Any feedback comparing British Airways vs Qatar travelling to SA with firearm?

[SFRanger7GP]

I avoid BA whenever possible, but since AA lost their firearms cargo license, it is sometimes necessary to fly BA if you are carrying firearms to hunt in the UK. My biggest problem with BA is London Heathrow airport. Whenever I go there, it seems 95% of the passengers have never flown in their lives and 60% have never bathed. But the BA top tier lounge is nice.

When we fly to Africa, Qatar is Plan A and Emirates is Plan B. Plan C is to rebook for a time when Plan A or B can be executed. You can use AA miles to book a Qatar flight, but you have to call AA desk to do it. We did it once and AA turned it into a shit show because someone failed to reenter the booking when flight times changed. It is a long story on how we got it sorted and we will never do that again. AA takes incompetence to a new level anytime another airline is involved.

We have attempted to use 2 of the highly referred travel agents in the past and they did not miss opportunity to severely disappoint us.

Free travel tip: Courtesy costs nothing but can pay off with big dividends. You can always lose your shit later but that should be the final option.

Safe travels!

 

[mdwest]

Just returned from South Africa yesterday morning on the DFW-Doha-Jo'berg route...

Firearms were a non issue... easy check in at DFW.. easy check in at Jo'berg.. and rifles and ammo made it in good shape on both trips with no problems at all..

Until things change with the US based carriers.. I would rather not fly to any African destination with guns, than to trust any of them... I pretty much only consider Qatar or Emirates at this point.. if they arent an option, I'll use a camp rifle...

 

[mdwest]

When we fly to Africa, Qatar is Plan A and Emirates is Plan B. Plan C is to rebook for a time when Plan A or B can be executed. You can use AA miles to book a Qatar flight, but you have to call AA desk to do it. We did it once and AA turned it into a shit show because someone failed to reenter the booking when flight times changed. It is a long story on how we got it sorted and we will never do that again. AA takes incompetence to a new level anytime another airline is involved.

Sadly this is the situation in many ways with AA...

Getting AA to recognize miles flown on Qatar using the OneWorld program.. you might as well be trying to speak Dari to a donkey...

Im flying AA domestically this week (no other reasonable options).. and am already dredding it...

Flying on US carriers has gotten to be a shit show in just about every imaginable way these days...

 

[xbr897]

You can use AA miles to book a Qatar flight, but you have to call AA desk to do it.

AA currently has Qatar award bookings available through AAs website. While you're right that it used to require a call in, now it can all be done online. Made it easy to find award flights and then even move them to have my dates align with the outfitter & my PH availability.

 

[SFRanger7GP]

Sadly this is the situation in many ways with AA...

Getting AA to recognize miles flown on Qatar using the OneWorld program.. you might as well be trying to speak Dari to a donkey...

Im flying AA domestically this week (no other reasonable options).. and am already dredding it...

Flying on US carriers has gotten to be a shit show in just about every imaginable way these days...

I am Executive Platinum for life with AA after being Concierge Key for over 10 years. Consolation prize for flying well over 100,000 miles for over 20 years and tolerating all the poo AA could fling my way.

We fly them back and forth to Colombia since any other option is out of the question. They do OK...most of the time. I just look at it as going to the dentist with alcohol being served.

Safe travels!

 

[xbr897]

I am Executive Platinum for life with AA after being Concierge Key for over 10 years. Consolation prize for flying well over 100,000 miles for over 20 years and tolerating all the poo AA could fling my way.

Nice! Had understood that AA didn't offer any level over Platinum for LT status but that's probably for us non CK folks

 

[SFRanger7GP]

AA currently has Qatar award bookings available through AAs website. While you're right that it used to require a call in, now it can all be done online. Made it easy to find award flights and then even move them to have my dates align with the outfitter & my PH availability.

Nice to know. Our issue came to light when I got a call from Qatar telling me my flight was cancelled because AA did not rebook after the times for the flights were changed. This was 2 weeks before we were scheduled to fly, and we had booked it 8 months out. They "only" had 90 days to rebook it after being notified by Qatar and did not. The Qatar rep sent me an archive of email sent to AA telling them what they needed to do, or the booking would be cancelled. After getting blown off by 3 levels of management, I had one of our attorneys make some calls.

Safe travels!

 

[SFRanger7GP]

Nice! Had understood that AA didn't offer any level over Platinum for LT status but that's probably for us non CK folks

From what I understand, I was the lucky exception, and they stopped doing it. But you have to tolerate a lot of pain and keep coming back for more in order to earn it.

Safe travels!

 

[xbr897]

Nice to know. Our issue came to light when I got a call from Qatar telling me my flight was cancelled because AA did not rebook after the times for the flights were changed. This was 2 weeks before we were scheduled to fly, and we had booked it 8 months out. They "only" had 90 days to rebook it after being notified by Qatar and did not. The Qatar rep sent me an archive of email sent to AA telling them what they needed to do, or the booking would be cancelled. After getting blown off by 3 levels of management, I had one of our attorneys make some calls.

Safe travels!

The trick I learned there is to add your trip in the Qatar phone app and keep an eye on it there. If there are any issues or failure to re-ticket then it'll show via their app. But, yeah, AA is not good on dealing with partner schedule changes for awards.

 

[Sideshow]

Not sure if you can do it with AA but I have linked my BA and Qatar miles through One world. This way I can use my BA miles with Qatar. Just make sure that when you do any booking you book through the airline that you want to fly with In the one world group.

 

[wesheltonj]

Not sure if you can do it with AA but I have linked my BA and Qatar miles through One world. This way I can use my BA miles with Qatar. Just make sure that when you do any booking you book through the airline that you want to fly with In the one world group.

Unfortunately, you cannot link AA accounts like you can with BA and Qatar. That is a great incentive to use Qatar. Now, I just have to figure what am I going to doing with my Emirates miles.