Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

More Avios-earning Qatar deals inc Tokyo £1031, Jo’burg £932, Seoul £1083, Delhi £875

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

We ran a long article on Monday covering some of the great business class deals offered by Qatar Airways during their current sale.  Remember that these flights all earn Avios and BA tier points.

Some of the best deals involved flying from Stockholm.  Good fares included:

Stockholm to Cape Town – £1,173

Stockholm to Dubai – £763

Qatar A350

Stockholm to Hong Kong – £965

Stockholm to Melbourne – £1,835

Stockholm to Tokyo – £1,193

Stockholm to Auckland – £1,440

A few other good options have come to light since then.  This page of the Qatar website shows the good deals available from Italy.

I was particularly interested in:

Pisa to Delhi – €1,009 (£875)

Pisa to Kuala Lumpur – €1,465 (£1,270)

Pisa to Maldives – €1,480 (£1,283)

Pisa to Seoul – €1,249 (£1,083)

Pisa to Shanghai – €1,259 (£1,091)

Pisa to Tokyo – €1,432 (£1,241) (drops to €1,190 / £1,031 when two travel)

Venice to Bangkok – €1,185 (£1,027)

These prices are based on one person travelling.  A couple will pay less due to the discount offered for two tickets.  You may also get an extra discount by using promo code VISA during the booking process.

You are obviously building in quite a diversion to travel to Asia via Venice or Pisa, but if you are relatively time rich and cash poor, have a sense of adventure or are simpy desperate for a British Airways Silver card at very low cost, these deals are for you.

Or try Cairo …..

If you are REALLY adventurous there are also some jaw-dropping prices out of Cairo although people are finding them difficult to price up.  I found business class flights to Johannesburg for under £700 which did price.  Melbourne comes up very easily at E£29,000 which is £1,275.

Whatever your view on the security situation in Cairo, it is unlikely to trouble you.  There is a brand new terminal now open and, attached to it, a brand new Le Meridien hotel.  Even if you need to stay overnight you do not need to leave the airport, although personally I think it would be a huge shame not to visit the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum.

Flights to Cairo for cash are not cheap so it would make more sense to pair it with an Avios redemption.

The Egyptian deals in the Qatar Airways sale are listed here.  There are 22 Egyptian Pounds to £1.

Or try Sofia …..

Bulgaria is another option for business class deals if you want to try something new.  How about:

Sofia to Bangkok – €990 (£858)

Sofia to Zanzibar – €1,030 (£893)

Sofia to Johannesburg – €1,075 (£932)

Sofia to Beijing – €1,065 (£923)

Sofia to Singapore – €1,115 (£966)

Some of the above are based on two people travelling.  The flight from Sofia is on a short-haul A320 but should have a ‘proper’ business class seat like this:

Qatar A320 business class

In summary ….

Read my sale article from Monday (click here) to see my thoughts on the different Qatar Airways aircraft and their business class seating.

All of these deals end on 16th January.  You must travel by mid December and blackout dates apply as detailed in Monday’s article.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (102)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Rimas says:

    Just want to say THANK YOU to Rob for a Twitter message on HfP

  • NP says:

    Missed out on the mega deals last night but taken the plunge on CDG-HND returning SIN-CDG all on A350. Worked out at £1135pp based on 5 travelling.

  • Jon says:

    Slightly off-topic, but related to a post from a while back, and may be of use to some, especially if you can’t make the Qatar sale work for your schedule/route.

    Rob mentioned Malaysia Airlines having a travel-agent-only “free upgrade to First” offer on J/C fares. There are also some (seems to me) very cheap First fares available via MH’s web site, cheaper than full-fare Business, albeit a little fiddly to find, As usual, the cheapest fares are if you go to KL and then on somewhere else in the region (Bangkok seems to be cheapest), optionally with a stopover, rather than KL-only. But the web site throws an error if you just search for a simple round-trip LHR-BKK in First, because the KUL-BKK sector would be in Business not First and the site evidently can’t cope with that… 😉 The trick is to do a multi-city search, and separate LHR-KUL and KUL-BKK on at least one leg – it will then tell you there are no flights available on various sectors but will prompt you to see business class options. This also allows you to do a mixed-class itinerary for the long-haul sectors, e.g. Business out, First back (the return to LHR seems to be slightly cheaper than the outbound). LHR-BKK in First both ways was coming out about £2.6k, Business out First back £2.1k and Business both ways about £1.5k. (I did a quick look at Melbourne also – £2.8k First both ways).I know some will say Qatar J is better than everyone else’s F, and cheaper, but for ex-London rather than Europe, and not having to transit the Gulf, personally this works for me. Plus three of these credited to MH’s Enrich programme will get you Platinum status / OneWorld Emerald, so equivalent to BA Gold, and almost enough miles for a Business redemption to KL 🙂 Book by Jan 31st for travel up to Nov 30th by the looks of it.

  • Mike says:

    I’m looking to book flights to Sydney through this promotion. what offers better value, paying with VISA to get the 15% (345 euro) or paying with my preferred reward gold card, roughly 4000 points? Any advice greatly received. Cheers

  • HayMow says:

    Qatar sale extended by 2 days to 18Jan!

  • M says:

    Have a question on earning BA TPs through Qatar.

    The 4x QMiles promo which is running seems fairly attractive. Is it possible to get the QMiles alongside the BA TPs? Or can you not mix and match across the two?

    Thanks

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.