higham44

I'm looking at flying OSL - AUH via DOH with Qatar Airways in J. The DOH - AUH flight is on QR First. If I book the lowest cost J ticket, which doesn't include lounge access at DOH, will I still get access to the Al Safwa lounge by virtue of having a ticket in First for the connecting flight?

Neilgcal

Business Lite will give no lounge access on any flight even if connecting onto First. You would only get lounge access to frequent flyer lounges if you have status.

You would have to buy the Business Classic fare to be able to access the lounges in Doha during transit which would include Al Safwa as you have a lounge eligible ticket and are travelling in First.

KingCanute

Technically, although you have a seat in first (because there is no busines cabin), you are still travelling on the business class fare throughout. So you are subject to the restrictions of that fare and will also earn points etc throughout the journey based on the business fare class. Which means that if you buy a (P) fare, you get no lounge access throughout (unless you have some airline FF status and can use one of the status lounges). QR do offer Al Safwa access to business fare holders travelling in the first cabin on intra-gulf route, but only as long as their business fare does not exclude lounge lounge access - ie (P).

higham44

I have Oneworld Emerald status. Does the P fare with QR get you tier points and Avios?

KingCanute

Yes, as per your fare code, ticket issuer, route and membership tier:

https://www.qatarairways.com/en/Priv...alculator.html

IAN-UK

oops! I replied to the wrong question

DirektornSE

Of course, not sure why this thread is full of incorrect answers, unless policy changed recently.

You are travelling in First while departing from DOH and that of course give you lounge access, you could have travelled economy from Oslo, does not matter. It also works the other way around, if you transit in DOH and you where on a flight in F you will get access.
The only situation would be if you get "upgraded" as a technical upgrade, meaning you did not pay for the upgrade (Upgrade using points still apply)

One world status will not help in any way or form, nor will flying on a code sharing flight with another airline in First. It needs to be QR metal.

KingCanute

Unfortunately, this is post not accurate.

As with your upgrade example, premium lounge access is determined by the fare paid rather than the cabin you are sitting in. Because there is no business cabin on those routes, QR do allow business fare pax connecting to intra-gulf flights to sit in the F cabin, and also to use Al Safwa IF their business class fare is eligible for lounge access. But if your ticket would not get you into Al Mourjan (ie. you bought a (P) fare), it will not get you into Al Safwa either. The only exception to this is for QR Platinum members, who are granted access to Al Safwa regardless when travelling on a business fare.

Your confirmation may indeed say that your cabin class is first, but right next to that will be the business class fare basis. And as if to prove the process, all passengers will thus earn points etc based on the fare basis paid and not the cabin they were sitting in.

The technical explanation for this is that when you buy a ticket from say OSL to AUH, you are buying a single fare basis between your origin and destination, not J to DOH and then F to AUH. You are offered a choice of Y fares throughout, or J fares throughout. And if you departed from say LHR you would also have the option of F fares throughout because F is operated on both sectors.

You could potentially buy separate cabin fares as a multicity itinerary or separate tickets to bypass the (P) fare restrictions (that may actually be the only way to arrive in Y and depart in F), but you would then be paying for an actual F ticket DOH-AUH which would be much more expensive (similar to how separate redemption tickets cost more, particularly if booked in different cabins).

Back in the day, until c.5 years ago, you could book cash tickets with a choice of cabin on each sector and receive points accordingly, but that is long gone. Other airlines may sell their tickets differently, but for many years now on QR you buy a single fare basis from origin to destination, irrespective of multiple sectors.

a9504477

This actually also isn't entirely correct, at least when crediting to BA. The fare code for the "first" legs here is A and one earns the 60 tier points for first rather than 40 for business (even tough it actually says business (A) in the earnings).

KingCanute

Interesting that other airlines credit differently. I have no experience of crediting to BA, perhaps their system does read the cabin class rather than the paid fare basis (although they do say it a business fare, so perhaps that’s an enhancement waiting to happen...). Flyers with multiple scheme memberships might want to work out which is better to credit to. BA appear to award more tier points anyway though because their thresholds are higher (OWE 600 with QR, 1500 with BA).

I was referring to QR tickets crediting to QR, which will earn between 16 and 32 Qpoints return for say DOH-DXB, depending on the fare bucket paid. That is for a connecting ticket where a business fare from the origin was selected. You will only get 40 Qpoints return on the intra-gulf sectors if you are travelling on a paid first class fare basis.

IAN-UK

Yes, it's something like the heavy TP-earner we used to have in the US when BA's business-class travel morphed into AA's domestic first-class. Regardless of travel being on business-class fares, BA followed AA's F and A coding to give its happy BAEC members 210 TP on routes longer than 2,000 miles.

Coupled with transatlantic travel on the Babybus, London to Hawaii in three hops could yield 1,260 TPs. Extraordinarily low fares on that route generated TP at the holy grail rate of 1TP/£, in turn giving birth to an creche-full of new GGLs

Keter

Can I buy Al Sawfa access for QAR 600 on P fare without a lounge access? From what I could find I can only buy Al Safwa access if I am travelling on a QR ticket and on a fare eligible for Al Mourjan access but this is not the official information from QR so I am trying to validate that.

scottishpoet

on a P fare i have never been offered the option to buy al safwa, only to buy al mourjan

DirektornSE

you want to pay almost $200 for access to the AS lounge?

scottishpoet

and now confirm that no, on a P class you cannot purchase al safwa, only al mourjan

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/36086399-post4190.html