Amazing business deals (Avios earning) from Qatar Airways – Maldives £907, Singapore £837

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• CV3V says:

  12 Jan12 January 11:49

  Ok, what’s the deal with Gotogate?! I just priced up return flights on BA from EDI – LHR at half the price of the BA website! No clue as to whether its a HBO fare, but either way still much cheaper.

  • CV3V says:

    12 Jan12 January 11:53

    found option for adding bag, so HBO fare.

  • harry says:

    12 Jan12 January 11:56

    No idea why some routes work, I checked out the European flight I booked this morning on GTG and they were £20 more expensive.

  • JQ says:

    12 Jan12 January 13:19

    They may have bulk-purchased some seats from BA?

    • Rob says:

      12 Jan12 January 16:31

      BA doesn’t do that. Isn’t there even a ba.com price promise?

      • Brian says:

        13 Jan13 January 04:15

        There is – but the conditions are a bit like IHG’s BRG – there is so much scope for them to refuse it.

• Sarah Davis says:

  12 Jan12 January 14:11

  Thanks for the heads up on this… just booked our Christmas / NY family & friends trip to NZ & Sydney from Paris – Paris/Sydney return is around £1700 (waiting for the EUR conversion confirmation) and the internal AUS/NZ flights around £300. It I’m going to spend Christmas with my MIL then I might as well arrive in a comfy seat… I love Quatar’s BC service having experienced it several times to Perth for work.

  Got a sligthly long layover in Doha on the outbound leg, but it’s daytime and we have friends posted there for work at the moment so a few hours with them and some lunch will make the time fly.

• VP says:

  12 Jan12 January 14:44

  OTP: Have got an email from Amex today offering 20,000 points to upgrade my Gold to Platinum (£1K spend required in 3 months after upgrade). Is this a routine offer or an enhanced offer?
  The email doesn’t mention any deadline. (“Offer can be withdrawn anytime”).

  • Rob says:

    12 Jan12 January 16:30

    There used to be a 15,000 point offer so this seems like an improvement. I would do it, order the hotel status cards, and cancel (or downgrade to Gold).

    • Pol says:

      12 Jan12 January 17:11

      The link for the 15,000 upgrade points no longer works. Was trying to upgrade today.

      • Stuart says:

        12 Jan12 January 20:14

        I was planning to upgrade SWMBO’s card today too 🙁 Is the new URL personalised?

        • ankomonkey says:

          12 Jan12 January 20:40

          URL my wife got looks personalised, but the pages when you click through look more standard. They still carry a few variables on their URLs, though, that look like it’s targetted.

        • Stuart says:

          12 Jan12 January 20:58

          does it still work by removing all the varibles?

      • Rob says:

        12 Jan12 January 20:19

        Thanks, will delete

    • VP says:

      12 Jan12 January 18:59

      Thanks for the advice Raffles. I didn’t know that I could downgrade it to Gold (don’t want to loose points till I find some suitable use for them). Will definitely follow your advice.

    • Liz says:

      12 Jan12 January 19:55

      If you upgrade to platinum for the 20000 pts then downgrade back to gold do you have to pay the gold fee or does that remain free

      • Rob says:

        12 Jan12 January 20:18

        You pay

  • ankomonkey says:

    12 Jan12 January 20:33

    My wife got this offer too. Her free first year finishes 2 weeks from today. I wonder if this is timed accordingly.

    • VP says:

      12 Jan12 January 23:48

      I am in second month of my second year so perhaps its something they have decided to offer beginning of this year?

  • Mike says:

    13 Jan13 January 17:32

    Same offer here, I have about 4 weeks left to renew or cancel the gold card. Haven’t decided what to do yet but will weigh everything up – I may cancel my current platinum RBS bank account and opt for the platinum – decisions, decisions

• Brendan says:

  12 Jan12 January 15:09

  Looks like the Gotogate OSL-BKK fares have been fixed now

  • Rob says:

    12 Jan12 January 16:29

    Thanks – I have amended the article.

    • Jules says:

      13 Jan13 January 05:41

      I think they’re reselling a batch of pre-bought tickets or something as they still have heavily discounts CPH-BKK ones, @ £710 it’s over £200 cheaper than Qatar direct

• alan says:

  12 Jan12 January 15:23

  looking for some autumn sun I looked in the ba sale today 7-10 nights in the Dominican Republic in 4* all inclusive with CW flights from Gatwick £1500-£1700 per person

• hello says:

  12 Jan12 January 16:59

  OT does anyone have a BAEC customer relations email address? Would like to ask for a short extension of my tier point collection year…

  • bsuije says:

    13 Jan13 January 00:11

    Sorry, not answering your question directly but hopefully sharing some helpful experience.

    I rang BA a couple of weeks ago to also ask for an extension. They said OK, but that I would need to ring back after I’ve done my flights and they’ll process my request then.

    Something interesting I found out, though, was that they have 2 offers for people who are a bit short of TPs. Number 1 is a 2-week extension to the collection period, which I had heard of previously. Number 2, which was news to me, was that they had leeway to give you status if you were 20 TPs short (not sure if that works through BA crediting 20 TPs to your account as a freebie, though).

    Unfortunately, I’m 30 TPs short, so I could only go for the two weeks, but I thought 20 TPs was quite generous, especially given the reduced earning on most of my flights nowadays.

    The person on the phone did check my status (Silver) and how long I’ve had it for (2 years) first, though, so that may play a part. HTH

    • harry says:

      13 Jan13 January 06:49

      That’s interesting to note. They do have some flexibility/ ability to positively help. I got a name changed on a BA ticket for free just by being nice on the phone & lucking out with a nice agent.

• Daftboy says:

  12 Jan12 January 17:22

  I booked this morning (AMS-BKK for €2300 in October, quite happy!) – I’ve just received an email from Qatar Ecommerce Support requesting a copy of my passport and my credit card statement.

  It appears to be legit (it has the booking reference, and is from an address published on the Qatar website), but I wondered if anyone had received anything similar?

  I assume I have fallen foul of some anti-fraud rules or something.

  • Jason says:

    12 Jan12 January 18:57

    I had a similar request when I booked in November.

    • Daftboy says:

      12 Jan12 January 19:19

      Thanks Jason, that’s reassuring (and makes it less likely some fraudsters will be stealing my identity…!)

      • Brian says:

        13 Jan13 January 04:18

        Sounds dodgy. I would phone Qatar using a number found on their website, NOT in the email, and check it is legit before sending such information.

        • Daftboy says:

          13 Jan13 January 18:18

          I know, sounds extremely dodgy! But I verified the details (albeit via their Twitter rep), and independently found the section on their website which permits submission of the information requested.

  • Polly says:

    13 Jan13 January 06:48

    Same with us when we booked J flights to HKT, I thought also it was spam, but if you book through an agent, your identity is verified apparently.

    • Danksy says:

      13 Jan13 January 07:13

      I booked via gotogate, no ID required and flights confirmed? However I did put my BAEC numbers in for me and Mrs D

      • Polly says:

        13 Jan13 January 17:06

        Has anyone ever had to do a date change using GTG, have never used this service before but the change option is quite useful on QR J usually quite lenient with a fee of course. Am going to book later, and would appreciate any info , thanks.

• imbruce says:

  12 Jan12 January 17:41

  Not sure I can justify double the cost of a current Economy ticket to Sydney just to fly business class.

  has anyone used Juicy Miles as a reward redemption service?

  • Brian says:

    13 Jan13 January 04:20

    Just do it! Once you step into the 787 Dreamliner business class, you’ll be thanking your lucky stars you made the decision. (The A380 has less of the wow-factor, I find, unless you think that sitting at a small bar in a plane is the ultimate…).

    • great_circle says:

      13 Jan13 January 09:38

      Couldn’t agree more, flew on QR’s 787 in J from AMS to DOH 10 days ago and I must say the A380 from DOH to BKK appeared very crowded as it was fully booked. In fact, so much fully booked that I ended up with a seat upgrade to F 🙂 which made it a bit of a shame that the flight is only 5:15 hours.

  • Enigma368 says:

    13 Jan13 January 09:07

    If you have the money do it! It might be double the cost but you will get some rebate as you will get a lot more miles. Plus you will practically get silver status with BA.

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