Posts: 8,937
I got an email saying my qatar flight was cancelled. When I called up AA they said it looks like Qatar always swapped me to the morning flight. Can I call and request to be switched to a night flight because my original flight was a night flight? There's a flight 1 hr after the one that got cancelled so I'm not sure why they didnt swap me to that one. We are 3 business class seats so I would need qatar to force open seats for me like they must have to switch me onto the morning flight.
Apr 29, 2022, 9:42 pm
#2305
Join Date: Aug 2012
Programs: AA PLT, SPG Gold
Posts: 2,405
LOL, MLE-DOH-DFW in QR J was the only award space I could find when looking for our return trip next year! Sorry must have stolen those seats right before you saw them! The outbound though ...
Apr 30, 2022, 8:34 am
#2306
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 552
Anyone have any recent tips on booking four business class seats to MLE from the US?
For the outbound, I managed to snag flights through CMH-BOS-DOH-MLE. 2 in business and 2 in economy. Its apparent from additional searching that only two business class seats were released by QR for each of these segments. My hope would be that two additional business class seats will open up before departure next year. Can I set up an alert for this through expertflyer once the data feed is working again? And what is the latest on how often additional award availability is released for business?
My fallback would be to just buy the two extra seats if/when there is a sale. But I'm thinking I did not do myself any favors booking through BOS. Unfortunately there was no availability I could find ex-ORD or JFK, which tend to have cheaper fares.
I would appreciate and thoughts or guidance. I will be booking the inbound soon.
For the outbound, I managed to snag flights through CMH-BOS-DOH-MLE. 2 in business and 2 in economy. Its apparent from additional searching that only two business class seats were released by QR for each of these segments. My hope would be that two additional business class seats will open up before departure next year. Can I set up an alert for this through expertflyer once the data feed is working again? And what is the latest on how often additional award availability is released for business?
My fallback would be to just buy the two extra seats if/when there is a sale. But I'm thinking I did not do myself any favors booking through BOS. Unfortunately there was no availability I could find ex-ORD or JFK, which tend to have cheaper fares.
I would appreciate and thoughts or guidance. I will be booking the inbound soon.
Apr 30, 2022, 11:07 am
#2308
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 44,619
It seems moderately accurate. I did a search for LHR-DOH for 10/10/22 and BA showed business availability of 2 seats on QR12, QR12 and QR16 and indicated that there was no 1st cabin on the flight ; EF showed 'Yes' for availability on the same flights (but no indication of how many available given ) - HOWEVER - it also showed that there was 1st class availability - which if there is no 1st cabin is unlikely to be the case
Apr 30, 2022, 12:23 pm
#2309
Left Expert Flyer 4/23
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 2,741
You can get more accurate information by joining BA Executive Club and do a search for award flights there - plus no cost
It seems moderately accurate. I did a search for LHR-DOH for 10/10/22 and BA showed business availability of 2 seats on QR12, QR12 and QR16 and indicated that there was no 1st cabin on the flight ; EF showed 'Yes' for availability on the same flights (but no indication of how many available given ) - HOWEVER - it also showed that there was 1st class availability - which if there is no 1st cabin is unlikely to be the case
It seems moderately accurate. I did a search for LHR-DOH for 10/10/22 and BA showed business availability of 2 seats on QR12, QR12 and QR16 and indicated that there was no 1st cabin on the flight ; EF showed 'Yes' for availability on the same flights (but no indication of how many available given ) - HOWEVER - it also showed that there was 1st class availability - which if there is no 1st cabin is unlikely to be the case
To reiterate on what we said yesterday, we're working on some bugs, and we'll let you know when you try again.
Apr 30, 2022, 5:54 pm
#2310
Join Date: Aug 2004
Programs: AA (EP), Hilton (Diamond), Marriott Bonvoy (Titanium)
Posts: 8,937
It seems moderately accurate. I did a search for LHR-DOH for 10/10/22 and BA showed business availability of 2 seats on QR12, QR12 and QR16 and indicated that there was no 1st cabin on the flight ; EF showed 'Yes' for availability on the same flights (but no indication of how many available given ) - HOWEVER - it also showed that there was 1st class availability - which if there is no 1st cabin is unlikely to be the case
You can see which flights have an F cabin by doing a normal Flight Availability query and looking for 'F' (and on the LHR-DOH flights, an A380). QR10 and QR4 are scheduled to operate with an A380 on 10/10/22 and have 'F' available. QR12 and QR16 are scheduled to be operated by a 77W with no first class cabin. If an EF Award query shows 'Z' (first class award) available on those flights, that's a bug and should be reported via the 'Contact Us' link on EF or via their support email.