Change in aircraft - (In) Voluntary downgrade

[Dave G]

Booked a mixed Business (Q Suites) First from Seattle to Perth next year Jan, and just received a flight change. I saw the aircraft was changed from a A380 to a 777. Was pretty disappointed - I like the airbus, and was keen to take my wife to a stand up bar. Class remained the same - First (Z).
Get an email, with business both legs now. Not only not an A380, but now no First class either. No First class being offered on this leg now.
And as I'd redeemed it for 120k Avios - no change in pricing either.

Anyone had luck getting into the first class lounge after a downgrade - esp with no first class on the aircraft ?

 

[ThePW]

Interesting, looks like QR will pull the A380 and swap to a 777 with Qsuites from 25 June, just before the QR/VA service launches on 26 June. Maybe to avoid overcapacity?

 

[Saab34]

Also looks like they are changing Adelaide to a 777-200 from April. Both Emirates and now Qatar with older equipment.

777s all round it seems. No thanks.

 

[jase05]

Also looks like they are changing Adelaide to a 777-200 from April. Both Emirates and now Qatar with older equipment.

777s all round it seems. No thanks.

Only for about 6 weeks I believe and thankfully they are QSuites still.
The A350’s are supposedly back on the ADL route mid May

 

[bernardblack]

I was just doing a quick check of the current 777 airframes identified as fitted with MiniPods (2-2-2), to see what the current risk was between DOH<>AU and DOH<>US. For long hauls, I will happily accept either the Qsuites or a reverse-herringbone config, but I draw the line at the MiniPods.

There were several recent rotations to ADL across both of the MiniPod 77Ls. This surprised me; the 77L change (then 359 afterward) makes sense for the ADL market, but getting 2-2-2 fitouts with some frequency, to an Australian port, seems poor. Notably I saw no other AU or US ports across the available history (a week maybe?) on any MiniPod 77Ls or 77Ws. The only route longer than ~9hr, apart from ADL, was GRU.

Has anyone seen this reported elsewhere? Is it possible that those couple of 77Ls have actually been refitted with Qsuites but not reflected at FlyerTalk yet?

 

[velli25]

I was told you need to take the flight and then submit a request post flight to get the difference of points added to the account