lushwave

Hello - I'm looking for J award seats from JNB-DOH for the evening flight on the 787, but every date I search, I only see the earlier flight on 777 with the older J product. Do they never release award seats for the 787 flight? Will be my first time flying Qatar and very excited about it, but want to get on the plane!

Also, any idea if this route (or CPT-DOH)'s 777 will get updated to the new QSuite? Will be flying next Nov (2018).

Appreciate any tips or insights!

stewaran

Hi

Sadly No one knows, the refurb of existing planes has not been announced and the only confirmed routes are LHR, NYC and one other (maybe CDG?).

This is being tracked in a specific Q-suite thread which will consolidate further info as released.

remdk

lushwave welcome to the QR forum.
When a flight opens for sale, nearly one year before flight a number of award seats are released. These are very often all taken within a few days. Further space may be released, usually quite close to flight date. I am afraid it is a case of keep looking and grab one when you can.
It would appear that the 787 flight is very popular and the 777 flight rather unpopular so it should be no surprise that the 787 reward seats are all already taken.
With regard to Qsuites only ONE aircraft has been retrofitted with Qsuites. After that one retrofitting was stopped. So it is only new deliveries of B777s and A35Xs that wll have Qsuites fitted.
Since priority for Qsuites appears to be the Americas and Australasia so JNB will be some way down the list.
At the moment only LHR and CDG have Qsuites but JFK is scheduled to start 17 December.

Crisu69

Have the same problem for a flight in april 2018. 1 month ago could upgrade Doha-Durban in 787 to J but no chance to upgrade return flight durban-doha in 787.
All flights are only available with Q2 award miles which means no upgrade is possible from economy to business.
Tried many months until nov. 2018 and nothing available. There are just no seats released for upgrades. I think QR prefer to sell for cash on this route and they can sell easy i suppose

remdk

Crisu69 if the same availability also applies to DUR then you are probably correct.
Maybe QR South Africa are allocating zero 1X seats at the opening of booking and then releasing them later if sales are down.
Reward places are supposed to be allocated by the origin country up to a certain limit when permission from DOH appears to be required.
I have not checked but I would imagine that reward seats are available TO South Africa, but not from!
This is a degrading of the value of both PC and Oneworld and is certainly not very member friendly!

pstation

From my experience with flying to and from JNB every month business class is generally *always* full on the 787’s. If I event want to have a chance at upgrading I’ll often have to show up at the airport at least 3 hours early. The 777s also have 42 business class seats vs 22 on the 787s

Crisu69

well, i could upgrade the complete flight in april 2018 zag-dur-zag from y to j with miles except the return leg dur-doh in 787, more then 1 month ago.
but i not blame them if they are able to sell the J seats for cash and not open for reward seats.

talked also with customer service several times. Been told to ask again next year as ususl ~1 month before flight. I not give up.

Had the same flight this year already in march and was lucky because could upgrade with miles durban-doha to J with 787 and it was a great ~11h flight with stop in jnb

Crisu69

wow, that was faster then expected. i could upgrade the Durban-Doha leg now also to business with miles. I just checked yesterday if there is award space available withouth Q2 miles and there it was. but they also changed the plane from 787 to 777 from Durban-Doha. Doha-Durban is still 787.

remdk

Crisu69 QR are still loading the schedule for the Summer timetable, starts 26 March, so aircraft types may not yet be consistent. Do keep a close eye on what is happening so as to avoid a nasty surprise!

Crisu69

how right you are.

just looked into my booking to see my flight from doha-durban now also changed from 787 to 777. well i would prefer the 787 but its not such a big issue for me. most important is i could also upgrade the return long leg from durban-doha to J. and according to customer service it was the only/last seat available on that day. if i look into award availability, business also changed already to Q2. before my upgrade there was award availability without Q2.

so i am happy and done with all QR flights until april 2018 and my miles account is nearly zero and Qcredits only 5 points left which i could not use and will expire unused but in april 18 will get 60 more of them to spend again.

Amame

I think the timing for 787 JNB / DOH is much better than the 777 which arrives very late into Doha, hence the popularity. Having said that 787 is so beautiful and always impeccable service in this route.

Crisu69

they changed complete to 777 after end of march 18 on this route. But the 777 is also an acceptable bird in j for me
maybe they use Qsuite on this route later. Haha..