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)
Feb 26, 2019, 4:15 am
#676
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 4,472
Feb 26, 2019, 1:56 pm
#677
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 599
I only check availability for Dec 2019 so didn't notice. But that's bad. I wonder why QR is pulling the availability. Leaving OneWorld? If so, why they only pull out biz availability.
Feb 28, 2019, 9:31 am
#678
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: PHL
Programs: HH Lifetime Diamond, AA EXP, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 583
Anyone care to share recent experience on how long it took for a QR flight to post, QR flight numbers, but AA # on boarding pass - so i know it was in the system.
It's been 5+ days since the flight, am wondering if i may have a problem, or if this is SOP.
It's been 5+ days since the flight, am wondering if i may have a problem, or if this is SOP.
Mar 2, 2019, 5:32 am
#679
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: DFW
Programs: AA Exec Plat, 3MM; Marriott Gold; Hilton Diamond, IHG Platinum Elite
Posts: 39
I've been wondering about the same. In 2018 and 2017 my flights posted within a couple of days. This year I flew on 2/7 with a return on 2/25. None of my flights have posted yet. A bit frustrating!
Mar 2, 2019, 7:08 am
#680
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: PHL
Programs: HH Lifetime Diamond, AA EXP, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 583
Mar 3, 2019, 6:43 am
#681
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: CNF/LAX/HKG/PVG
Programs: AA EXP, Lifetime PLT, Silver EK Skywards
Posts: 748
I also just completed a GRU-DOH-HKG on Feb 17 and back Feb 28 HKG-DOH-GRU. NONE of the 4 flights posted so far.
Mar 5, 2019, 5:10 am
#682
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Tyrone,EU
Programs: Avios Hunter
Posts: 2,811
Had a really weird issue recently.
Booked DUB-DOH-SIN on QR using AA miles, by phoning AA around June 2018 for a Feb 2019 flight. Ticketed a couple of days later. No changes to the flight in the 8 months between ticketing and flying. Night before flying, check the booking on both AA.com and QR website, all good, including the seats and meals we had selected some time earlier. Go to check-in at DUB, and find that although my ticket is fine, my partner's ticket is some completely random guys name. we were on one PNR and booked at the same time.
QR desk manager couldn't assign the ticket to the flight, the name was all wrong. Asked who I booked with, did I know this guy (nope), did I make any changes (nope). There was nothing he could do to force my partner onto the flight. I asked him to phone AA. Which he did. As far as AA was concerned all was absolutely fine with the booking and the tickets, her name was on the ticket. They had no knowledge of the random guys name.
This didn't help. At this stage what should have been 10 minutes, was now over an hr. Desk manager, calls over the QR ticketing manager from the ticketing desk. He reviews everything and phones AA again. Whilst waiting to be connected, he notices that not only was the name wrong, but the ticket was saying it was generated in Nov 2016 (and impossibility). Thankfully this removed any lingering suspicion they might have had that there was more story to this than I was telling and that I might possibly be at something underhand.
At this point it became clear that somehow, when migrating from AA sabre to QR Altair, my partners ticketing info had got totally mangled. It looked like it was using data from an old ticket number that had been cycled around. Again, there was nothing QR could do locally. He eventually persuaded the AA rep on the phone (after offering to send a screencap of the QR reservation system) to cancel and re-issue the ticket. 2-3 minutes later, the ticket was fine on the QR system. We flew !
In total, it was close to 90 mins where there was nothing I could do, I had done nothing wrong, and other than the local outstation QR guys being prepared to work at it, I would have been totally screwed. They had never seen this issue before.
Booked DUB-DOH-SIN on QR using AA miles, by phoning AA around June 2018 for a Feb 2019 flight. Ticketed a couple of days later. No changes to the flight in the 8 months between ticketing and flying. Night before flying, check the booking on both AA.com and QR website, all good, including the seats and meals we had selected some time earlier. Go to check-in at DUB, and find that although my ticket is fine, my partner's ticket is some completely random guys name. we were on one PNR and booked at the same time.
QR desk manager couldn't assign the ticket to the flight, the name was all wrong. Asked who I booked with, did I know this guy (nope), did I make any changes (nope). There was nothing he could do to force my partner onto the flight. I asked him to phone AA. Which he did. As far as AA was concerned all was absolutely fine with the booking and the tickets, her name was on the ticket. They had no knowledge of the random guys name.
This didn't help. At this stage what should have been 10 minutes, was now over an hr. Desk manager, calls over the QR ticketing manager from the ticketing desk. He reviews everything and phones AA again. Whilst waiting to be connected, he notices that not only was the name wrong, but the ticket was saying it was generated in Nov 2016 (and impossibility). Thankfully this removed any lingering suspicion they might have had that there was more story to this than I was telling and that I might possibly be at something underhand.
At this point it became clear that somehow, when migrating from AA sabre to QR Altair, my partners ticketing info had got totally mangled. It looked like it was using data from an old ticket number that had been cycled around. Again, there was nothing QR could do locally. He eventually persuaded the AA rep on the phone (after offering to send a screencap of the QR reservation system) to cancel and re-issue the ticket. 2-3 minutes later, the ticket was fine on the QR system. We flew !
In total, it was close to 90 mins where there was nothing I could do, I had done nothing wrong, and other than the local outstation QR guys being prepared to work at it, I would have been totally screwed. They had never seen this issue before.
Mar 5, 2019, 6:19 am
#683
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: NYC
Posts: 9,114
That's an unusual case. FYI Improper ticketing is not new. I have had to call AA several times to reissue the ticket at QR check-in, with QR claiming the ticket wasn't issued and AA claiming it all looked fine on their side..
Mar 5, 2019, 1:00 pm
#685
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,740
Since this is 001 stock, AA's SABRE is once again to be blamed. What a crappy and woefully outdated system - it can no longer handle the volume of transactions therefore recycle PNRs have been the case for a long long time. This is the first time I learned about ticket number is also recycled!
Kudo to QR's outstation managers who went above and beyond to help the customers and the idea to send the screencapture over so AA could see what the screw up was. Bad for the AA side who refused to do anything on the first call. All AA needed was just to reissue the ticket on the first call and the problem would have been fixed. But No, AA wouldn't do it.
Mar 5, 2019, 2:23 pm
#686
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: PHL
Programs: HH Lifetime Diamond, AA EXP, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 583
Quick follow up, my outbound flights posted this AM, just shy of 2 weeks post flight.
Mar 5, 2019, 3:02 pm
#687
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 1,857
Does QR have blackout dates? I'm trying to get to/from BOM in the next month or so. There's not a single BOM-DOH flight (in any cabin) from today until the end of June. DOH-BOM is scarce now, but completely cuts off from Apr 30-Jul 21. Plenty of space from the US to DOH, but that last short leg has nothing. Surely BOM isn't such a popular destination that every single flight is full for the next 3 months.
Mar 5, 2019, 3:30 pm
#688
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 5,631
Does QR have blackout dates? I'm trying to get to/from BOM in the next month or so. There's not a single BOM-DOH flight (in any cabin) from today until the end of June. DOH-BOM is scarce now, but completely cuts off from Apr 30-Jul 21. Plenty of space from the US to DOH, but that last short leg has nothing. Surely BOM isn't such a popular destination that every single flight is full for the next 3 months.
Mar 5, 2019, 6:44 pm
#690
Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Albuquerque
Posts: 64
BA search engine is showing up to four seats of QSuite availability almost daily on US-Doha routes starting 2/1/2020. AA search currently only shows space until 1/30/2020. Based on this it looks like QR is only withholding award inventory during the holiday season 11/1-1/31. Perhaps they will open up the inventory at a later date but for those that are interested in flying Qsuites, it looks like the inventory is there for February and beyond