Qatar’s Change Policy: Round trip Singapore to Brazil/Canada/USA in Economy from $760

Update (2220 hours, 17 May 2020): Rerouting now only possible 14 days after booking if your flight is not cancelled.

If you missed the Business Class fares that I posted on Thursday night, fret not as there are still some high value round trip flights in Economy Class to cities on the opposite side of the globe. There’s been plenty of confusion in the past 24 hours as members of Flyertalk have been reporting conflicting information from customer service officers (CSOs) from Qatar Airways’ call centers.

Do not be discouraged if your request gets rejected by a CSO. If you know the terms and conditions, all you have to do is have some patience and keep calling till you find a competent CSO.

Just a refresher on what has changed since my article on Thursday night:

• Fifth freedom flights are no longer allowed

• Cheap flights out of Colombo are all gone

• Distance seems to be calculated in statute miles now, not nautical miles

Flying to the Americas for less

If you are fine flying ultra long-haul in Economy, these are the best options at the moment.

Book			Change To
Depart	Arrive	Price	Arrive	Distance	Usual Price*	Savings
Singapore	Oslo	$760	Montreal	3,428 mi	$1,190	$430
			Chicago	4,054 mi	$1,220	$460
			Atlanta	4,421 mi	$1,400	$640
	Cape Town	$842	Sao Paolo	3,953 mi	$1,890	$1,048
	Lisbon	$854	Sao Paolo	4,916 mi	$1,890	$1,036

* On any airline with maximum 1 stop

Confirmation

As of now, there is nothing in the terms and conditions that would disqualify any of the above routes/changes. I had a family member who just booked SIN-CPT-SIN on Qatar’s official website by clicking through TopCashback for 2% cashback. He then went on to call the Singapore hotline (which got redirected to Doha) to make the change. It took 3 calls to find a CSO who understood the terms and conditions. The call only lasted 12 minutes. The final itinerary looks like this:

Understand the risks

If you are planning to make the booking, I would like to remind you that nobody knows how soon these countries will open up their borders and how long it will be till it is safe to travel again. However, because of this generous change policy from Qatar Airways, you will always have great options if you can’t fly.

If your flight is cancelled:

• You can get a full refund.

If your flight is not cancelled:

• Change to a flight voucher with 2 years validity and get an extra 10% in value.

• Change to another destination within 5,000 miles from your original destination.

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