The villain appears to be TAGish with 20/14 over 50 hands.

I think I played this pretty poorly but I'd like to know what I should have done differently.

Merge - $5+$0.50|<> NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

MP: 1,490.00
CO: 2,795.00
Hero (BTN): 2,458.00
SB: 2,648.00
BB: 2,229.00
UTG: 1,880.00

SB posts SB 75.00, BB posts BB 150.00

Pre Flop: (225.00) Hero has Q A

UTG raises to 375.00, fold, fold, Hero calls 375.00, fold, fold

Flop: (975.00, 2 players) A 9 4
UTG bets 475.00, Hero raises to 950.00, UTG raises to 1,505.00 and is all-in, Hero calls 555.00

I think you played it fine. UTG is not nitty enough to get me to fold this pre. With this stack setup I favor flatting here with position post flop and evaluating. You hit your hand I think you have to go with it at this point.

I thought perhaps if I had 3bet pre then he had pushed I might have been able to get away from it then. Unfortunately by then I'd have lost 1/3 of my stack.

fold preflop. Hes tight, and hes opening UTG and he only has 12bb so there isnt any room to play postflop. If you think he is opening every PP Axs etc then you should ship it pre but i doubt thats the case for this guy.

What's the point of raising the flop exactly? I mean if he has a draw he's going to double barrel and if he's got us beat he's going to double barrel. All we can hope to do is force out pure air imo and we have a lot of SDV so that seems like a bad idea.

I think this might be a question of pot commitment.
Pre flop. If you want to enter the pot a 3bet will cost you 1200 about 50% of your stack. So you need to think whether you want to commit with your hand.
If you do flat call here pre flop you need to ask yourself what flop you are hoping to see.
Q high flop un coordinated?
Two pair?
Straight draw?

The flat call put you in a tough spot post flop.
Not really sure what the best move here would have been.

Pre flop is where you needed to fight this if you wanted to play it.
Even then ask your self two questions.
What if he shoves? Fold I assume.
What if he flats? Same post flop problems.

How would I have played it?
If I think there is a good chance he will fold. 3bet
Most of the time I'm folding and waiting for a better spot.

+1 I would have played it the same way.

the true range of the utg is important and a 50 hand sample leaves you guessing. some 'nits' open lighter utg than others for example. with a small sample you should revert to general tendencies and give his raise some respect and ask 'what does flatting a tight opener with 13bbs effective accomplish'?

given that when you hit your Ace in your example, and you are doubtful whether to commit, means you are folding out the very top of your flatting range - a huge mistake; because of your line and the pot odds. if you play your hand this weakly and don't consider also bluffing flops he checks then flatting AQ here is hugely -ev.

on the other side of the coin - if we 3bet shove a ep raiser (who we think is tight) with 13bbs effective stacks, we have the problem that we have virtually no fold equity, as we have to assume he will call any reraise with a huge part of his already tight range. If we assume a 10% opening raise, and we 3bet shove and he calls 80-90% of that range (seems reasonable, he may fold out A9/A10s/88/ type hands) then we have 50% equity vs his remaining stacking off range. Not great

When we 3bet shove a looser utg opener 6 handed (15% plus opener) with 13bbs effective, then we have some fold equity and so our hand value can widen. so if a gambling fish opens utg in this spot and you know he can fold to a shove at least some of the time, you can 3bet shove a wider value range as we figure to have around 60% plus equity vs the fish

I would have folded vs this 'perceived 'player type and stack sizes

just jam hes got 12 bbs

Seriously though guys, what's the deal with post flop? Why are we all trying to raise his cbet? Don't we have a better chance to win if we call? Isn't he only folding worse hands to our raise? Are we just afraid he won't bet the turn with his flush draw? We would have to be pretty convinced that he's never bluffing the turn to raise the flop and even if we were against some guy with that strange tendency couldn't we just fold to all of his double barrels?

playing the hand this way post flop just seems like a waste of our position.

I agree. There's not a great deal of value in re-raising the flop, as we have to call the ship if we're behind and he is folding all of his air hands and small-mid PP. I think calling here is the right play with intention to re-ship the turn and count ourselves unfortunate if we run into AK.