Dublin to Shanghai

I'm looking for a return flight from Dublin to Shanghai departing around Thursday 1st February and returning around Sunday 31st March.  Usually I'm not interested in the T&Cs - but on this occasion I may want some amount of flexibility.

First over to Skyscanner ... and British Airways has the cheapest fares for the exact dates - starting from 497 euro (travel agent) ... and 504 euro directly from BA without hold luggage ... or 573 euro with one hold bag

Excluding BA the next cheapest prices are KLM and Air France

And excluding BA, KLM and Air France - the next options are with Virgin Atlantic

Looking one day either side of the original dates on Skyscanner doesn't result in any cheaper flights

Now moving to Kayak - their date matrix shows that by chance, the original dates are actually the cheapest

Looking at these flights on the British Airways website and the fare conditions ... it appears there is no penalty to change the ticket (but of course the fare difference can be significant) especially close to departure.  No refunds are permitted on this fare - which is not ideal.

Taking the "Economy Flexible" option on the BA website - the price becomes a jaw dropping 4,436 euro

Looking at these flights in BA Premium Economy - they are still non refundable

Even in BA business class - the tickets are non refundable

So what about the KLM flights - the cheapest including hold luggage is 756 euro - considerably more expensive than British Airways.  This ticket can be changed (subject to fare difference) but is not refundable

There is a refundable option on these flights (cancel before first flight) - which costs a total of 906 euro including baggage fees.

With the refundable option being so much more expensive - it's then worth checking other airlines / online travel agents

Looking at Expedia - the original British Airways flights are available for a "no cancel fee" price of 745 euro (including baggage).  But if you go through to the booking T&Cs - it says there's a 204 euro cancellation fee - which doesn't give me great confidence in Expedia.

Usually we could try BA Holidays or Virgin Holidays to see what sort of flexible package was available - but sadly neither of them offer "holidays" to Shanghai

Looking at other airlines as well:

British Airways - cheapest including luggage 573 euro; refundable 4,436 euro

Virgin Atlantic - cheapest including luggage 592 euro; refundable fare 1,720 euro

KLM/AF - cheapest including luggage 756 euro; refundable 906 euro

SAS - cheapest including luggage 787 euro; refundable fare 987 euro

Etihad - cheapest including luggage 846 euro; mostly refundable fare 1,243 euro

Qatar - cheapest including luggage 863 euro; refundable 1,843 euro

Lufthansa - cheapest including luggage 894 euro; mostly refundable fare 1,143 euro

Turkish - cheapest including luggage 999 euro; mostly refundable fare 1,129 euro

Emirates - cheapest including luggage 1,129 euro - but this is actually mostly refundable

So the current best price for a refundable ticket is KLM/AirFrance for 906 euro

The next step is to phone up travel agents such as Trailfinders to see what sort of flexible fare types they have available.  And whether they are able to hold flights until after a visa application result is received.

Another option is to book a reward flight and cancel it for a 42 euro fee once the result of the visa application has been received - and book a cheap cash fare.

Qatar Airways frequent flyer devaluation

Back in late May 2018 Qatar Airways devalued their frequent flyer points by around 40% - so overnight points that you could have redeemed to distant destinations could only get you to mid haul destinations.

When the Qatar Airways annual accounts were published in August 2018 - for the year ending 31st March 2018 - there was no mention of any post balance sheet event or upcoming windfall gain.

The only significant change was the hiding of revenue generated from the redemption of frequent flyer points.  In the 2017 financial statements there had been a separate "Frequent Flyer programme" line under "Other Operating Income"  - but in the 2018 financial statements this had been removed, and the previous year figures restated.

However the "Unredeemed Frequent Flyer Liabilities" line did survive - so we were able to see that it increased 18% from the 514.5m QAR in 2017 to 608.9m QAR in 2018.  This increase was significantly higher than the headline Scheduled Passenger Services revenue that went up by less than 2%.

With the recent release of the 2019 accounts, we finally got to see how much of a windfall Qatar Airways made from the devaluation.

This year the headline Scheduled Passenger Services revenue increased by over 14%, with a shift to longer flights following the blockade by other Middle Eastern countries - total passenger numbers increased by just 1.1%

With an increase in revenue, if the devaluation hadn't occurred, I would have expected the "Unredeemed Frequent Flyer Liabilities" to increase by something like 20% - to a total close to 731m QAR.  In fact the liability dropped to 462.2m QAR - which is almost 40% below would have been expected.  And chimes with the overnight reduction back in May 2018.

So whilst it was Qatar Airway's overall loss that made all the headlines in the news over the past few days - the loss would have been worse by about 58m gbp if they hadn't raided their frequent flyer points programme !