Advice Needed. QR J or BA F?
 

I dont know the how the QR timings work out, but I really like the BA flight schedules to CPT and JNB. a long overnight flight gives great opportunity for a nice meal and drink, followed by a good nights sleep.
the TP's will be an advantage on QR if you need them. If not i would personally stay on BA.

Is that still a per person cost? And with car hire? I can't see the point in going via Doha unless you save a heap of money, and some transits at DOH are every bit as painful as LHR. Plus the disrupted sleep factor.

Mrs E2S and I fly a couple of times a year to CPT, normally ex-AMS on QR, and with a transfer less than 2-hours we find the break in Doha fine. We use the dine on demand, and eat 2-hours out of Doha. Once on board the CPT leg, we have a champagne nightcap, and skip the food, and wake a couple of hours out, and have brunch. Normal QR tends before BA, Emirates, Turkish airlines around 11:00, so passport control is usually fine. I enjoy the space on the QR 77W even the old seats, yet to try the QSuite. I think the configuration of the QR 787 is excellent if you avoid row 5 and 6 which tend to be noisy.

That said, we are on the Dream Ticket 241 First in January, and chose the BA43 over the BA59, so that we can enjoy the service, and do a fair comparison. The BA59 has a habit of leaving late, and I personally don't want to eat at 23:00 or later. Hopefully I will have a better crew than my last F experience to CPT, when I was reminded that I was OpUpped

Other thing is Qatar timings from CPT aren't ideal on the way back .. long day flight to Doha on the way back leaving CPT around midday ... and there's only one service a day ( same time every day ) which will only connect with the Dublin flight on certain days without a long layover in Doha ... Also yes your self connect at LHR will add to the timing given you'll need a longer connection but the overall flight time will be shorter as going via Doha is quite a detour ( you're looking at a ~7 hour flight and a ~10hr flight via Doha vs. a ~1hr + ~12hr via Heathrow )

Comparing the two services is a bit of a first world problems thing probably .. in my view I'd say BA on a good day clearly wins , but the key is that 'on a good day' bit ... Qatar more consistent generally in my experience ( though in the winter I think you get the older seats on the flight to/from CPT , so not as good as the Dublin leg on the 787 )

That was precisely my thought too. Oh, and no car either.

QR J is considered far more superior to BA F in terms of both hard and soft product. There are also many threads on this forum regarding this argument. Also OMAAT has rated them amongst the worlds worst.

https://onemileatatime.com/worst-first-class/

I would disagree , and I think so would many on these boards

QR's Business product can fairly be described as J+ while BA's First is really F- and that is particularly apparent when the comparison is between QR's best and BA's worst aircraft. The gap between them is there, but it's nowhere near as great as it ought to be.

It's still First, and BA's F avoids the enclosed foot space (or cubbyhole, if you so prefer) that is present in QR's Qsuite and r herringbone seat.

Given how a big chunk of the journey will be flown on one flight when with BA, I'd personally stick with BA for the sake of convenience, which I personally think would trump the inconvenience of changing terminals at Heathrow. Additionally, I just personally dislike doing a transfer in the Middle East as it usually messes with sleep and whatnot