Qatar Airways changed flight times - lost free seat selection

itsanne

Hi there
I booked flights with Qatar Airways just before my gold membership status ran out. That gave me free seat selection. I've now dropped to silver status. The airline has changed the flight times slightly. In doing so, they cancelled my seat selection. Silver status doesn't give free seat selection. Booking the equivalent seats now costs over £300. I'm getting nowhere in getting that waived. Suggestions appreciated! 

silvercar

I don’t think you can. It’s unfortunate but you aren’t eligible for free seat selection now.

there was a similar discussion on HfP from someone with BA silver status dropping to bronze (equiv to Qatar privilege silver) https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/free-seat-selection-close-to-silver-expiry/

itsanne

Thanks, silvercar. It's very frustrating. If they hadn't changed the flights times they wouldn't have cancelled the seats when my status changed - seems a sneaky get out of jail free way of doing things, especially when three of the four seats are still available on the new times and the fourth one has plenty free around it. It's also frustrating that every time I've flown that route there is a very short departure time change. It's almost as if it's deliberate.

eskbanker

I agree that it does seem very harsh to lose assigned seats simply by virtue of a minor tweak to departure time, which seems a different scenario from those covered in the HfP piece, or was the aircraft type changed too perhaps?