ashbjr

These 'enhancements' are definitely outrageous. I would appreciate some advice from the seasoned veterans out here. I am based in SE Asia and three years Plat with QR and renewing it at the end of June. So will get my 60 QCredits and have about 55K miles leftover, which I will use up on a trip to the US in early July. Given that I am renewing, jumping ship to another airline would not make sense right?...as I would lose OWE privileges that I would have had for a year if I took a lesser status match. But I also don't appear to have many options. CX is challenging for me as I sometimes have transit visa issues in HKG if I am not flying CX throughout (say taking AA out of HKG) and although I do fly AA decently frequently within the US, I am based in Asia and I never fly BA anywhere. Does that mean I am stuck to QRPC? Is QRPC still better given that the fares tend to be decent (other airlines are going through devaluation too). My travel agent in PNH has suggested that CX said they would match my QR Plat to MPC Silver (OWE to OWR), which I think is bad value! Have any of you begun to make these mental calculations? Maybe this is better fit for a status match thread?

JC880

I'm in a similar situation as you (but based in east Asia) and as everyone else quite upset. Looked in to options but there are no really good ones that suits my situation. My main objective is to have OWE status as I fly a lot of CX and JAL in economy. Looks like the best option for me is to fly enough QR to re-qualify for platinum and then do the remaining flights with other airlines to qualify for status at another alliance (Turkish Airlines has favorable and easy status match which gives you *A gold).

As for using qmiles it looks like the best option is to use them with partner airlines.

moderator - please feel free to move post is this is in the wrong thread

ashbjr

Challenging times indeed. This might be a stupid question, but I have never done it before, so I don't know. You get privileges afforded to you through the program you credit your miles to, right? So for example, I will have QR Plat until June 2019. But this year, if I fly QR but decide to credit my miles to a new CX/MPC account, the privileges I get will be based on my MPC status, which would be nothing, despite the fact that I have Plat on Qatar/OWE. Am I correct on this?

kornner

Same situation here although I'm based in BKK and only hold Gold/OWS status with QR (which would last until Oct 2019). Many people I know here are considering changing the program as well. BAEC is very attractive to me now given that the number of flights I have to take to keep my OWS with QR could easily give me OWE with BA, especially when earning from very attractive MH J fares ex-BKK to East Asia. The only tricky part for me would be the 4 segments requirement with BA/IB which might be doable as I travel to Europe a few times a year.

I will be missing tier bonuses with QR, but the insane redemption and upgrade costs could not justify anything now.

ChocolateFactory

It’s a bit more hassle, but it usually works out OK. Add your OWE number to the booking, select seats for free, change it to the new program (but always double and triple check your boarding pass!). You can show your OWE to get access to the lounge, etc.
The only thing that could be difficult is fast-track security.

In theory, there are two records for this in a booking, but I have found that no agent knows how to use them.

spec119

The only thing that could be difficult is fast-track security.

In theory, there are two records for this in a booking, but I have found that no agent knows how to use them.[/QUOTE]


at LHR you don t get fast track added to the boarding pass i Just show my platinum card they let me through manually

impeymac

Just used the mobile QR app to check awards flights LHR-DOH, a route I use to burn miles & have a pleasent long weekend away with Mrs IM.

Previously, as a QR Gold, this came in at 85k Qmiles pp return in J. Now showing as 116k Qmiles pp. What an outrageous 36% increase & a complete shafting of QRPC membership.

Shame on you QR, this whole episode is bloody disgraceful.

JC880

A 36% increase is among the lowest I seen. On my standard route East Asia to Western Europe (usualy PVG-ARN) awards prices are up by +80% (80k to 145k for one way business).
Not much value left in the qmiles.

Professional Bum

From MNL, my home city to Western Europe Qmiles needed jumped from 37,500 to 72,500 on economy and 75,000 to 145,000 on business one way! This is almost double, more than 93% increase!

Raffles

That increase is probably due to BA charging 120k peak in Avios for LHR-DOH.

lost_in_translation

That's a shocking level of incompetence if so, given they were available for the entire period of the sale and widely reported all over the internet travel-sphere!

lost_in_translation

Having digested the new pricing a bit further, I think the real problem here is how those who book itineraries which connect through DOH are treated rather than those on direct flights. Booking xxx-DOH is certainly not cheap any longer, but for those based in/near DOH who just want the ease of a direct flight the reward pricing still makes some sense, albeit much less than it did before. I imagine QR has approved these changes with these flyers in mind.

For anyone based outside of Qatar however, these changes are completely insane and totally ignore how airline pricing in the modern world works. Connecting flights on QR through DOH are now more expensive than the direct competitor's flights, which is just silly. There should be a large discount available for booking xxx-DOH-yyy vs. booking xxx-DOH and DOH-yyy as individual flights, which there used to be. Instead QR seems to have removed any discount for booking connecting flights together vs. separately, which is why the jump in pricing on many Europe-to-Asia routes is approaching 100%. I would therefore argue no one based outside of Qatar should credit flights to QRPC any longer.

Professional Bum

I am now exploring flying via Emirates or Etihad from Manila. Not really sure about these two as I have never flown with them, nor do I have a clue about their frequent flyer programs. On QR, I earn about 22-23k Qpoints from a MNL to Western Europe return flight on business class (R). With the revised rates, I need to fly roundtrip business class on these routes at least 7 times to earn enough Qpoints for a roundtrip economy class ticket. Whew! Not fun! The 100k+ Qpoints I saved up can only get me to Doha, on economy!

escape4

I noticed the same thing. But is this not how Avios now work? Since you are based in London I am sure you are more of an expert about BAEC than I am so you could confirm if the following is true with BAEC: each connecting flight is charged separately based on how long the flight is? In other words:
Flight 2,000 miles = XX avios
Flight 3,000 miles = YY avios
Flight 5,000 miles = ZZ avios

If you fly 2k miles connecting to a flight 3k miles, they charge you XX+YY avios. But if you have a direct flight 5k miles they charge you ZZ avios (ZZ < XX+YY).

So there is always an incentive to book a direct flight (if possible) rather than a connection.

This change is therefore more modest to people who fly in or out of Doha without a connection. However people who use Doha as a transit hub get whacked by the change. The problem is that people who use Doha for transit are the most flexible in choice of airline, so you don't need a long analysis to figure out what's going to happen. For my flights between North America and Asia, I can transit in IST or DXB or HEL or wherever I feel like. I am not captive to any airline.

lost_in_translation

Yes, I also retain OWE through BAEC (weird, I know) which is probably where QR flights I continue to take will be credited from now on. It is indeed how Avios works, but I would argue BAEC is for that reason not necessarily the best scheme for anyone based outside Europe. There are also numerous things BAEC does that makes this not such an issue however: i) it allows online booking of direct partner redemptions, whereas QR now has the ridiculous system that you can't make instant reservations online but nor can you call anyone to check availability / make reservations either and ii) BAEC also deliberately makes it cheaper to book BA direct flights than the competition through off-peak pricing, whereas QR seems to now be actively encouraging you to make redemptions on the competition between the ridiculous connecting pricing and lack of x1 availability.

The other major difference is that BA has a lot of high-value point-to-point customers out of London who will continue to use BA regardless of the quality of either the FFP or the on board product, whereas QR has no such thing and is mainly used by connecting passengers. It remains to be seen if this change will damage QR's business further at a time when I'd say they need to do everything they can to retain the currently loyal passengers they have.