Why Qantas why? second class service for codeshare premium pax

[katiebell]

Did you end up getting a hold of the QF operating PNR? Does that PNR have the ability to use Q-eat?

Yes, thank you for your help. I tried both PNRs: neither worked. I have since learned that this is a QF decision (so nothing to do with BA).

To my mind there is a difference between a 'Qantas operated flight' and a 'Qantas flight number' but some may be both "Qantas operated' and "Qantas flight number'. Qantas should be accurtate in the information they provide which is not the case.

BA actually offer pax the ability to pre-select meals on thier longhaul flights.

Next time I'll codeshare on CX, have shorter transfer times, enjoy the CX HKG first lounge en route, and avoid DXB (the major reason for me not flying QF to the UK).

 

[madrooster]

Yes, thank you for your help. I tried both PNRs: neither worked. I have since learned that this is a QF decision (so nothing to do with BA).

Interesting as pretty much everything else works on a QF operating PNR. Nevertheless, I appreciate the feedback.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Yes, thank you for your help. I tried both PNRs: neither worked. I have since learned that this is a QF decision (so nothing to do with BA).

To my mind there is a difference between a 'Qantas operated flight' and a 'Qantas flight number' but some may be both "Qantas operated' and "Qantas flight number'. Qantas should be accurtate in the information they provide which is not the case.

BA actually offer pax the ability to pre-select meals on thier longhaul flights.

Next time I'll codeshare on CX, have shorter transfer times, enjoy the CX HKG first lounge en route, and avoid DXB (the major reason for me not flying QF to the UK).

Apologies to you. I did not realize that BA had introduced pre-flight dining choices. This wasn't in place the last time I flew BA Long Haul.

 

[TonyHancock]

The BA "Order your meal in advance" is a relatively new feature.

 

[cmon0005]

I don't get it.. Q-eat (or aka select on Q-eat) has only ever been available on QF metal and on selected routes, but the original post was so confusing I am still not sure what the exact problem is. Not sure how you will be able to order BA's food though.
Also on a side note, if your flight is greater than 7 days away the Select Q-eat link is not available, you can only order within 7 days of the flight.

 

[muppet]

Wow. So can the OP confirm if the flight in question is within 7 days? (and therefore eligible for Q-eat selection)

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Wow. So can the OP confirm if the flight in question is within 7 days? (and therefore eligible for Q-eat selection)

The OP is ineligible as per the T&Cs someone posted up thread as the QF flights were booked via BA as codeshare flights ie BA marketed flights.

 

[ogs70]

The OP is ineligible as per the T&Cs someone posted up thread as the QF flights were booked via BA as codeshare flights ie BA marketed flights.

The T&Cs state 'You must be travelling on an eligible Qantas operated international service.', so marketed does not appear to make any mention.

I would also be curious to know if the OP can confirm whether flight is within the next 7 days as I am surprised that Qantas remove this option for codeshare customers as I would have thought it also assists Qantas through decreasing the risk of over-catering.

 

[RichardMEL]

Yes, while Katie is on a QF operated flight, she's actually flying on a BA marketed flight. How often do we see the terms "operated by" and "marketed by" used by many carriers? However I digress.

In the spirit of perhaps being constructive, katie have you actually phoned/communicated with QF about this? Setting aside the 7 days in advance thing(which I also thought of), it may even be a technical issue with the website (those work experience kids!! ) and it may well be a quick call to QF (withn the window) can do what you want if the website can't.

You stated that this was a QF policy decision (not BA) - did you get that from QF in relation to this issue, or from interpreting the T&C as posted above?

 

[RichardMEL]

btw re the "average pax" - I think you'll find it's not quite so, but it's just an opinion.

My co-worker, for example, despite sitting next to me and witnessing in part all my travel shenanigans, was surprised when he redeemed QF points but to be flying on EK MEL-KUL-DXB_FCO. Yes, it's clear to us on the website, and we get codeshares and stuff, but not everyone does. Not everyone cares.

Some could care less if they're on a 380, a 737 or a fokker. Others do care. everyone's different.

 

[ogs70]

Yes, while Katie is on a QF operated flight, she's actually flying on a BA marketed flight. How often do we see the terms "operated by" and "marketed by" used by many carriers? However I digress.

That's right, there is a clear difference between marketed and operated, and Qantas usually will use one, or both, if applicable / required in their T&Cs.

Through omission of 'marketed' it could be reasonably assumed it would be offered on OW marketed, QF operated flights which offer the service. Of course the ticket is sold by BA and thus more or less falls under the scope of their own T&Cs, but is nonetheless an interesting observation if someone was doing research on the QF website to familiarise themselves with the product prior to booking a codeshare on QF metal.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I'm curious to know what the fare difference is between booking BA coded flights such as in the OP's case for the trip versus what it would've been for:

a) QF1 SYD/LHR & QF 2 LHR/SYD via DXB
b) 'Mixed' carriage BNE/SIN QF81, SIN/LHR BA12 & BA11 LHR/SIN, QF82 SIN/SYD

I'm guessing that the BA fare in J would maybe about $2K cheaper.

 

[katiebell]

Yes, as per my OP the flight is on QF metal, on a route with Q-eat. I was using the QF MMB website and PNR and within 7 days. I tried several times and two different browsers. I wanted to preselect my meal on the QF operated flight on the QF MMB. My ticket is codeshare from BA. I called QF & QF confirmed it is thier decision not to offer this to tickets that are not issued by QF (i.e. pax on the QF metal who are on codeshare tickets are 2nd class hence my title for the OP). But this is not what the T&C state (no mention of QF marketed, only mention QF operated).

Since then I used BA MMB to preselect a meal. This can be done up to 30 days out. Yes it is new, is on selected routes and mostly ex-LON at this stage. It is much simpler than Q-eat, easier to change but only allows the main course to be selected, the list of ingredients is smaller and it does not make those annoying wine recommendations that cannot happen because QF do not load the matching wines.

In other words: all matters to do with QF-operated flights have been through QF MMB. All matters to do with BA-operated flights have been via ba.com MMB. I did not try to MMB for one airline on the other airline's website: I always knew that would not work...

As stated by others & in my earlier posts: QF lose an opportunity to market themselves as a superior product & will decrease over catering.

There are many reasons for chosing flights, cost is just one. In this case I manage to avoid DXB (which I detest) & I get to fly on a B747 (which I love) and not on a A380 (which is an oversized barn with too few loos in J). And my window seat is quite private which suits me well.

 

[katiebell]

The second class treatment gets worse: on line check in is not activated for codeshare pax on QF metal. I tried to check in for the QF operated sector via the QF MMB: online check in greyed out. I tried the BA site to check in for the BA metal sector: there was a link to checkin online: tick a box to accept sharing data with QF and click the link... the only problem was that it did not work at the QF end: I got one of those annoying messages that say the service in not available but do not say why or how to fix it.

On the other hand, the link on the QF MMB page did get through to the BA site.

QF are still making money out of my ticket so why make it so difficult to MMB? It leaves a bad impression and certainly discourages me from flying QF in the future. As stated earlier in this post, I try to avoid DXB and, if doing so, cannot fly QF all the way to London. This was a significant factor in choosing this route and, I thought, I would at least get the benefit of QF part of the way. Sadly not the case. Next time CX/BA and not QF

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I mentioned already up thread can you not use a TA to book flights under the operating carriers flight numbers eg QF81 or QF5 SYD/SIN then BA12 or BA16 SIN/LHR?

When you do book codeshare flights you mention that you get access to all the functionality except Qeat is that correct?

If you can select your seats at the time of booking I don't see why the ability to do OLCI is such a big deal.

 

[RichardMEL]

Ability to OLCI may be a big deal if you want to see if a better seat has opened up (through move/cancel/upgrade) and so on.

Really though I agree with katiebell in that the integration is clearly broken in parts. The whole point of a codeshare is that it's supposed to be transparent. She books a BA flight, it shouldn't matter if it's operated by BA, QF, CX or Air Koryo. The fact that when she tried to check in for her ba marketed flight online coughped out because of the QF end forcing her to do extra to do what she wanted is very poor IMHO.

(to me this is a different argument to the Q-Eat issue which I see as a product/service issue)

I've been on any number of codeshare flights and had few issues between the operating and marketing carriers (as example, UA on LH or AY on QF/CX, QF on AA etc). I'm sure issues between GDS's can account for some of those, but then again maybe not. (eg: just booked a QF code on AA metal and had no issue assigning any seat in the F cabin) and I anticipate no issues to check in for my "QF" flights.

To me rather than policy or product decisions, this systems integration issue is purely an IT one and reflects poorly on both parties (in this case BA, who have sold the ticket, and QF who seem to be the problematic party).

my 2 cents.

 

[OATEK]

Ability to OLCI may be a big deal if you want to see if a better seat has opened up (through move/cancel/upgrade) and so on.

Really though I agree with katiebell in that the integration is clearly broken in parts. The whole point of a codeshare is that it's supposed to be transparent. She books a BA flight, it shouldn't matter if it's operated by BA, QF, CX or Air Koryo. The fact that when she tried to check in for her ba marketed flight online coughped out because of the QF end forcing her to do extra to do what she wanted is very poor IMHO.

(to me this is a different argument to the Q-Eat issue which I see as a product/service issue)

I've been on any number of codeshare flights and had few issues between the operating and marketing carriers (as example, UA on LH or AY on QF/CX, QF on AA etc). I'm sure issues between GDS's can account for some of those, but then again maybe not. (eg: just booked a QF code on AA metal and had no issue assigning any seat in the F cabin) and I anticipate no issues to check in for my "QF" flights.

To me rather than policy or product decisions, this systems integration issue is purely an IT one and reflects poorly on both parties (in this case BA, who have sold the ticket, and QF who seem to be the problematic party).

my 2 cents.

Agree that this reflects poorly, but not sure its just QF. When I flew AY in March/April, I finished up with 3 PNRs that showed up in QF MMB, one each for AY/CX/QF. AY MMB didn't work for seat selection on CX, but the CX-related PNR, used through CX MMB did. Same story for QF seat selection. From memory CX may have allowed meal selection for the first leg, but as stated here not QF for the final leg.

I was able to checkin online for CX (1st leg) but could not check-in online for QF (last leg). AY gave me a boarding pass for the QF leg when I dropped my bag at TXL, but when I got to BKK QF ground staff snatched it away (the plane was late and things were a bit tetchy, but snatched is the right word) without any explanation, and went over to punch stuff into their system. Happily the QF seats I had selected held, but obviously the boarding pass info had not transferred seamlessly.

All a bit of a messy with these OW partners, but we got through it without any real upset.

 

[katiebell]

Ability to OLCI may be a big deal if you want to see if a better seat has opened up (through move/cancel/upgrade) and so on.

Really though I agree with katiebell in that the integration is clearly broken in parts. The whole point of a codeshare is that it's supposed to be transparent. She books a BA flight, it shouldn't matter if it's operated by BA, QF, CX or Air Koryo. The fact that when she tried to check in for her ba marketed flight online coughped out because of the QF end forcing her to do extra to do what she wanted is very poor IMHO.

(to me this is a different argument to the Q-Eat issue which I see as a product/service issue)

I've been on any number of codeshare flights and had few issues between the operating and marketing carriers (as example, UA on LH or AY on QF/CX, QF on AA etc). I'm sure issues between GDS's can account for some of those, but then again maybe not. (eg: just booked a QF code on AA metal and had no issue assigning any seat in the F cabin) and I anticipate no issues to check in for my "QF" flights.

To me rather than policy or product decisions, this systems integration issue is purely an IT one and reflects poorly on both parties (in this case BA, who have sold the ticket, and QF who seem to be the problematic party).

my 2 cents.

I believe that the problems I have experienced are related to QF and not BA because the lack of functionality related to the QF website & QF MMB only. This was the case whether I tried directly via qantas.com MMB or the link from BA.com (which went to the QF website but then the QF website stated the service was not available. Either way, I can do almost nothing on QF MMB for QF operated flights whilst BA MMB has full functionality for BA-operated flights. It used to work in recent years (i.e. all Functionality available on the QF MMB) but some 'clever' person at QF seems to have decided to limit the functionality

As stated by others OW is meant to be about seamless travel and being made to feel like there is a working alliance. All I can see is the QF-BA rift affecting pax and, consequently my willingness to book on QF as a codeshare again (& it will not encourage me to book QF marketed if that service does not suit my needs).

Next time CX/BA which will be via my favourite transit point and have better connections. In the end QF miss out of a premium pax.

Perhaps the real loss is for QF who miss out on an opportunity to showcase their product to premium pax booking on other airlines who might be flying QF for the first time, i.e QF have missed the opportunity to show potential premium pax what a wonderful product they are offering and pilfer the pax from the other airlines. Just another example of QF short-sightedness.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I mentioned already up thread can you not use a TA to book flights under the operating carriers flight numbers eg QF81 or QF5 SYD/SIN then BA12 or BA16 SIN/LHR?

When you do book codeshare flights you mention that you get access to all the functionality except Qeat is that correct?

If you can select your seats at the time of booking I don't see why the ability to do OLCI is such a big deal.

Have you tried to book the QF operated flights as QF marketed flights instead of BA marketed flights?

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

You were on a BA ticket, BA T&Cs apply, qEat may not be a part of the codeshare agreement, therefore you are ineligible.
This is pretty cut and dry to me.
As mentioned you can use a TA to book the QF and BA codes on the one QF ticket, but QF pricing will apply. You'll then get the prized qEat, which IMHO, is a complete waste of time. But then again, I like to be surprised by the menu inflight and don't have any obtuse dietary requirements.
What I do object to is the fact that shellfish can kill my partner, yet there is no way to alert the airline of this without choosing a cardboard dining option.