£818 Business Class sale bargains to Asia on Qatar Airways (£566 Dubai, £979 Cape Town)

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• Ralphy says:

  29 May29 May 06:59

  With the low cost of oil futures and the prospect of oil staying low, $50 – $65 for foreseeable future, we are likely to see more low cost fare deals which, coupled with the paucity of Avios offers these days, and BA’s continued raping of its customers booking award flights, sadly I feel the whole Avios collecting hobby for infrequent flyers is becoming much more marginal now.

  • Adey says:

    29 May29 May 07:25

    Interesting….

    I haven’t booked a reward flight in over a year, but have paid cash for three Virgin UC return trips and one BA F return all transatlantic.

    Adey

    • Adey says:

      29 May29 May 07:28

      (I should add reward seats were available for these flights but the cash sale prices were too ‘cheap’ to merit burning through my airmiles).

      Adey

    • Jon says:

      29 May29 May 13:22

      I’ve given up with Avios – the effort involved just isn’t currently worth it with the cheapness of J fares meaning the taxes for redemptions are only slightly less than the commercial fare itself.

      I now use Avios I get for hotels on the avios.com website, (or whisky!)

  • James says:

    29 May29 May 07:43

    Not at all. Those who cannot afford premium cabin fares even at those prices will continue to find excellent opportunities with credit card sign ups and things like clubcard boosts and 2-4-1 vouchers.

    • Yuff says:

      29 May29 May 08:16

      I think Adey’s point was some of these sales beat even using a 241 and avios earned cheaply 😉
      Plus the food and service, on Qatar’s flights, is very very good 🙂

      • Brian says:

        29 May29 May 09:01

        Yes, but I think James’ point is that there are people out there who would baulk at paying £900 for a return flight to Asia, especially if it involved the extra hassle and expense of going via Scandinavia, and so for them, if they can get cheap Avios via credit card sign-ups, so essentially free points, it’s still the only way they can afford it.

        • Genghis says:

          29 May29 May 12:51

          I agree Brian. My wife and I prefer to go direct (up to a point) due to the convenience of 1 flight over a possible 3 (1 positioning for ex-EU and two QR). Time (and holiday) is very valuable to us.

        • Anon says:

          29 May29 May 22:14

          +1 Brian.

          £560 each + 120k Avios for BA rtn in CW to Makdives inc regional connecting flights

        • Anon says:

          29 May29 May 22:18

          Of course should QR do approx £800 rtn to MLE from EDI then that’s more like it…

    • Stuart says:

      29 May29 May 08:33

      I’m torn – I’ve currently got flights booked to Sydney flying BA Club using a 241 in Feb 17.
      I can afford these fairs and they don’t actually cost too much more than the tax I’ve paid and I’d save 250k miles but is it really worth all the hassle of flights to Scandinavia and then three planes over the convenience of just going on one plane all the way from Lhr?
      At least with BA I know there will be no missed connections.

      • Frankie says:

        29 May29 May 08:56

        If you need to get there quickly then stay as you are in the relatively cramped CW 8 abreast config of the 777 to SYD . If you love luxury and lounges and like the feeling of being pampered, and want to make that last for longer, and you’re happy to make your way there a bit slower, and have the time to add a couple of days to your journey to take in the position flights, then I’d change and use the 2 for 1 another time (always plenty of seat to New York)

        • polly says:

          29 May29 May 09:34

          Agree completely. This is now the 2nd time we have cancelled our BA F 241 to KUL to buy a QR J to Hong Kong. It’s a more spacious cabin feeling even than BA F. We will use the spare 241 to travel in CE to position. Avios are harder to collect now apart from tesco, card bonus, so using them more now to u/g the OH on night flights back from work trips. Plus last minute urgent trips to Dub. So earning on QR is a great new way too. But only if you have time to spare of course.
          Stuart, in your case l would be tempted only because it’s such a long journey. The difference space wise is amazing. We already plan on doing AKL this way to visit our daughter 2018 fingers crossed all being well. So, good luck with that decision.

        • John says:

          29 May29 May 17:43

          You need to stop booking 241s!

      • Yuff says:

        29 May29 May 09:12

        It’s all a matter of personal choice. If the choice was BA F or these Qatar fares then I would choose BA if there was only a slight difference cash wise and I was using a lot of avios including a 241.
        BA CW or Qatar ( on the 787, 350 or 380)plus hassle to get to Scandinavia – Qatar every time. 😉

        • Dan says:

          29 May29 May 09:29

          I struggle with seeing the sense into dedicating so much time into collecting Avios when you see fares like this crop up too if I’m honest.

          My tactic has become to save 2-4-1’s and the bulk of my Avios to redeem for routes that rarely see such good sales (Japan/S.America etc.) and RFS. But certainly wouldn’t be in a rush to burn a pile of Avios points to BKK, HKG or KUL where this type of sale seems to crop up 3-4 times per year!

        • RIccati says:

          30 May30 May 13:34

          You will also find that Star Alliance and Skyteam carriers often match these sales.

          Turkish is good — there is no shortage of options to SE Asia destinations.

      • Ralphy says:

        30 May30 May 05:53

        BA club is such a poor product

  • Sideysid says:

    29 May29 May 09:10

    Wait until the repercussions of a financial crash going into next year. We will soon see the return of the Avios conversion bonuses from BA…

• Yuff says:

  29 May29 May 08:06

  Yes 🙂

• Gavin says:

  29 May29 May 08:24

  Some great deals, but yet to find anything for the dates I need to get to Seoul at the right price. Also no Biz or WTP avios availability using my Lloyds voucher.

  • Sav says:

    29 May29 May 10:12

    I had this problem last summer. Ended up taking QR/CX to HKG, then avios flight direct to Busan on Dragonair/CX. The advantage in your case is that Cathay have many flights to Seoul so Avios availability is good, assuming you have enough. Usually there are no decent sales on Qatar to Japan or Korea, plus they tend to use their 777s on these routes so product is not as great.

    • Gavin says:

      29 May29 May 22:59

      I’m holding out for a Finnair sale. There’s a decent price ex Paris at the moment, but I do not want to visit CDG again if I can help it.

• Alex W says:

  29 May29 May 08:36

  It’s a shame these fares are not starting in the UK. My Mrs simply would never agree to going Ex-EU AND having to change in Doha. Getting her to agree to 1 stop is hard enough!

  • Tilly71 says:

    29 May29 May 08:48

    Agree, you have to really want to sit in a different seat to make all the effort and costs to fly from your uk airport to reach a european airport, do you have to do the same on your return leg of your journey?
    There is also the stopover time and your connection flight times may not work with your uk destination flights.
    Good idea if you can factor in a visit to these departure locations.

  • thomas says:

    29 May29 May 09:22

    And you are still together? lol

  • Yuff says:

    29 May29 May 09:26

    My wife is the same plus we have 2 children travelling with us.
    Having flown Qatar J and the BA equivalent, she doesn’t have a problem with it 🙂
    Plus if you plan it well it can actually work to your advantage as it did with our recent trip to MLE.

  • Jon says:

    29 May29 May 13:11

    Spin it as a mini-break in Oslo beforehand.
    And a few hours in a spa with a shower in Doha

    You can open-jaw these fares back to Birmingham for £100-200 more.

• Nathan says:

  29 May29 May 08:50

  Very tempted to book my Bangkok return again as going in September 16 and February 17 but I don’t have as long this time round and I found that the return leg involved a 20 hour stop in Doha. It would renew my silver status for 2017-18 though :/ tempting

• Sideysid says:

  29 May29 May 09:15

  Santander has it too as well as Emirates from time to time

• Nick says:

  29 May29 May 09:57

  Thought this headline was too good to be true £566 to Dubai! I did a doh – lhr on the all biz it was good but not great

• Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

  29 May29 May 10:00

  Someone on FT was also reporting DUB-TYO on Etihad in June for <£1k. Not an A380 route I think though unfortunately.

  http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals/1768389-ey-j-dub-nrt-rtn-1275-973-a.html

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