Not all business classes are the same though, are they?

QR might well say that they have worked hard to reposition their product upmarket with Qsuite. And it seems that the market agrees. P doesn't need to be made available at all on many flights because they are confident of selling out at the higher inclusive fares. People are paying and J cabins are full.

But where they do have some excess capacity, rather than devaluing the inclusive product and dragging those prices down, they strip out a few things to justify the lower cost and to meet the price point of cheaper competitors. Many brands in many industries do exactly the same.

Which then leaves the customer at that lower price point with a value judgement and personal choice - buy QR with a few things omitted, or book AirBogStandard with everything included but accepting that their everything isn't done so well.

If customers at that price point don't like one they can choose the other. The actual cash prices are irrelevant. But feeling aggrieved that a full top end product isn't being made available for the same price as a worse or unbundled product offered by a competitor seems a bit unrealistic.

AFAIK if you buy BA flexible or full fare tickets they include seat selection for free. Whether that is a cost effective way to do things is another question, but I don't think it's quite right to say there is no option to buy a J fare witb seat selection - if you really are buying an actual J fare bucket then seat selection comes included.

This is my dream. Baggage allowance is completely useless to me. I would happily give up my allowance for a better price.

Any thoughts why QR has been de-bundling everything but not luggage (even for economy)? I support this one and would in this case perhaps consider less flexibility of a P fare.

QR has debundled baggage for economy. It still offers a minimum of one bag though, not zero. 20kg in Lite up to 35kg in Comfort.

I'm well aware of who the largest shareholder is. Absolutely no idea what you believe that has to do with the pricing model BA uses for seat assignments, which was in play long before that Qatar government took an equity potion in IAG.

I'm not saying I love policies such as this, but its utterly naive to believe it's not viable. As I said, BA has charged for premium seat assignments for a very long time and they still seem to be able to fill the cabins. If consumers wholesale rejected that model then BA would have had to backtrack on it by now and clearly they have not.

One of the challenges in having a rational discussion about this is that most average consumers (and sadly a very high percentage of FTers) can't seem to do math. There have been times in the past where we did in fact pay for seat assignments in the BA premium cabin, BUT, the BA ticket was significantly cheaper than the same ticket on other carriers that provided seat assignments for "free." BA often has very affordable tickets when one uses strategies like AARP discounts, Chase 10% discounts, etc. Many on FT seem to just have this "moral aversion" to certain fees/policies without doing the math on the overall, all in pricing, which at the end of the day is all that matters. They willingly pay $600 more for a ticket that includes a "free" seat assignment to avoid paying $120 for an actual seat assignment, which is ridiculous. But they feel victorious because they avoided the perception of being "nickel and dimed" (even though in reality, they actually were nicked and dimed)

Finally, FT is just a completely eccentric little bizarro world that obsesses about this stuff, but like it or not, there is absolutely a market for a "lite" business class product. There are people willing to pay more for a comfortable seat on a long haul flight but they could care less about lounges, etc.

Regards

Your comment was about "filling airplanes" while ignoring that BA thrives on capturing London-originating traffic, while Doha competes as a connecting hub. They're completely different models.

Setting aside your rant about how much cheaper BA is (and it's often not for people not based in Europe), it's simply not equivalent to competitor's products. Club Suite is starting to help, but there's a reason people with pay $X for Product A, but not $Y for Product B. Any discussion of pricing models can't ignore that.

And lastly, had you bothered to read the posts in this thread, most of us (including myself) have bought Qatar's lite fares. What is disheartening is that today's lite fares are priced like yesterday's classic fares.

Qatar flight: JFK to Doha 4-21 October Return

Priced at U$12,382 and you still have to pay for seat selection. Who would shell out $12K for a flight and still pay for seat selection and think this is acceptable is way beyond my ability to comprehend.

Classic fares include seat selection, so your example is inaccurate. One-stops are available for $3.5k in October, I don't know who values a non-stop enough to pay 4x the fare. But whoever that person is, they're not paying ancillary fees.

Qatar's OW Biz class CLASSIC Fare NYC to Doha. $12,274 RT yet still have to pay for seat selection

But we're not talking about 1-2-1 seats - the policy dates back to the 2-4-2 Club World layout that many on here will also get outraged about. In that layout, there are absolutely huge differences in desireability, and first-come-first-served seating would result in the customers who regularly fly full J fares being stuck in the central "love seat" pairs because all the once-a-year holiday makers took the windows five months before departure. I agree that the policy is far less necessary on Club Suite flights - though I don't see it going away because as noted, BA think it works for them.

Except BA set these prices so that people don't pay them. They don't want most people to pay, because as stated above that would leave the late booking full-J passengers in the love seats. I can see no sensible definiton of nickel-and-diming in which the company would rather not take the money.

Exactly this. People would rather be outraged over a charge for what "should be included", and will wilfully ignore the actual reasoning when it is offered. Companies do many things that are morally outrageous - charging money for services is not one of them.

Lite and CLassic do NOT include free seat selection. Classic does include lounge access.
https://www.qatarairways.com/tradepo...eFamilies.html

Gotcha, appreciate the correction.

And yet its passengers still purchase. I would like to understand the psychology behind such purchases... but I can't.

Good for BA and other carriers though, who are raking it in for these "services".

I get where you are coming from with this. But just out of interest, if a preferred airline's fare plus seat selection fee was still lower than the alternatives that offered seats included, would you buy the ticket and seat from the preferred airline or from the pricier alternatives?

And we are talking about more than $12,000 for a ticket depending on location.