NWplatinum

How was it involuntary change?

NWplatinum

Use the call center in poland, or the UK using Skype. You’ll need to buy $5 in skype credit but it’s worth it. Calling the Doha call center via Skype is 25 cents a minute. I think the UK or Poland is 1-2 cents a minute.

Bacopa

Not sure but my ticket has an endorsement note citing involuntary change from the last change to bkk so I guess the new agent that changed it to mle just deferred to this note.

Bacopa

I got rebooked into flight that leaves doh on January 1 actually.

callsignapollo

On a scale of 1-insane, how risky is it to book USA-SYD via DOH for January? Right now, some very decent J fares but Australia doesn't have firm border reopening dates (without the 14 day quarantine).

Seems Qatar will continue to fly regardless and right now, unless the waiver is extended, $10752135! cancellation penalty per ticket. Still.. tempting..

NWplatinum

How? What happened with your ticket? Feel free to PM if you want.

Bacopa

Nothing. I requested a flight that left MLE on 12/31 at night and that happened to be a flight that got to DOH on January 1. Do you know if QR will allow stopover on these tickets?

ISTFlyer

I was told by one of the QR agents in Doha Airport that Qatar would re-open soon to foreigners possibly in September or October, that's was the information that came to them.
Also, they are planning to stick with only Al Mourjan for a while and the Business Class Lounge, the First Class Lounge and Al Safwa would remain closed.

IAN-UK

I think there are going to be an awful lot of newly minted Plats disappointed for quite some time.

JohnAx

Presume if one accepts miles for an involuntary cxl they're just 'redeemable'?

realgaga

I'm assume you're talking about Qmiles, which are used for redemptions
Qpoints are the 'qualifying tier points'

JohnAx

Sorry, I didn't do my homework, asked my question based only on my knowledge of AA's system.

QR cxl'ed the back half of my SOF-DOH-LAX-DOH-SOF and almost nothing they're offering will put me in a position to affordably fly the LAX-DOH-SOF. There's no such thing as a one-way "I-class" fare, and iirc available one-ways are very expensive.

I'd gladly keep the ticket and book the return next year, but despite tickets being valid for two years from purchase date, the one-year trip duration rule closes that opportunity in a few weeks from now, in my case.

Thus, assuming availability when I can travel, accepting miles seems like the only way out. In my AA world 100k miles would earn ExPlat (not that AA would likely characterize the miles as status-earning, but I thought QR might).

Johnnieboy

Unfortunately the world travel situation is what it is currently. QR aren't doing any worse than the majority of airlines in looking after customers, in many cases they are being much more flexible. You have just fallen through an unfortunate crack, having been caught in the middle of a long itinerary. I think you'd be in the same boat (or worse) with any carrier under the circumstances.

But if you usually credit to AA rather than QR, would buying AA miles with a cash refund be better value for you in covering a one way redemption? I believe AA have a 2x offer on bought miles at the moment. That might be cheaper all in than taking qmiles and having to pay more to top those up (although presumably you earnt some qmiles on the outbound which should help).

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JohnAx

I have no doubt that QR is the world's most generous airline in handling the coronavirus fallout, my reference to AA was just my confession of ignorance. And I clearly need to read more about QR's FF program. I joined recently but otherwise am at zero - always credited to AA since FWIW it gave more flexibility for using miles. And having >1M 'in the bank' means not worrying about topping up.

Not having looked at the QR costs table I'm surprised that my hoped-for 100,000 miles from them would still leave me looking for a top-up for LAX-SOF. I could use my AA miles on a different airline but Q-suites alone is worth routing through DOH, especially as a couple.

A 2 for 1 offer from AA probably means their miles are still too expensive - iirc their rack rate is usually 2.5 cents (and a joke for newbies who might want to use them for domestic travel, where they're typically careful to peg the benefit at a penny each.)

Johnnieboy

I know very little about AA, but I thought you could use their miles on QR too, everyone being one happy oneworld family and all that? I guess it depends which works out cheaper in total for you. It's worth double checking because the cash refund might turn out to be the better option if you already have that many AA miles (or not of course). I know there are regular fliers on here who switched crediting from QR to AA a few years ago because it worked out better value.