Emirates (Qantas codeshare) flight SYD to AKL downgrade. What would you do?

[SYD]

This downgrade is an absolute bummer- I have flight to South America in Business with my better half in December and he has never flown on the A380 in anything but coach so we were really excited about this little leg on Emirates. We're now bumped onto a lame Qantas 737 which just sucks- I only found out about it earlier today

Had the same issue but managed to get on the A330 (QF143). The LATAM flight you will be connecting to would be the other obvious option.

 

[Berlin]

Had the same issue but managed to get on the A330 (QF143). The LATAM flight you will be connecting to would be the other obvious option.

I could probably try to get onto the 143 but that one leaves much earlier or doesn't it? Not quite sure whether A330 vs. the old 737 is worth hours of waiting time in the lounge at AKL... I've already tried the LATAM, for some reason that fare category is not available any more for that leg on this particular day.

 

[SYD]

I could probably try to get onto the 143 but that one leaves much earlier or doesn't it? Not quite sure whether A330 vs. the old 737 is worth hours of waiting time in the lounge at AKL... I've already tried the LATAM, for some reason that fare category is not available any more for that leg on this particular day.

Our flight in Dec departs at ~10:15. About 30mins (?) earlier than EK did. QF change defaulted to the much later 737 that leaves 50mins AFTER LA800! It still gave a 1.5 hr layover however. I would have demanded the LATAM flight but stuck with QF for the extra SCs.

 

[RichardMEL]

They did not really have a choice since they were on award bookings.

With the specific Qantas published policy, only revenue First PAX had the options to reroute via BNE/MEL at no cost irrespective of F fare bucket.

Those on awards need First award buckets to be available, which basically means "bad luck".

With the published policy, those on First awards can't even get a full refund - fly J or pay a penalty.

I agree with your points, except I refer you back to Nooks' post back on Page 2, where they wrote (in part):

They did offer to re-route via Brisbane or Melbourne however since they are early flights, it would have required a Friday night flight and that didn't fit in with our plans.

That suggests there was F avail to me.. in this respect the choice was made by the pax involved to not take a reroute in F because it did not work with their plans, not (seemingly) due to a restriction in availability or choice from QF

 

[serfty]

I agree with your points, except I refer you back to Nooks' post back on Page 2, where they wrote (in part):



That suggests there was F avail to me.. in this respect the choice was made by the pax involved to not take a reroute in F because it did not work with their plans, not (seemingly) due to a restriction in availability or choice from QF

There you go - I should have looked back.

Either there was award availability (!) or they had an extremely helpful agent.

 

[RichardMEL]

Of course it's entirely possible that the offer to reroute was made before checking actual avail and that was dismissed as not meeting the plans due to the forced overnight.