Pilot37

Just back from my Sake jaunt - very enjoyable experience overall, and for the price - amazing!
Was I blown away by QR? Afraid not, but they were good, and very good in spots. Just arrived in from DOH on the morning A380 flight, not sure if the clientele are different on that particular flight, but I felt sorry for the crew at times, basic manners (and in certain cases bathroom etiquette) were severely lacking! (Not QR’s fault at all!)

Def would return to Tokyo / Japan and I look forward to more QR experiences, but the price would have to be right to add the extra fly timing on most routes to the Far East (def would use them for OZ/NZ).

Pilot37

Talk To Me Goose

Returned from holiday in Japan yesterday thanks to the cheap fares. Overall enjoyed my flights with QR and was fortunate to benefit from unexpected but favourable changes to ticketing.

As per the post above the originally booked flights were changed and I was able to re-route the return flight from Doha directly to LHR which was great as its the home base. I arranged this in mid-June, changing from QR275 DOH-AMS (having been switched from QR273) to QR003 DOH-LHR which meant the A380 for one sector. This meant a route of LHR-AMS-DOH-HND and then NRT-DOH-LHR. The return leg looking a lot more enjoyable than the outbound.

Approaching departure date I had observed a 7hr wait at Doha connecting from QR274-QR812 which I was not looking forward to. Trying to be optimistic and reminding myself that if you don't ask you don't get anything I called QR to see if it was possible to change from QR812 DOH-HND to QR806 DOH-NRT which left 4hrs earlier reducing the wait to a much more bearable 3-4hrs. I'll never be one of the people who intentionally spend ours sat in a lounge as part of the experience. They are pleasant places to relax and refresh but still only waiting rooms in my opinion.

Much to my surprise when I explained to the QR agent if we could alter the flights and after waiting on hold for a good 15 minutes the agent re-routed the outward leg to be LHR-DOH QR008 which meant that a positioning flight was not needed into AMS and also to connect with QR806 DOH-NRT which shortened the duration of the flights and reduced waiting times. The time saving was at least 10hrs. As a bonus it also meant that the LHR-DOH flight would be in the new Q Suite.

Having flown EY in the business studio from LHR-SYD & AUH-LHR and the first apartment SYD-AUH I was intrigued to see if the hype over the Q Suite was justified.

Personally it was not appreciably different to EY's studio seat, the TV was larger and the door is a feature that I didn't personally use or like. I am tall and closing the door made the space in the middle row sat next to my girlfriend feel claustrophobic. I can see that the concept works for families and couples when the beds can be joined up however.

Service on all flights was great, particularly the two day flights. I found the 777 J seat to be the best for sleeping, being open it mean I had more space to get comfortable whereas the enclosed seats have less room for one's feet. The al mourjan lounge is an impressive size and I found it hard to find things, it was a welcome relief to the heat and bustle of the terminal below however. The staff were attentive and friendly as you would expect.

Japan is a great place to visit, I would recommend to anybody.

heidelflyer

Looking forward to visit Tokyo!

FRA/MUC-HND: 07/12/17 : heidelflyer +2
HND-FRA/MUC: 11/12/17 : heidelflyer +2

Almost the last batch of FTers coming home

nldogbert

Hi all,

Just completed my trip on this fare, only change I did was outbound to NRT and inbound from HND. Both originated from AMS.
3 out of 4 flights, load in both J and Y seems ~60% full at best - which was very surprising to me as I had expected a higher load. On my flight back today from DOH-AMS, J was close to 80% full from the looks of it, and Y seems to be the same (such a contrast to my outbound). Had also a "rather" famous Dutch travel channel host on my flight today (she was stuck in Yemen over the weekend due to the ongoing war there).
Crew on all 3 flights were good, only the 1 flight from DOH-AMS where in general the crew was OK but the Cabin supervisor did not go around greeting passengers at departure and arrival like my other 3 flights and saw the FA serving the other side of the plane to be less than stellar compared to the one on my side. Luckily for this particular flight I had a super nice FA that did not really affect my side of the plane - she was just doing everything with a smile and felt genuine.

Though I still can't figure out why flying to Tokyo is < 10 hrs and out of Tokyo to DOH is approx 11.30 mins. Did not realize that wind direction can have up to 2 hours differences in flying time.

Side note: For the first time used the First lounge (for Emerald status) in DOH (due to a coincidence traveling on the same date with a colleague traveling on the same date outbound back in Y), and gosh, the lounge is such a dump. Filled to the brim, lacking service, small and was such a differences to the Al-Mourjan/Al-Safwa lounge. Will certainly never travel at the back of the bus with QR unless the ticket is close to free or differences in ticket prices is big enough. Although surprisingly they have the Billacard champagne in the lounge but not at the Al-Mourjan.

Thanks again to the original OP for sharing. (although most probably QR did not lose much for my flights this time since load for both J and Y were mainly on the low side and they would have flown it anyway).

Cheers!

Dr. HFH

It can make a huge difference. Some of the routes where you can see it most consistently are TATL eastbound versus westbound and California to Asia, where it's not unusual to have to make unscheduled refueling stops during the winter due to headwinds.

remdk

nldogbert a very oversimplified explanation to the differences in flight times is the Jetstram! That is a wind that constantly blows West to East in the Northern hemisphere.
The jetstream is just one of the many weather patterns that affect flight times. The South West monsoon and the North East monsoons are other examples.
Then there are geographical and political considerations. It was suggested some time ago October) that flight DOH-TYO fly North of the Himalayas but TYO-DOH flights fly south of them over India. (Look at several posts on this thread between about posts 750-800.).
Flight time calculation is a very complicated process that I will not even try to explain here.

polochick

Sorry I'm very late replying but yes, was on that flight! Stayed overnight the the Narita Hilton and then got the direct train to Kawaguchiko the next morning.

Well done on the hotels, sounds like you got every cent out of this fare!

plunet

Just a nod back to this epic fare and a really enjoyable two weeks in Japan, which we spent exploring Hokkaido. We set out this weekend last year with 24 hours in Brussels and flying out on the Sunday - Google Photos just gave me a reminder this morning. A lovely trip even though it did end up the curious incident of the coat locker jamming on the A350 and then a whole month of nonsense trying to get that sorted. Thanks to whoever found the fare in the first place and for sharing as many on the forum benefitted from it.

msm2000uk

Did you ever actually get your coat back, or are the QR engineers in DOH still trying to pry open the cupboard?

K

plunet

Despite being retreived by engineers in Doha, unfortunately the coat was not reunited with its owner and was consigned to rest in peace in the virtual wardrobe of the skies. Either that or its ghost haunts passengers somewhere on that A350 - could be a bit scary at 39000 ft.

Unusual situation on QR193 - Broken Cupboard