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You can now search, but not book, Qatar Airways redemptions on ba.com

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Well, its progress of a sort, I suppose.  Yesterday, Qatar Airways redemptions were loaded onto ba.com. This gives Avios collectors (and American Airlines members) a head start at making redemptions, ahead of Qatar’s official entry into the oneworld alliance at the end of the month.

For some reason, whilst you can search Qatar availability on ba.com, you cannot book it. You get an error message asking you to call your local BA service centre to complete the booking. You can, at least, use ba.com to find out what seats are available before you ring.

The key thing to remember when searching for Qatar redemptions is that they fly from lots of places, not just London! Manchester is the other UK departure point. Their interactive route map is here.

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, Paris or Brussels and you will get older equipment with older seats.

There are some good deals to be booked.

I did a random search last night. Fancy Christmas in Australia? Imagine you can’t get seats?

There are four seats from Manchester to Perth in Business Class on December 8th, for example.

My gut feeling is that getting TO Doha will be a doddle if you are happy to start from anywhere in Europe. Focus on getting seats for the ‘Doha to Your Destination’ leg and then add on the ‘Europe to Doha’ bit afterwards. Happy hunting.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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.

Category

oneworld alliance partners, Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (44)

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

  • Paul says:
    3 Oct3 October 10:34

    I have been able to get to the payment page for a possible booking next August.

    It is just a pity that the carrier imposed charges levied by BA are so outrageous.

    SIN DPS on QR round trip in J is £358. Avios is 30000 plus £95 with the breakdown shown below. Not good value and I rather suspect BA get £77 for not doing much.
    *****************
    Passenger Service Charge – Singapore GBP 9.80
    Passenger Security Service Charge – Singapore GBP 4.00
    Aviation Tax – Singapore GBP3.00
    Total government, authority and airport charges*GBP 16.80
    More information
    British Airways fees and carrier charges Per adult
    Carrier imposed charge GBP 77.00
    Total British Airways fees and carrier charges GBP77.00
    More information
    Total taxes, fees and carrier charges per person GBP 93.80

    • Phillip says:
      3 Oct3 October 11:27

      Given how many flights QR have to London daily, I’m finding availability very poor – well into 2014!

    • Rob says:
      3 Oct3 October 13:00

      Got AA miles? Whilst they were accidentally adding surcharges last week, in theory Qatar redemptions via AA should be surcharge-less.

  • Thywillbedone says:
    3 Oct3 October 11:42

    Off topic but I have some upcoming Qatar flights (starting 1 November) which were paid for some time ago – I would like to earn BA Tierpoints rather than Qpoints – anyone know how I can change my frequent flyer number for Qatar to BAEC – tried the Qatar website to no avail. Thanks!

    • Rob says:
      3 Oct3 October 12:57

      May be possible on the Finnair site after 1 November using their Manage My Booking feature, as you can change BA numbers that way.

      If not, just do it at the airport and ensure you get a new boarding pass printed.

  • Rob says:
    3 Oct3 October 12:55

    Yes, just seen this. Will try to do a post for tomorrow.

    • Alan says:
      3 Oct3 October 14:03

      Looks interesting – small print mentions iOS but click through to the Hotel Tonight one offers Android, so have registered anyway. Interesting feature that will grab your card details from taking a photo of it!

  • craig says:
    3 Oct3 October 16:25

    Wow – Qatar Air are joining One World! Things are looking up for the alliance, especially as TAM are joining next year too – having defected from Star Alliance. Great news for me as my family all go to Brazil every 9-12mths using BA or TAM, so them being aligned means joint ticketing and points transfers etc.

    Seems One World will have latin america (LAN & TAM) and the gulf region (Qatar & Jordanian) sewed up.

  • Phillip says:
    3 Oct3 October 20:03

    BKK-DOH-LHR is bookable on BA.com – both flights on QR. Disappointingly it seems BA is charging a significant amount to what would have otherwise been a cheap redemption as far as taxes are concerned:

    Government, authority and airport charges Per adult
    PZSE GBP 0.30
    Passenger Service Charge (Domestic) – Thailand
    GBP 13.90
    Total government, authority and airport charges*
    GBP 14.20
    British Airways fees and carrier charges Per adult
    Carrier imposed charge
    GBP 123.40
    Total British Airways fees and carrier charges
    GBP 123.40
    Total taxes, fees and carrier charges per person
    GBP 137.60

    BKK-KUL-LHR on MH only costs approximately £15 in taxes.

    • Phillip says:
      3 Oct3 October 20:12

      And some of the shorter two-class routes are only sold as Economy/First, no Business class option.

      • Wozza2404 says:
        4 Oct4 October 08:39

        This is likely going to be an AA situation. 3x Y miles for a short haul redemption in “F”, but 60TPs for a paid flight.

  • Maaaark says:
    4 Oct4 October 15:30

    Can you bump up a class or two by using Avios on Qatar?

    • Rob says:
      4 Oct4 October 15:35

      Potentially. We won’t know until the oneworld integration is complete. You can, for example, use Avios to upgrade on American – I intend to write about this one day.

      • Maaaark says:
        4 Oct4 October 15:41

        Excellent, fingers crossed then.

        I’ve booked a cash economy flight in Novemeber to MLE so would love to jump a few cabins.

        Is the upgrade rate universal – 25k per class I think?

  • Mo says:
    5 Oct5 October 13:16

    Just nabbed the last business seat on the flight I wanted FRA-DOH-BKK. Wooohooo!

  • Mark says:
    8 Oct8 October 22:01

    Does anyone know if you can use your BAEC number on Qatar flights currently to be credited with Avios?

    • Rob says:
      9 Oct9 October 08:50

      Yes, that is now active, as of October 1st.

      • Mark says:
        9 Oct9 October 09:26

        Thanks Raffles. Interesting the Reservations staff in Melbourne had no idea on this. I’ll try again at the check in desk tomorrow (fingers crossed). Any recommendations?

        • Rob says:
          9 Oct9 October 17:18

          Qatar has a huge number of airline partners predating its oneworld entry, BMI and Virgin for two, so any vaguely competent agent should be able to enter a frequent flyer number.

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

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