I don’t wish to teach anyone to suck eggs but I wanted to share my recent downgrade from First to Business experience as it may be helpful to others.

In brief we had several ‘mixed flight’ award flights in both First and Business.

The flight sectors in First were ‘cancelled’ due to an aircraft change to a non first equipped aircraft (380 - 777).

The flights showed as ‘cancelled’ even though the replacement aircraft retained the same flight number.

I was unable to resolve this online and had to go through the call centre.

As always when dealing with the call centre make it as easy as possible for the agent. In our case I had already identified suitable alternative flights (in First) which included seat numbers for all sectors.

The agent initially stated only revenue seats available - a polite pushback reminding them our flight was cancelled / downgraded so this was not applicable quickly resolved this. We were rebooked onto new flights on both sectors into revenue seats (no award seat availability).

The agent made the required changes and stated we can book seats on line - yes you can - but if you previously had free seat selection for a pre Nov 1st booking as we did, it now tries to charge you! A further call resolved this and the agent booked our seats.

Rinse and repeat same scenario for another flight (separate call). This played out exactly the same. This time however I asked the agent to book the seats for us and provided the seat numbers for all sectors. They then tried to charge me and claimed as the ‘flight’ was post November 2025, I would have to pay. Again a firm but polite pushback stating the ‘booking’ was pre November so we qualified for free seat selection and this was not a voluntary change, but due to a cancellation / downgrade, resolved it.

I hope this may prove helpful to others.

Did you get a refund on points difference between First and Business class on that segment?

My reading is that OP managed to rebook and fly in F, just not on the original dates/flights.

Thanks for this information. I had something similar happen to me, where a YUL-DOH-BKK booking had the BKK segment downgraded from F to J. The original flight was cancelled, and I was moved to a new flight at the same time but on a plane without F, even though there were multiple others that day departing with F offered. No dice on the phone or chat to move to those flights (or on the day before/after), as they were not saver award availability and they would not budge. They also would not do the seat selection for free on the new second leg at that point. On Twitter they said I should get an Avios refund after the flight of about 20-30k (redemption was 114k).

However would still prefer to fly F - however no award availability of any kind now. Any tips for trying to call them again to pursue this? TIA

Sorry for delay.

No I just rebooked onto a later flight with first.

Just by way of an update I have now had four reward bookings that have been subject to involuntary rebooking all of which were booked prior to the Nov free seat change policy. Three of the four have been no problem with free seats allocated. The remaining booking has been a real pain with CS waiting for the back office team to remedy it.

For ease try and use the app to rearrange flights if you find yourself in a similar situation. It may take several attempts as mine initially threw up errors but then decided to work.

The booking I am having trouble with is one I had to go through the service centre to change.

Further update: after numerous phone calls this has finally been resolved by the back office team. It appears to have been resolved by way of a credit voucher applied to my booking which covers the seat reservation fees.

For anyone in a similar situation that had free seat assignments by booking prior to the November policy change you just have to persevere and not let them off the hook.

They tried this with me but you do not need award seat availability as it is a downgrade and involuntary change- I was given a ‘revenue’ seat after pushing back and reminding them award availability did not apply.

Try using the app to change the flight as I had the option of at least a week either way and ended up in seats which has no award availability.

Or just call again - the annoying thing with the app is it does not show the class of seats, fine for business class as you can work out if you are in a Q suite but no good for first !

QR 837 BKK - DOH at 02:30 is now the only flight that has first.

On award bookings that include a DOH/BKK segment on 388 equipment, you're normally given an F option even though you're actually on a J award and paying the number of points for a J award. I've never seen a combined J/F award on this route/equipment where you pay more points for this award than for a J only award. (I normally fly U.S.-DOH-DKK for point redemptions.) It's essentially a free upgrade. If this was your situation, I'd say that you were not due any refund.

It seems to depend on the routing if it is priced as the same as a business award. For example London and ex EU mixed award flights are more expensive than Edinburgh which is priced the same as a business award. I have tried to work out the criteria but failed - I wrongly assumed the first class sector had to be shorter than the business sector to be priced as a business award, but London scuppers this theory 🤣

if anyone can enlighten me how Qatar work this out, please do tell!

Depends when you are talking about. QR829 2030 BKK-DOH is a 388 for the foreseeable future, I am booked on it in a couple of weeks time.

We were on that flight in August 2026 but it was changed to a 777.

Little surprise there as August is low season for Thailand's tourism sector.

I booked QR 829 2030 a year from now and it's 777-300. I wish it was the 388 purely as an aviation nerd. I'm new to Qatar but I've followed this space for some time and I feel like nobody does aircraft swaps like Qatar so who knows what plane I'll actually be on. --it's pretty far out.

Thank you for the datapoint! Very helpful information as an F booking is a goal of mine if I can be in the right place at the right time.

QR F isn't really that much better than QR J. Compare to other airlines, like EK, EY, and CX, where there's a significant difference between F and J.

actually, since the huge size of the business class cabin on the 380, the main advantage of first, is its usual quietness and more attentive service