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.

Comments (89)

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

  • 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.

  • xcalx says:

    Totally OT.

    I have a number of £50 Tesco vouchers due to expire on 31st May, did I read a while back that Tesco are not keen on refunding multiple vouchers when only spending the minimum amount ie £2.50 to BA for 600 Avios and a refund of $47.50

    • Rob says:

      Not keen but they still seem OK with it. However refunds count towards your £300 quarterly cap.

      • xcalx says:

        Thanks for that Raffles. I have them over a few accounts and if this quarter goes the way the last quarter I will not have a problem with the limit.

    • Alex W says:

      How long does it take to get the “change” after spending a voucher? I’ve been waiting ages and now missed the end of the quarter, very annoying!

  • Mark LLL says:

    Off Topic, beginner’s question: I’ve 39,000 Qatar Qmiles expiring soon.
    How best should I use the points?
    Whisper it, but I’m flying with Emirates for the foreseeable.
    Have searched HFP for ideas , but still don’t know what to do with the Q miles. Extended the expiry last year (from memory,think I paid USD250 for 12 month extension) -which seems like a waste now.
    Grateful for any advice.
    Thanks Raffles for this marvellous site.

    • Rob says:

      I would be looking at what sort of BA flight I could get.

    • mark says:

      My mother called me as she was stuck in KUL, could not get on her flight to MNL as i had not booked the return yet. I did a dummy booking and it was <35,000 qmiles from MNL to Manchester and about $50…. You can get a long way with 39,000 miles as long as it's 1 way :p

  • Will P says:

    Just taken full advantage of this one and booked up from Oslo to HCMC with a stopover in Doha on the way back! 3 trips in one for £1150 a person in comfort. Fantastic.

  • Ryan says:

    Some long stopovers to AKL – does Qatar offer free hotel rooms in business class for a long stop?

    • Clive says:

      Only if you meet the criteria ie no shorter transits available and minimum connection time is greater than around 7 hours

    • Paul Jones says:

      Ryan,

      You can get the Crowne plaza city from around £60 with a free shuttle service and an on arrival visa in the business area is about £20 well worth it if you have a 10 hour+ stopover. Stayed there many a time and is good value. alternatively use the hotel in airport and just pay for the pool and fitness centre usage about £30 I recall

  • Trent says:

    Qatar offer the free hotel if it’s over 8 hours. Oryx Rotana was the one I got given on my AKL flight for April 2017 with an 8 hour 45 minute layover. You just call after you’ve booked. I called before I booked as well to make sure the flights I was going to book were eligible, so it’s best to do that I think. Hardly any wait time on the UK number both times.

    • Jon says:

      Do you have to have booked direct with Qatar, or will third party bookings (eg with expedia) count?

  • fbrj says:

    After much time juggling flight schedules, EU start points, stop off times in DOH, costs etc etc (I’m sure many of you will be only too familiar!) I have finally snagged for next January: OSL – MEL // PER – HEL for £1385 each. The MEL – PER bit is a good value 4hr flight in QF J for 20000 avios +£8 each (cash cost showing £950 each one way!). We have a daughter in Melbourne and friends in Perth so this has worked out extremely well.

    The stop off in DOH is approx 3hrs each way (just about perfect IMO!). We will fly to OSL the night before (so extra hotel cost) and currently could make the return from HEL the same day as we arrive there: LHR- OSL//HEL- LHR is showing about £125 each on BA.

    I found this initially on Matrix, checked on QR site and then found identical pricing in £ on Amex Travel (somewhat to my surprise) so paid on Amex as I wanted to ensure max travel cover on my Amex Plat.

    I know the DOH-HEL is on an a320 but it doesn’t look too shabby (see post 2259):
    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1709344-premium-fare-deals-j-f-151.html#post26618986
    Whole cabin is 12 seats.

    Now just waiting for massive QR flight schedule changes……

    • Paul says:

      Yes it’s really handy that you can book via amex they are also offering double points.
      I agree these fares suggest the end of avoid hobby however QR have been very clever and the deals offered last year have not been repeated this year. They support new routes then tend to rise. I wouldn’t right off the hobby just yet

  • David says:

    Is it possible to do open jaw on these fares? I would like to do ARN-HKG / HKT-ARN but trying to book this results in ‘no availability’ error on the return, despite there being availability when looking on the same date for a r/t to each destination.

    • Ralph says:

      Try kayak. QR website has never been great with open jaws. Alternative is to use avios on Dragonair for HKT -HKG for the return

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

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