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Lowest ever Qatar Airways UK Business prices (Perth £1,425) but you risk NO BA tier points

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The Qatar Airways UK sale which finished on Monday does not seem to have the impact they hoped.  That is great news for you because it has bounced back with pricing which is unprecedented for UK-departing business class flights.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first however.

Qatar Airways flights earn British Airways Avios and tier points. Fly with them to Asia in Business Class and you would get you 560 tier points (4 flights x 140 each) which is 90% of a BA Executive Club Silver card.  It is a great opportunity.

Qatar A380

Last month, Qatar brought in a new ticket ‘class’ for cheap business class seats, ‘R’.  These sale flights book into ‘R’ class.

British Airways has been slow to update its partner list.  If you click here and then click on the Qatar logo you will see that ‘R’ class tickets will only earn Avios and tier points if BOOKED after 1st May.

I am not 100% convinced by this – I get a feeling that it will actually apply to anything FLOWN after 1st May.  However, the rule as it is written on ba.com is that you would need to BOOK after 1st May and, of course, that isn’t possible as this sale ends on Monday.

If you book one of these deals, you are taking a risk that you will get nothing in British Airways Executive Club.  The best you could do is credit the flights to Qatar Privilege Club but you would be nowhere near earning equivalent status.

Now that I have got the warning out of the way, look at these prices:

The UK sale home page on the Qatar website is here.  There may be other deals which are not listed so feel free to play around with their website.

You can book for travel until 31st March 2017.  The problem with booking a long way out is that Qatar may have another sale after 1st May which would guarantee you Avios points and BA tier points.  If you book today there is a chance that you get nothing.

These routes are under £1,000 in Business Class – and remember that you can fly until 31st March 2017 in most cases:

Edinburgh to Dubai – £880

Birmingham to Phuket – £980

Qatar 787 350 business class

These routes are under £1,250:

Edinburgh to Maldives – £1,130

Edinburgh to Bangkok – £1,140

Edinburgh to Singapore – £1,200

Birmingham to Perth – £1,250 (the most astonishing price I have ever seen for a flight to Australasia from the UK – but, in practice, I couldn’t find it.  I did find seats at £1,425 return however.  Sydney is around £1,700.)

London to Dubai – £1,250

The other thing to check with Qatar is which aircraft you will be getting.  It is shown clearly during the booking process.  The new – and fantastic – business class seating shown above is on the A380 (London only, some flights only), Boeing 787 and A350 aircraft.  Try to prioritise flights with those aircraft.  The excellent food, drink and IFE will be the same irrespective of plane type.

My review of the Qatar A380 business class seating is here, the Boeing 787 business class seating here and the Boeing 777 seat here.

There are lots more deals where these came from.  I recommend taking a look at the Qatar sale page here.  The main booking page is here.  You have until Monday night to book.

It is just s…o…o…o frustrating that you cannot be certain of earning even a single Avios or tier point from these fares.  If you can buy a Perth ticket for £1,250 or £1,425 return, however, I doubt you care.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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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

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

Category

Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (119)

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

  • LEE says:
    20 Apr20 April 14:01

    any one else still waiting on there Curve Card , emailed them 3 days ago no response was told my card has been sent but not received it ?, phone number is constantly engaged , customer service is not good dont think they have any staff , with all the talk on flyertalk about them losing amex im wondering if they have just suddenly processed all the payments to make sure they have there funds ? just want what we paid and signed up for ordered the card nearly 2 months ago

    • Nick M says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:10

      In the email it says it could take around a week to arrive…

    • Genghis says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:19

      I sent them an email yesterday and received a response within 5-10 mins!

    • AndyR says:
      20 Apr20 April 18:36

      What do you mean losing Amex? Are you saying you might not be able to link an Amex to Curve in future? Thanks.

    • JamesWag says:
      20 Apr20 April 18:38

      If they have lost Amex I don’t want it anymore 🙁

  • Chris says:
    20 Apr20 April 14:31

    OT but has everyone, who signed up, got their CURVE card ?

    I´m in Spain and just got the 2nd “sorry for the delay” email from them.
    Latest update is ” We hope to ship in Summer 2016″ …….
    you know its all over the place when the shipping date quoted is a season.
    🙁

    • Genghis says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:33

      I signed up on the day of release and my shipping date is end of April. Others have had theirs delivered and are using it.

      • Jonny says:
        20 Apr20 April 14:45

        I got mine a few weeks ago (and have been using it successfully since) – think mine came in the initial batch, so was obviously a little bit lucky

    • Lebron James says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:51

      indeed on the “seasons” point, often the preserve of hotels and “soft opening” dates.

      • harry says:
        20 Apr20 April 14:56

        I’m guessing that Amex have already kicked up a fuss at cash withdrawals & the associated Avios.

        After all – who ends up paying for these points?

        • Rob says:
          20 Apr20 April 15:15

          That’s not it. Amex loves this, they are getting paid on transactions where they would never have been paid before.

          • Chris says:
            20 Apr20 April 15:24

            Glad Amex love it, was worried that I wont have the opportunity to cane it before Amex get p*ssed off and stop the party.

          • Genghis says:
            20 Apr20 April 15:25

            I understand Curve’s business model for making purchases in a shop. However, if I use the Curve card to withdraw £200 from the cash machine backed by a BAPP (for example), who is funding the 300 avios that I would have earned?

          • harry says:
            20 Apr20 April 15:44

            exactly – Schadenfreude is not in my vocabulary, I can quite see that Amex love the additional purchases that come with Curve – but on cash withdrawals…

            I withdraw £100 on my BMI Diamond Club Amex
            I get £100 + 200 points
            those points have cost somebody 0.67p or more x 200 = £1.34

          • Rob says:
            20 Apr20 April 16:55

            Curve pays Amex the standard purchase fee, Amex buys the miles. Same as usual.

          • AndyR says:
            20 Apr20 April 18:34

            Curve are effectively paying for them.

          • John says:
            20 Apr20 April 18:59

            What sort of fees are charged between banks when you do normal cash withdrawals (i.e. with your debit card, or ‘genuine’ prepaid cards)?

          • Rob says:
            20 Apr20 April 23:09

            Curve gets the standard few pence and pays Amex the standard interchange fee – which means a big gap.

  • Leo says:
    20 Apr20 April 16:08

    Are we going to have a CURVE discussion every day now?

  • Lebron James says:
    20 Apr20 April 17:14

    VERY SORRY TO BE BEARER OF BAD NEWS, BUT –

    HILTON STATUS MATCH IS GONE!!!! OH NO…..

    RAFFLES, ANY THOUGHTS ON WHY THAT MAY BE?

    CHEERS

    • Rob says:
      20 Apr20 April 17:16

      Oh, interesting. Dunno …. possibly mass oversubscription?

      Odd there is no message though, just a redirect.

  • Andrew H says:
    20 Apr20 April 17:45

    O/T – Iberia Plus offer of 5 avios per euro spent has gone up to 8.

    • harry says:
      20 Apr20 April 18:12

      So if you went for 100K – which ISTR was about 1320 euros, you’d have been about 4000 Avios better off procrastinating 🙂

      • harry says:
        20 Apr20 April 18:46

        reworking my ‘I might do this’ example…

        Some people are saying why bother with 2000 avios @ 0.7p? – agreed it’s only 2000 for potential hassle. What about 18,000 for under 0.9p?

        Crunching the math to get best, decent amount + discount (5 Groupons) = 1 x 2000 + (4 x 4000) = total 18,000 avios. Cost EUR215

        You buy through IB Plustore. = 1720 Avios

        You get another 340 Avios on your Amex card.

        Total 20,060 Avios = 1.072c/ Avios = c. 0.84p/ Avios

        Decent biggish amount 18K @ 0.84p/ Avios

  • John says:
    20 Apr20 April 18:08

    All,

    Just had the pleasure of being on the phone to BA for one hour !

    Got through to a Manager based in the Newcastle office at British Airways . He advised

    1) It is Qatar who decides what fares are eligable for points in oneworld . It is negotiated between airlines and agreed . In this instance the new R class is from May 1st .
    2) You will not earn tier points or Avios before 1st May if you book now .
    I was hoping to have my cake and eat it ! – Oh well decisions decisions !

    • The_Real_A says:
      20 Apr20 April 18:57

      I wonder if there is some financial transfer between airlines for the points – hence the contract?

    • Rob says:
      20 Apr20 April 23:12

      The call centre staff just read off the scripts they are given. No manager actually knows how the BA IT goes and especially how BA IT picks up the purchase date of a ticket issued by another airline. I still wouldn’t risk it if I needed the TPs but you shouldn’t take what they say as gospel.

    • flyer says:
      26 Apr26 April 17:17

      My Qatar flight in R class is on 5th May but I booked in April. i spoke with BA who said I’d earn tier points but when I questioned it and asked for clarification they checked and said I wouldn’t earn. They already had my ticket in their system as I’d inputted my Executive number and could see the transaction date. oh well – i’ll get my money’s worth in the lounge!

  • whiskerxx says:
    20 Apr20 April 18:42

    Why do so many people have to keep generating discussion about matters entirely unrelated to the thread (yeah….don’t tell me not to read them, because it’s necessary to pick out the ones that are relevant) Often the usual suspects. It isn’t a forum, so can’t you just take the chat elsewhere??

    • John says:
      20 Apr20 April 18:55

      I find it a bit annoying too, but 1) occasionally there are offtopic things that I useful, 2) it isn’t difficult to skim them, 3) most offtopic things can be justified as being “of interest to many HFP readers” and 4) there isn’t a better place to “take the chat”

    • Andrew H says:
      20 Apr20 April 22:25

      I used to post comments on the relevant article but the problem with that is that 1) very few people see it, because they’re all posting on the three most recent articles; 2) You’re trying to keep track of too many article threads and it drives you mad; 3) there is no system set up to notify you of a new comment on a particular thread, other than the ‘last five comments’ section on the front page. It’s much more beneficial to post on the three latest articles because that is where the majority of people are looking.

      • Rob says:
        20 Apr20 April 23:08

        It is chaotic but it is the best option!

        I am considering – because I have found some nifty software to do it – opening a Q&A section. This has some of the benefits of a forum (ie people can get answers to random questions) without the downsides (random tangential discuss which requires moderation). It may suddenly appear one day ….

        The large number of comments on the articles also has benefits for me as it hugely impresses all of the industry people I meet. You can fake your page views, Facebook fans etc but you can’t fake 100+ generally constructive comments per day.

  • James says:
    20 Apr20 April 21:23

    ON TOPIC

    Something Ive noticed on MyFlights app is that these flights Ive booked are down as Economy…
    I doubled checked on the website and the confirmation emails and its Business class.

    Perhaps this has something to do with it being R class?? Was that originally an economy fare?

    • whiskerxx says:
      20 Apr20 April 22:15

      Just checked mine on MyFlights and Checkmytrip, and have the same scenario. Economy class R.
      But email confirmation says Business class and seats are reserved at the front.

      • Yan says:
        20 Apr20 April 22:42

        has been like this since QR’s introduction of R class in recent sales. ITA can’t recognise it correctly either

        • Phillip says:
          21 Apr21 April 08:27

          Interestingly, BA’s R Class is showing as Business on MyFlights.

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

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