Flight downgrade on Award Booking: Hi there, booked Emirates First as a Qantas Award booking flying in January Manchester to Dubai and they have downgraded the booking to Business

Flight downgrade on Award Booking: Hi there, booked Emirates First as a Qantas Award booking flying in January Manchester to Dubai and they have downgraded the booking to Business on the new 2 class A380. That’s the flight we need to get so moving to another flight with First isn’t an option. Only communication was from Qantas advising of flight change (not change of cabin). Didn’t realise until Emirates also sent an email confirming cabin change. No refund of points or taxes yet from Qantas. Is it best to contact Emirates to discuss compensation (as it’s a flight from the UK there seems to be an avenue for this)? Anyone else had a similar experience and if so what should I expect? Cheers

Hi Nathan,

I'd suggest keep calm and let their respective IT systems sort themselves out. Best thing you could do is 'calmly' ring both Emiratea and Qantas and ask them to put a note on your file that you are expecting both a partial refund of taxes and points. 

As for compensation...If you have a really good read of the T&C's you'll probably find a clause or two that state that the carrier reserves the right to make booking changes based on operational requirements (i.e. change of aircraft type and/or configuration). 

Mark,

Flights departing the UK come under EU laws for flight compensation. Regardless of reason, the OP would be entitled to a statutory compensation amount if they have been downgraded on an already confirmed ticket.

Does EC261 apply given the change was more than 14 days out? If they cancel the flight with 14 days notice compensation is not due. But the law is not clearon downgrades.

If they were liable then surely the carrier could just cancel the flight, renumber it, and state first is not available on the new flight. Yhey woukd then only have to reroute you and if you accepted the downgrade voluntarily due to the preference not to change schedule, could avoid paying compensation.

This happened to me on a paid ticket man to syd via dbx, qf wanted me to pay extra to be downgraded to j as the ticket prices had gone up since I booked in f!! After a firm call to their premium line they rerouted me via lhr at their expense onto qf 1  (?2) and gave me 30 000 ff points. I don't know how they work with award bookings but you have paid for the ticket and they should sort it. Don't trust them to sort it on their own, my experience was Ek told QF about the change 5 months out, QF told me 3 days out!

Given it's a Qantas award booking, shouldn't any recourse be taken up with Qantas?

I'd call Qantas ask them for reimbursement of points and any possible any tax difference.

Of course, if your onward flight from Dubai is in First, then you've just got to suck it up and not get reimbursed because the remaining award travel is in First.

Though if I were you and gagging to fly First, I'd see if they can accomodate me on the LHR service to DXB and catch a BA flight down from MAN.