Dr. HFH

More nonsense. Started checking flights for my 2019 Easter/Passover trip BKK-BOS. Checking out to the last day of the currently available schedule next March. It's all already Q2 on everything. Obviously has nothing to do with lack of availability. In case there are any QR lurkers here wondering why I'm now accruing all of my QR flights to AAdvantage, now you know.

stargold

Do they really care, though? You're still flying QR, after all, which is presumably what they care about most.

Dr. HFH

Well, that's an interesting question. And we can now add in the news that QR had a big loss for FYE March 31, 2018.

What does QR get out of QRPC? The first reason for the existence of loyalty programs is, of course, to engender loyalty. Back in the early 1980s, when AAdvantage was born, that made sense. But now? For QR? QR's J product is generally considered to be the best, or nearly so. And for most city pairs, the QR J fare is less than, and often much less than, the competition. So the question arises, -- for an onboard product which is measurably superior at a lower price, is QRPC really necessary to encourage customers to choose QR repeatedly? Perhaps not. And when you combine that analysis with QR's current financial challenges, I can see where it might be really easy for AAB to decide to severely restrict award space availability.

To whatever extent I am a typical QR customer, I fly QR for the very reasons I cited above, greatly superior J product (including the AM lounge, which IMO is the best J lounge available to me on the routes I fly) at a price much lower than, say, AA, JL or CX. (My normal route is between BKK and BOS, on average a roundtrip about every other month.) So I'll continue to fly on QR, but I'll start accumulating the miles to my AAdvantage account (starting with my next trip back to Boston in two weeks). And it may well be that that's exactly the way that QR wants it.

tboons

The problem is BA gets access to QR award. But these seats are 2x for QR members

stargold

Are you saying that there are QR flights which is available for redemption via BA (which would be in X, U or Z) but only available as 2x on QR? I'm not aware of any such occurrence.

Dr. HFH

I may have spoken too soon. Just today, some J space that I needed opened up BKK-BOS roundtrip next April (2019), and on the exact dates I needed, too. You may recall that I complained about this upthread, that even a year out, all the available award space was for double miles. Then today, I got what I wanted, and with the 5% discount for online booking, too!

Well, I still have a couple of weeks to decide where to credit....

makrom

I for one can say that the award availability situation is clearly dampening my enthusiasm to book QR tickets. It's not like I'll start some sort of vendetta against QR and will still consider them when there are good offers, but when choosing flights, I'll of course take into account that the Qmiles earned are only worth about half as much as they used to be.
I booked my next C flight with BA, still crediting to QRPC as I don't like juggling several OW accounts, but if I keep on booking other airlines, I'll start crediting to AA, BAEC or CXMP instead. These are not the kind of decisions I (as most people I assume) do impulsively, but none the less, given the right amount of time, such switches do happen, and this can't be desirable for QR. Devaluing our Qmiles while flying empty premium cabin seats is just bad business, plain and simple.

Sisyphus1carus

It is an absolute sod.
Looking for something interesting to Asia (excl. China) sometime between June 15 and Aug 5 and finding nothing !
I appreciate I have left it very late for a peak holiday time so really my own fault there but there is a serious lack of 1x redemptions around even much further out into 2019 :-(

There are some EU-Doha but no Doha-Asia :-(

Sisyphus1carus

I have already started crediting other OW flights to BA instead of QR for this very reason and will now start putting QR flights towards BAEC too, which presumably costs QR more money ?
BAEC isn't great anymore but it's getting better in comparison with QR's sneaky devaluation by dramatically reducing 1x availability :-(

Sisyphus1carus

Not to Asia (excl. China).

Sisyphus1carus

Loathed to pay the 2x fares in biz class on QR.
Anyone noticed any 'sweet spots' or even just not rip-offs using QMiles on partner airline redemptions ?
Cheers.

Sisyphus1carus

Maybe the US is lucky. Not much in the other direction from Doha.

railways

Get yourself over to ARN, then ARN - HND is available on 25th July.

Getting back is tough, but there is some availability BKK - Europe, for example BKK - VIE on 6th Aug. Then buy a cheap ScootBiz ticket to get from NRT to DMK.

lost_in_translation

Creative suggestion, but can’t help thinking having to take a 7 hour flight on a low cost carrier isn’t what someone looking to book a QR J redemption ticket really wants!

Crisu69

well, i dont know where you want to start your flight from EU but i found today the below nice award/upgrade availability in business for you to BKK or HKG starting from LHR or CDG with 1x miles request (no Q2):