Booking Business class with Qatar or third party adverts

[bernie1953]

I'm seeing a lot of popup ad and other ad on facebook & instagram for companies advertising far cheaper business class fares than one would expect , anyway I tried a couple of them out,

I received a call from an agent in the USA saying yes we can do this for you, result was the fare was almost the same as that offered by the airline direct!

Next I tried , I received a call from an Australian number ( I'm currently on holiday in Mexico and using a mexican number) so we went through my proposed itinerary , the guy didn't have an aussie accent and I asked where he was from , he replied "I'm in Uzbekistan!"

He promised me he had access to low fare etc, so when receiving the itinerary again it didnt match up with what I requested although its coming in about $600 cheaper than Qatar airways my airline of choice

I am somewhat dubious of these companies and cant help but feel there's something dodgy? would be interested in hearing of anyone else's experiences in booking business class fares

I'm a silver privilege club member with Qatar and recently received a 10% discount off my next flight so could anyone tell me if Qatar would honour the 10% if I book business? (I'm usually an economy flyer with them )

Am I better off booking direct or perhaps using trip dot com webjet etc?

 

[Scr77]

I’d book direct. You could look at itineraries starting in Asia, and get a seperate positioning flight.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF @bernie1953 . Personally, I wouldn’t touch those possible deals with a long pole. You’ll probably get it ticketed but if there’s any issue along the way , getting it rectified might prove very very difficult and you could absolutely get stuck somewhere.

I doubt if you’d get your 10% discount if you booked with one of those agents, but you would if you booked it yourself.

Webjet etc possibilities but again you have to explore carefully how the cheaper prices come about and what’s the exact conditions of the ticket.

As @Scr77 said, a common practice used by many of us is to get a cheap i.e. economy or an award flight from Australia to an Asian port such as Jakarta or Bangkok and get the paid fare from there. You avoid the ‘Australia tax’ and with Qatar I recently got Jakarta to Europe and back for about $4200 in J and I’ve heard of people doing it cheaper (can depend on which business fare bucket is used, and current state of fuel prices). The cheaper bucket which does not include lounge access can get you a lie-flat very cheaply to Europe.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I'm seeing a lot of popup ad and other ad on facebook & instagram for companies advertising far cheaper business class fares than one would expect , anyway I tried a couple of them out,

I received a call from an agent in the USA saying yes we can do this for you, result was the fare was almost the same as that offered by the airline direct!

Next I tried , I received a call from an Australian number ( I'm currently on holiday in Mexico and using a mexican number) so we went through my proposed itinerary , the guy didn't have an aussie accent and I asked where he was from , he replied "I'm in Uzbekistan!"

He promised me he had access to low fare etc, so when receiving the itinerary again it didnt match up with what I requested although its coming in about $600 cheaper than Qatar airways my airline of choice

I am somewhat dubious of these companies and cant help but feel there's something dodgy? would be interested in hearing of anyone else's experiences in booking business class fares

I'm a silver privilege club member with Qatar and recently received a 10% discount off my next flight so could anyone tell me if Qatar would honour the 10% if I book business? (I'm usually an economy flyer with them )

Am I better off booking direct or perhaps using trip dot com webjet etc?

Webjet Id avoid as they have hefty fees and charges which are compulsory, including one to ‘guarantee the fare’, which is ridiculous as it only covers up to $1000 and there are no excuses for advertising a fare these days which isn’t available in real time.

Trip.com is fine to book with.

Going direct… for travel on QR Id recommend going direct if your destination is Europe or UK. This is because EU262 and UK261 apply for passenger assistance and compensation in the event of delays or cancellations. In many cases passengers have to press the point, and i’m not sure a third party travel agent would do that for you.

Much better and easier to handle that yourself rather than the agent repeating the QR ‘can’t assist’ line, even though they have a legal obligation to do so.

Agree with others… would not touch a facebook ad offering deep discounts. You don’t know where the ticket is coming from, or how it’s being ‘paid’. Some of them are buying miles from people and using those to redeem tickets, without telling the client.

 

[stu961]

I'm seeing a lot of popup ad and other ad on facebook & instagram for companies advertising far cheaper business class fares than one would expect , anyway I tried a couple of them out,

I received a call from an agent in the USA saying yes we can do this for you, result was the fare was almost the same as that offered by the airline direct!

Next I tried , I received a call from an Australian number ( I'm currently on holiday in Mexico and using a mexican number) so we went through my proposed itinerary , the guy didn't have an aussie accent and I asked where he was from , he replied "I'm in Uzbekistan!"

He promised me he had access to low fare etc, so when receiving the itinerary again it didnt match up with what I requested although its coming in about $600 cheaper than Qatar airways my airline of choice

I am somewhat dubious of these companies and cant help but feel there's something dodgy? would be interested in hearing of anyone else's experiences in booking business class fares

I'm a silver privilege club member with Qatar and recently received a 10% discount off my next flight so could anyone tell me if Qatar would honour the 10% if I book business? (I'm usually an economy flyer with them )

Am I better off booking direct or perhaps using trip dot com webjet etc?

Booking directly with Qatar is usually very close to the lowest price available from anywhere I've found over the years. $600 is flashing to good the be true! BTW how do you pay the man from Uzbekistan?... and yes, 10% discount should be good for any class of flight BUT sometimes Qatar's 10% discount promo's are more expensive than without the 10% promo...

 

[stu961]

Welcome to AFF @bernie1953 . Personally, I wouldn’t touch those possible deals with a long pole. You’ll probably get it ticketed but if there’s any issue along the way , getting it rectified might prove very very difficult and you could absolutely get stuck somewhere.

I doubt if you’d get your 10% discount if you booked with one of those agents, but you would if you booked it yourself.

Webjet etc possibilities but again you have to explore carefully how the cheaper prices come about and what’s the exact conditions of the ticket.

As @Scr77 said, a common practice used by many of us is to get a cheap i.e. economy or an award flight from Australia to an Asian port such as Jakarta or Bangkok and get the paid fare from there. You avoid the ‘Australia tax’ and with Qatar I recently got Jakarta to Europe and back for about $4200 in J and I’ve heard of people doing it cheaper (can depend on which business fare bucket is used, and current state of fuel prices). The cheaper bucket which does not include lounge access can get you a lie-flat very cheaply to Europe.

I've got lucky with 2 bookings latter this year, both CGK - MAN; MAD-CGK... so happens my wife's mum lives in Yorkshire and her dad in Spain so perfect itinerary for us. Classic fare (R) $3000.00, no idea why that particular itinerary is pricing out so cheap but it is! MAD-DOH is with Iberia but on their new 321 Neo with lie flat and day time.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I've got lucky with 2 bookings latter this year, both CGK - MAN; MAD-CGK... so happens my wife's mum lives in Yorkshire and her dad in Spain so perfect itinerary for us. Classic fare (R) $3000.00, no idea why that particular itinerary is pricing out so cheap but it is! MAD-DOH is with Iberia but on their new 321 Neo with lie flat and day time.

That is standard pricing from select Asian ports. The fares from Australia are so high because that what the market will accept - aka ‘the Australia tax’.

You can get even cheaper than $3000 of they have sales. I got AUD550 MNL-MAN on Oman Air, including Air France business class from CDG-MAN. That sector alone was more than $500 to buy on its own!

 

[stu961]

That is standard pricing from select Asian ports. The fares from Australia are so high because that what the market will accept - aka ‘the Australia tax’.

You can get even cheaper than $3000 of they have sales. I got AUD550 MNL-MAN on Oman Air, including Air France business class from CDG-MAN. That sector alone was more than $500 to buy on its own!

sure.. totally get the Australian tax.. a.k.a why we are flying out of CGK but if you can find cheaper Multi-city R Class fares with Qatar for less than $3000.00 I'm all ears!!! But hear you, $550 is special special.. so itinerary was MNL-CDG-MAN and was that return?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

sure.. totally get the Australian tax.. a.k.a why we are flying out of CGK but if you can find cheaper Multi-city R Class fares with Qatar for less than $3000.00 I'm all ears!!! But hear you, $550 is special special.. so itinerary was MNL-CDG-MAN and was that return?

I see what you mean now. I actually don’t see that as being ‘out of the ordinary’ cheap… it’s the standard expected price for a return to Europe.

I’m pretty sure I flew home on an award… Lufthansa F to Seoul connecting with Thai to Bangkok and Melbourne!

 

[RooFlyer]

One the theme of QR return fares to Europe. Its not just beginning in Asia that gets the price down, but also the port you return out of in Europe that can make a difference. This will be in part because of different country taxes and charges, but apparently there is also a deliberate charge differential embedded by the airline. I get to see this through my travel agent quoting various combos of planned itineraries for me. Of course we won't even talk about departing out of (most of) the UK.

I thought flying back out of Cairo to Jakarta would be a cheap option - nope. Flying out of Athens was $1,000 cheaper.

Last year at least, QR were not offering any 'Classic' fares out of Malaga, Spain (my cruise in Nov ends there). And yet, the price returning from Malaga was still $1,000 cheaper than returning from nearby Lisbon, where Classic fares were offered. I ended up booking the train from Malaga to Barcelona, which I enjoy, and the fare was best out of Spain/Portugal.

 

[SYD]

In case it wasn’t mentioned, QR will also charge you AUD (at spot rate) even if flying out of CGK, SIN etc. Just select AUD for the currency at the start of booking process.

If you’re flexible, use Google Flights (or better still ITA Matrix) to experiment what are the best (cheapest) Euro port combos to fly into/out of.

Munich is often very cheap. But it varies from time to time. We also flew out of BCN 18mths ago because it was a cheap option (into MUC and out of BCN). This year, we were booked into HEL and out of MAD but cancelled due to obvious reasons and rebooked CX ex CGK for about $500 more.

 

[stu961]

One the theme of QR return fares to Europe. Its not just beginning in Asia that gets the price down, but also the port you return out of in Europe that can make a difference. This will be in part because of different country taxes and charges, but apparently there is also a deliberate charge differential embedded by the airline. I get to see this through my travel agent quoting various combos of planned itineraries for me. Of course we won't even talk about departing out of (most of) the UK.

I thought flying back out of Cairo to Jakarta would be a cheap option - nope. Flying out of Athens was $1,000 cheaper.

Last year at least, QR were not offering any 'Classic' fares out of Malaga, Spain (my cruise in Nov ends there). And yet, the price returning from Malaga was still $1,000 cheaper than returning from nearby Lisbon, where Classic fares were offered. I ended up booking the train from Malaga to Barcelona, which I enjoy, and the fare was best out of Spain/Portugal.

and thankfully Madrid or Barcelona seem to fall into the cheap bucket for out of... and when you add in the Avios and value of QCredits it becomes a very compelling case... not sure if many people understand the value of QCredits

 

[SYD]

and thankfully Madrid or Barcelona seem to fall into the cheap bucket for out of... and when you add in the Avios and value of QCredits it becomes a very compelling case... not sure if many people understand the value of QCredits

Even crediting to QFF, it’s pretty good compared to starting in Oz.

Add PC earn on award flights, overall it’s quite satisfactory.

 

[stu961]

In case it wasn’t mentioned, QR will also charge you AUD (at spot rate) even if flying out of CGK, SIN etc. Just select AUD for the currency at the start of booking process.

If you’re flexible, use Google Flights (or better still ITA Matrix) to experiment what are the best (cheapest) Euro port combos to fly into/out of.

Munich is often very cheap. But it varies from time to time. We also flew out of BCN 18mths ago because it was a cheap option (into MUC and out of BCN). This year, we were booked into HEL and out of MAD but cancelled due to obvious reasons and rebooked CX ex CGK for about $500 more.

Munich and Frankfurt are always in my search bucket for "in" as Barcelona and Madrid are for "out"
and same page for Google... then Skyscanner for final search... Skyscanner seems to pick up the Iberia connecting flights to Doha which are typically $500 less than the Qatar operated flights. Being able to pay in AUD is differently a bonus as simple method to active credit card insurance and no exchange fees.

 

[stu961]

Even crediting to Q

Even crediting to QFF, it’s pretty good compared to starting in Oz.

Add PC earn on award flights, overall it’s quite satisfactory.

We do 3 trips a year to Spain & England at the moment. Effectively 1 trip ex Sydney return is curtesy of QCredits (add cost of 1 leg of an economy ticket) and Avios and the other two ex CGK. All for the same price as 1 return ex Sydney!

 

[RooFlyer]

If you’re flexible, use Google Flights (or better still ITA Matrix) to experiment what are the best (cheapest) Euro port combos to fly into/out of.

One odd thing my travel agent found last year for flights for mine this year is that certain inbound and outbound combinations won’t price as return fares but have to be priced at higher 2 x one- way fares. Such as arrival in Helsinki and departure from Cairo.

As for city differentials, I'll quote my TA from January:

Athens is expensive. Madrid is expensive.

Their fares for Barcelona or Geneva are considerably cheaper.

Both Qatar & Emirates are screwing people over for Athens as they are the only reliable carriers servicing it directly – or Etihad & Turkish.