gpicur

Oh wise QR FT Sages,

I am new to QR and have some questions about Overbooking, and in particular whether QR Overbooks Business Class.

I am booked in D class on QR 744 BOS-DOH on 16 December in a 2 class A350. According to Expertflyer, all buckets for this flight show "0" except C class which shows "1". It is about the same on December 15, with all zeros except "C" shows "1" and "Y" shows "1".

Is this an indication that the December 16 flight may be overbooked ? Does QR overbook their Business Class cabin on the 2 class configuration ? What kind of compensation does QR offer passengers (originating in the USA) that are bumped (Voluntary & Involuntary) ? What compensation does QR offer to passengers who are downgraded (Voluntary & Involuntary) from Business to Economy ?

Your replies and wise insight are most greatly appreciated.

PS: I am on the verge of attaining Silver (130 Q Points) and will earn another 135 Q Points on my DMM-BOS-DMM itinerary.

remdk

gpicur QR do not deliberayely oversell J. This year a number of flights had a B777 substitute for the high capacity A380 Due to the lower number of J seats and no F there was some overselling. This was widely publicised on this forum. These complaints seem to be solved now.

With regard to the C1 and the remainder having no availability this is perfectly logical since QR would rather sell the seat at full price rather than discounted.

gpicur

remdk,

Thank you for your most expeditious reply. Do you have any idea what type of compensation QR gives when they downgrade someone from J to Y ? Also, with only one seat to sell, and zero seats to sell in Y, I would think that such a flight is oversold. Is this logical or is there another variable that I am not seeing ?

Also, do you happen to know where in the QR forum it discusses over selling of J class during 2016 ?

Your keen insight is appreciated.

remdk

gpicur Apart from the A380 problems the only cases of overselling and downgrading seem to have been in 2013!

Since there are still seats for sale the flight is not overbooked. The booking engine prevents overselling. Let me repeat QR CAN NOT AND DO NOT DELIBERATELY OVERSELL.

One of several threads that deal with the A380 problems this year is http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qatar...-my-class.html.
These problems were not due to overselling but downsizing aircraft.

ft101

That seems strange considering overselling is a tool used by most airlines for filling empty seats caused by late cancellations, no shows etc. Why are QR so different from the rest in this respect?

remdk

ft101 thank you for challenging my bombastic and provocative statement.

I base it upon two simple facts.
1 The booking engine will not allow the sale of tickets if there are no unallocated seats available.
This is the usual reason for not showing the seat map. However as Matt4 has pointed out there may still be some blocked seats that are unallocated and these can be released for sale but only the unallocated blocked seats.
2 As far as I can see apart from the A380 downgrades this year it was in 2013 that the last complaints about downgrading were made.

Op-ups from Y to J are a totally different topic since they should be in response to QR being able to release seats for sale to others.

I hope that I have been provocative enough to start a discussion on a subject that appears to be a big problem for some airlines.

msm2000uk

QR do not deliberately oversell as remdk has said.

However, QR do sell more tickets for most of their cabins than there are seats. For the most part, these 'errors' are caused by 3rd parties - Online, and off-line, travel agents for example.

The only cabin where the policy is strictly enforced, is Longhaul F.

M

(info provided through someone within the QR ticketing team in Doha)

gpicur

Thank you all for your most insightful replies.

I am a regular on the United Forum and am relatively new to the Qatar Forum. I am impressed with the quick, informative replies !

I scoured the Qatar Forum and could find very little recent (post 2014) discussions about Overbooking J Class. Humor me if you will.

Suppose that on December 15 QR744 during boarding, Y is overbooked by 8. In order to entice volunteers, the QR GA's offer 4 volunteers an upgrade to J to take the same flight on December 16. I believe that GAs have more power to manually override the seat management system then CS, Reservations Agents or the Webiste. On December 16 they could easily have more folks show up for J class seats than J seats on the plane. If this "perfect storm" would occur, what does Qatar offer to confirmed J Passengers to downgrade voluntarily and if no one bites, what do they do if they involuntarily downgrade a paid Burgundy member in favor of a Gold or Emerald ?

Thank you in advance for your thought provoking responses.

lots@LHR

Twice I have been upgraded involuntarily from J to F DOH-BKK on the A380. I am QR Platinum. I always assumed overbooking.

purple1addict

I think QR will deliberately oversell J only on the A380 - as reports of J to F op ups are fairly common, especially on the BKK route (and I've also been lucky enough to benefit from an op up to F from BKK before ). Otherwise I don't see much evidence of QR overselling J in recent times, unless there is an aircraft change as detailed above.

Y on my regular routes is sometimes oversold - I've noticed this particularly when J loads are light. Perhaps, in reference to msm's comments above, it might be due to the prevalence of travel agent bookings made by travellers from my frequent destinations.

I don't doubt it occasionally happens, but I am yet to witness any denied boarding or involuntary downgrades by QR. They seem pretty accurate with their inventory management.

purple1addict

As above, it's so rare with QR that I don't think we have enough previous experience of this type of "perfect storm" to be able to provide comments or answers! I very much doubt you will, but if you do experience any irrops then please come back and let us know

tartempion

One of my 2016 BKK J flights was downgraded from A380 to B777, I forgot to check seat assignment and was surprised later on checking my flights I lost my seat in the switch. Could not chose a seat via MMB, all were taken, bulkhead seats blocked.

I emailed support and got ridiculous answers back, "we are sorry for any inconvenience" etc.

At OLCI could chose a bulkhead.
I did not like the bulkhead seat, but downgrade, J overbooked ?
Never happened to me.

Owen Cooper

I was recently overbooked on qr077 from Doha to Berlin travelling J in business on a 777. I wasnt the only one as they came up to chat to another passenger sat near me in the business class lounge also overbooked. They gave me the useless 300 euro offer and to fly via Istanbul to get to Berlin then offered to downgrade me then to stay in Doha and fly the following day and when I refused I was told I had to accept one of them and complain when I got home. As far as I'm concerned yes they do overtook and they aren't very good at handling it. Oh and in the end I choose the Istanbul option but Turkish airlines lost my bags. I was 24 hours in sub zero temperatures with clothes I had warm in Thailsnd 30C. Let's see if they refund the clothes I had to buy. The girls in the air are fantastic but the guys on the ground leave a lot to be desired.

ermis177

Did you fly J with Turkish? To be honest is quite good to get 300 euros plus redirect you in J. Last time i was flying J with BA they downgraded (flight overbooked) me and when i complained i got a 20 pounds voucher...

flyyme

As a point of information, anyone know if people have sued for financial loss of the downgrade (ie the difference in price paid for J vs cost of Y ticket)?