fakecd

newbie here... booked my first ever QR flight taking advantage of its 24k HKD (3k USD) promotion on business class from HK to Venice.... just few question

HKG-DOH segment looks to be usually operated by 777-300ER (with their 78" business seats in 2-2-2- abrest) in June but for my parent's flight in August 2013 the QR812/813 midnight flight pairs shows A330-200. From my research the 300-200 looks like operated by old generation 60" seat-pitch in 2-2-2- abrest also, I will be disappointed if they fly on this inferior product... so is HKG-DOH flight usually changed to 777-300ER near flight date? For what's it worth their seat selection showed no seats occupied....

DOH-VCE segment is operated by A320 - I guess this is the 45" old old generation seat also... do they usually maintain this aircraft or switch over to something nicer?

BlueEgg

Apart from June 2013, there are usually 2 flights a day from HKG to DOH and also from DOH-HKG. One of these flights each way is on a 777 and the other on a 330. The former is of course the best, with fully-flat beds and a wide-bodied aircraft. The latter is older, narrower and the beds, though flat, are angled (i.e., not horizontal). It depends on which flight of the day one is booked on and it shows clearly the aircraft type during the booking process. If you can, go ahead and change your parents to the other flight of the day. We are not so lucky from our end (JNB) because we only have 1 flight a day to DOH and back and hence we have no choice when it comes to connecting to whichever DOH-HKG (or anywhere else) flight. Back to the 330, the angle is really not that great and I had no problem getting a good night's sleep. The service on board is, of course, exemplary on all their flights, include the 321.

fakecd

Thanks bluegg however both in July/August the website shows A330-200 are used for both flights. I even checked seat-map from manage booking and it does look outbound starts row 11 so checkin against Seatguru it's A320 with first class), and return is row 1-4. Problem is I can't check economy class seat map even by making dummy booking so i can't verify what aircraft it is. But from the business seatmap and aircraft code, it clearly is operated by A330-200 for the moment. I'm not sure if they swap aircraft readily.

BlueEgg

You are correct and I was wrong. This is strange because when I reserved (and issued) our tickets to HKG months ago, one of the 2 flights was a 777. This may go to show that QR might still change the aircraft type depending on availability closer to the time. Expect the worst and hope for the best. HKG is a major city in the world and I am not happy that QR still does not put it high on their priority list. Here in JNB, we have been getting the 777 all along, albeit only 1 flight a day (which is also not good enough). I suppose there is so much competition in HKG that QR at present just cannot be bothered but has to focus elsewhere. Almost all major airlines use their top products when flying to HKG. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, the service on board is almost always tip-top in QR and I, having been with CX for years, find QR to be miles ahead.

mecabq

Sorry to reply to an old post, but members should realize that whether you book C or F, you will be sitting in the same place. Flights to BKK only operate with two cabins, Y and C. Flights to AMM also operate with two cabins, sometimes called Y and C, sometimes called Y and F. So whether you book C or F, you'll be in the front cabin regardless.

If you book F, you will benefit from F lounge access (i.e., the premium terminal F side in DOH, no different in AMM or BKK) and F mileage earning, but those are the only benefits.

ghostwrita

Hello,

I am EK and EY Gold. EY is becoming less important for me, and QR is starting to fly routes where EK's product isn't that great so I am contmplating a switch if I can match status on QR. I have bookings worth around $40k in the next 6 month on both airlines, but mostly EK.

Who can I get in touch with about a status match?

kmcbrid2

This is probably the negative side of me again but you can give it the ol' college try but doubt it will happen.

Can't recall if anyone every has received a status match this decade as this subject has come up before.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qatar...g-ek-qr-2.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qatar...tus-match.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qatar...-skywards.html

Don't know if you will find QR elite benefits any better than EK.

ghostwrita

Thanks. I'm over FFP "benefits" in general. Perhaps not having them will make me appreciate them better. I just want as many miles as I can get, which is my primary objective. Thanks for the links, and managing my expectations.

I'll keep flying EK, largely. I will probably drop EY entirely, and fly QR on routes into Africa and Asia where EK is ripping us off with decades old aircraft. I can channel a month or two's worth of flying to QR if they wont match, to gain status. Hard with little F in QR but c'est la vie.

soy

How is award availability on QR. Specifically what are my chances of getting 4 J seats from Europe to DPS (or nearby) in January?

Are there any patterns that I should be aware of, eg 2 seats per flight only, or seats released at 330 days etc.

thanks in advance
soy

f97johan

Right now there seems to be some form of issue resulting in only double-point award tickets being available, so it's difficult to say.

As one data point, I have four J award seats on DOH-ORD this Tuesday. So it is obviously possible to get four seats on the same flight; however, how often that works, or on what routes, I don't know.

clscholes

I'm guessing that I just haven't found the right page or used the search function correctly, but do I earn AA miles on Qatar flights? I have been looking at flights to Africa and QR keeps coming up as one of the cheapest.

henry999

Can anyone point me to a list or map showing which routes have a first class cabin available?

cheers,

Henry

aboerr

I don't think there are any list of that.
AFAIK the only real F left is LHR-DOH and CDG-DOH.
Before I think both MUC and FRA had real F to DOH also.

If someone have any more routes, please share.

intuition

One suggestion would be to go to http://www.theqatarsource.com/ and follow those planes that has F seats.

TOMFORD

Newbie here with some question...

1. How easy is it to find award availability to DOH? I'm flying out of DTW but when I searched Qatar's award calculator for DTW-DOH, I got no results. However, JFK had 120K for business RT.

2. Can any Oneworld member miles be used to redeem on Qatar?