Hi
After reading about the changes Qatar has made this week to it’s business class product, I was wondering if anyone knows what the impact is on award seats bought through Qantas with qff points?
In case you havent read they’ve split their business into 3 tiers (classic, comfort & elite) and unbundled lounge access and seat reservations.
So, if I’m buying an award seat, do I get the base tier, called “classic”? I suspect that I would. In which case I dont get to use the lounge either at the start point or in doha during transit. I can buy acess in doha, so maybe not a deal-breaker, but then I cant reserve seats untill checkin, and I have no guarantee of being able to sit next to my wife during the flight.
It’s really making me reconsider using them, although I love the product.
btw, I dont have any other status with Qantas, so when we travel we are relying on the benefits of the ticket rather than the frequent flyer tier.
Thoughts anyone?
Hi @Malcolm
The changes don’t apply to award seats. You’ll still have lounge access and seat selection if you book using Qantas points.
Many thanks for the links. Hopefully, that will remain the case, but for now it’s great news
Thanks
Well, sadly, the great news didn’t last long…
I guess it was bound to happen. 
I’m not so concerned about Doha, since if we’ve got a long transit then we can always buy lounge access. But we have a sector ATH->DOH->SGN coming up and will not have any lounge at Athens. It’s a real disincentive. We have Qantas Club life membership but that only works if you’re flying Qantas.
Do you think if tickets are already booked they should be honoring the terms for when it was booked?
Yes, they should be… and they probably will. I did read in the “One Mile at a Time” article which I linked to above, that the new conditions apply only to newly-booked tickets and not flights booked in the past. But you’d have to check with Qatar directly to be sure.
But wait! There’s more!
The same article I linked to above is now reporting that Business class reward bookings have Lounge access after all.
All very confusing. Now you see it now you don’t.
I guess once the dust settles we’ll know what the actual situation is.
If anyone has made a Qatar booking since the announcement, it would be good to know if you can do a seat selection.
Some time ago the Qatar app on my phone had the seat selection option removed. But I was able to ring them and select seats. I wonder if that’s still the case?