Questions and Answers

Hi guys,

I have an AA award in business class from Europe to New Zealand in Jan 2017 which I booked before the devaluation. I booked onto Qatar, transiting in Doha and onto the new Doha-Auckland direct flight.

Now there have been reports that the [URL=’http://www.ausbt.com.au/qatar-airways-plans-a350-flights-for-perth-delays-auckland-launch’][COLOR=#0000ff][B]DOH-AKL direct launch will be delayed until Mar 17[/B][/COLOR][/URL], and Qatar has blocked availability in all classes for that route for Dec 16 – Feb 17, I am anticipating that my flight will eventually get cancelled.

Question: What will happen in such an event? Will Qatar or AA be obliged to accommodate me onto different connecting flights given that my ticket is all confirmed? Or will they simply say that we are going to cancel your ticket, and refund you the miles?

If they were to accommodate me onto different flights, will I have to search for business class availability again or would they make seats available for me, say on the DOH-SYD flight then onto AKL?

Thanks

NZAA, it could go both ways but but in general when the airline cancels award tickets they are usually flexible about rebooking even if space needs to be opened on closed flights. The wrinkle here is that AA has no power to have QR open flights. Your best bet is if to find other partner space and rebook yourself (free if your origin/destination stay the same). If you cannot find space and QR cancels you can call and ask for space to be opened on AA’s own flights (of course you’ll be going the wrong way and this will involve all kinds of exceptions but I think you have a reasonable case but be prepared to be patient and polite).

Ben, you may want to let your readers know to beware if they have award travel booked through the summer. We were affected and got no help from AA to reroute for our planned travel day. We were forced to change dates.

[URL]http://atwonline.com/airframes/qatar-airways-cuts-flights-because-aircraft-shortages[/URL]

[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/05/10/qatar-airways-auckland-delay/[/URL]

You will need to push to get these tickets referred to the oneworld liaison office. They will likely be very busy, but will certainly have a plan for this. It will likely involve rebooking on AA, BA, or CX, and they’ll have all kinds of backend accounting processes to square everything up with QR.

Don’t expect frontline agents to be able to proactively help.

[USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER]–if they are rebooked on BA, would people have to pay fuel surcharges? Or would this be protected? I’m not sure what protections people in Europe have in this case for a post purchase increase.

AA can’t do anything until QR officially cancels the flight and pushes out notifications to the GDS, but any rebookings should be an even exchange — no changes to the taxes or miles.