Hi all,
sorry if this has been answered before...
I am trying to book a flight from MXP = > HKG and see a massive price difference for the very same flights booked on IB vs QR websites.
IB: € 2'562 vs QR: € 5'056

Anyone have a explanation for this? I can't figure it out and am also sceptical booking via IB as I usually book direct but the difference is massive.

thanks!

These are flights operated by QR but booked using IB. With these flights, you get lesser Avios and Qpoints (I think), also you don't get the Al Maha meet and assist. Also if tour flight is swapped from Qsuite to other products, you can't change them. I got a similar deal a few weeks back, from Milan to Singapore and return Hong Kong to Stockholm for roughly 1.800EUR. Will be flying next week. Will let you know.

You can absolutely book via IB and make the saving.

Unless you have status you won't get free seat selection on a Business Optima IB ticket but otherwise it's all the same product delivered by QR.

The points awarded depend where you credit. For example if your FFP is AY then the IB flight codes credit are more lucrative than the same flights on QR flight codes. YMMV lol.

There are quite a few threads on this - is would link them in here, but I'm on my phone so it's quite hard.

Ive also booked and flown these kinds of tickets.

My main takeaways, as there are pros and cons;
-In case of schedule changes or cancelations you'll have to deal with IB, which is considerably less easy that QR
-My FCO-DOH flight was axed (when QR loaded the new winter schedule) ; IB forced me to fly FCO-MAD-DOH because no other flights were available that day and they wouldn't let me fly on another day (extra Qpoints and avois though + MAD had q suites and FCO not, which was nice)
-There were issues with my returnflight DOH-FCO too, and IB forced me to fly their own metal via MAD (which was far from ideal, added an extra stop, but yielded extra qpoints and avios which pushed me to silver with just this one trip, lol)
-Lounge access in DOH and outstation IS included compared to the cheap fares QR sells
-if your flights have an IB flight number, but are QR operated, they will not count towards the 20%/4segements needed for status renewal/accural.

As you see there are some pros and cons.

If the saving is this significant though, I'd book with IB again.

Also expect to chase your miles because they are not credited automatically if you have QR FF.

I still have no news of my MAD-DOH miles of december 2025 (QR operated).

Good point! I didn't think of this.
I hade to chase them for over 2 months to grt everything posted. It was a pain.

Oddly enough, for my husband, whonis a member of my qatar family account, things posted within days.