Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

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On Saturday I looked at the impressive £1,150 fares available to Las Vegas this Summer in business class on British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

If you are heading east, the great news is that Qatar Airways has brought back another round of astonishingly cheap sale fares to Asia from various departure points around Europe.  These fares are bookable for dates until 31st March 2017.

You need to book by Tuesday, however.

Qatar business class sale to Asia

As well as being great deals, you will earn Avios and British Airways tier points as Qatar is a oneworld partner.  A typical Qatar Airways flight to Asia from Europe would earn 560 British Airways tier points (140 + 140 + 140 + 140) return because of the connection in Doha.  That is only 40 tier points short of British Airways Silver status although you also need to fly four BA one-way flights to gain status.

The best deals this time seem to be from Scandinavia – Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen.  Helsinki flights do not start until October so ignore those unless you are booking for later in the year.

The Stockholm deals list is here.  Typical fares in Business are:

Bangkok SEK 11,195 (£916)

Dubai SEK 10,545 (£863)

Hong Kong SEK 10,395 (£851)

Krabi SEK 9,995 (£818)

Phuket SEK 10,945 (£896)

Shanghai SEK 11,145 (£912)

Singapore SEK 11,945 (£978)

The Copenhagen deals list is here.  Typical fares in Business are:

Adelaide DKK 12,945 (£1,322)

Auckland DKK 14,195 (£1,450)

Cape Town DKK 11,245 (£1,148)

Dubai DKK 8,045 (£821)

Hong Kong DKK 10,795 (£1,102)

Kuala Lumpur DKK 11,495 (£1,174)

Maldives DKK 11,995 (£1,225)

Melbourne DKK 15,445 (£1,577)

Tokyo DKK 13,995 (£1,429)

The Oslo deals list is here.  Typical fares in Business are:

Adelaide NOK 18,445 (£1,512)

Bangkok NOK 10,095 (£827)

Bali NOK 15,395 (£1,262)

Cape Town NOK 11,945 (£979)

Jakarta NOK 13,195 (£1,082)

Kuala Lumpur NOK 12,145 (£995)

Maldives NOK 11,445 (£938)

Singapore NOK 10,945 (£897)

The Helsinki deals list is here.  Typical fares in Business are:

Abu Dhabi – €745 (£566)

Adelaide – €1,845 (£1,401)

Delhi – €1,095 (£832)

Dubai – €745 (£566)

Kuala Lumpur – €1,295 (£984)

Sydney – €1,895 (£1,439)

As ever with Qatar, you should keep an eye on the aircraft.  The most modern seats are on the Boeing 787, Airbus A350 and Airbus A380 fleet.  The A330 and Boeing 777 aircraft are now all fully flat, however.  A couple may even find the older style seating on these aircraft better as there are pairs of seat together.  The newer planes have a herringbone layout where passengers faces away from each other.

The A320 short haul aircraft used from Helsinki have ‘very nearly fully flat’ business class seats even though it is a single aisle plane.  I have never flown these but the feedback is OK.

My review of the 787 business class seat is here.  The 777 business seat review is here.  I reviewed the A380 business class seat here. The food and drink is the same high quality whichever aircraft you use.

You can book these deals via the UK Qatar Airways site here.  Remember that you need to book by Tuesday 31st May and travel before 31st March 2017.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (October 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

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.

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

50,000 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer 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 (87)

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

  • Ralphy says:

    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:

      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:

        (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:

        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:

      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:

        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:

          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:

            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:

            +1 Brian.

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

          • Anon says:

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

      • Stuart says:

        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:

          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:

            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:

            You need to stop booking 241s!

        • Yuff says:

          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:

            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:

            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:

          BA club is such a poor product

    • Sideysid says:

      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:

    Yes 🙂

  • Gavin says:

    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:

      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:

        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:

    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:

      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:

      And you are still together? lol

    • Yuff says:

      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:

      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:

    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:

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

  • Nick says:

    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

  • Talay says:

    I priced up the LHR-BKK (actually LHR-OSL-BKK) for under £1000 (£824 + £146) but the QR flight times were not brilliant, connections were longer than I would like and there is the increased hassle of airline change at both OSL and DOH in both directions.

    Were FInnair still offering £1309 or so to BKK from LHR then it would be a no brainer but I could today get LHR-AUH-BKK on EY for around £1500 and whilst I would perhaps take the extra flight to save £500 or so, I don’t think I would put up with 6 to 12 hours (18 hours in on case) layovers in DOH.

    • Danksy says:

      My connection time is a bonkers 55mins on the way out Doha, then 3 hrs on the way back via Doha…ill be using my onbusiness points (otherwise expiring) to get us bothe to OSL and back!

      • Talay says:

        “My connection time is a bonkers 55mins on the way out Doha, then 3 hrs on the way back via Doha…ill be using my onbusiness points (otherwise expiring) to get us bothe to OSL and back!”

        Agreed on some dates but unfortunately mine isn’t one of those and the circa NOK 5000 fares jump to over NOK 10000 for the dates I would like. Other dates fine of course but as always, the best connections sell out fastest !

    • Leo says:

      Great prices which might might even tempt me to get my backside to Scandinavia but man when I look at the connection times to Krabi, Bali or SGN…..I can’t sit in Al Mourjan lounge for 9+ hours….

      • Ralph says:

        Especially as there’s no Krug

      • Jon says:

        The flight times to OSL change throughout the week. Returning from SGN on a Sunday I would have ~9h in DOH (for which I could apply to QR for one of their hotel rooms and visas for their transit programme). However coming back on a Monday their OSL flight leaves earlier and now only 2h in DOH.

        I know which one I will do, even considering the free hotel room.

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