More updates on the Qatar Airways / Avios / oneworld partnership

I ran a piece recently about the Qatar Airways / British Airways partnership, which is now in place for earning miles on each others planes. Qatar Privilege Club members can also redeem for BA flights from 1st October.

Some more Qatar / oneworld / BA information has dripped out over recent days, so it is worth summarising:

October 30th is the confirmed date for Qatar joining oneworld

As per this news release, you will be able to earn miles on all oneworld airlines (and use their miles on Qatar) from October 30th

No confirmation that you can use Avios on Qatar from October 1st

Whilst we know that Qatar members can redeem on BA early, from the 1st, we don’t know if this will be reciprocal or not. Hopefully it will.

Qatar has dropped fuel surcharges on award tickets via its own programme

This is interesting. Qatar announced in an email last week that it was dropping surcharges on tickets booked on Qatar flights via Qatar Privilege Club. The question now is whether BA will impose surcharges or not for Qatar redemptions.

Qatar has added an extra tier to its programme – Platinum level

This is presumably very annoying to existing Gold members. Qatar Gold members presumably expected to become equal to a BA Gold (ie oneworld Emerald). However, with Qatar sneaking in a new top tier, a Qatar Gold member will only get the benefits of a BA Silver member. I would be very annoyed if this happened to me ….

Qatar routes flying the new Boeing 787

The current cities running the new B787 with the new business class pictured above are (ex-Europe) Copenhagen, London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Munich, Oslo, Stockholm and Zurich.  If you can’t get a seat from London, you may want to try a redemption from one of the other cities.  Non-European routes with 787’s are Bangalore, Delhi, Jeddah and Riyadh.  Fly Qatar on other routes, including from Manchester, and you will get older equipment with older seats.

You can use American Airlines miles on Qatar from September 23rd

Both AA and Qatar have confirmed that reciprocal booking will be available from September 23rd.  Annoyingly, though, it is highly unlikely that they will be bookable on the AA website and it is not possible to check availability on the Qatar website unless you have enough Qatar miles to actually book.  This is therefore likely to involve painful phone calls to AA, where the staff will try to persuade you that Qatar is not an AA partner and then tell you that seats are not available even though they probably are ….

I am personally keen to see Qatar tickets become available to BA members from October 1st, as there is a ticket I would like to book for someone to use during October! Let’s see.

You can learn more about all the points raised above on the Qatar website here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2023)

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:

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

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive 30,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 30,000 Avios) with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. You receive 25,000 points if you spend £3,000 in three months and a further 5,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive a huge 100,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 100,000 Avios) with The Platinum Card. You receive 75,000 points if you spend £10,000 in six months and a further 25,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

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.

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.

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.

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