News in brief:
Qatar Airways offering ‘kids fly free’
My discussion of the new Qatar Airways sale yesterday focussed exclusively on business class fares. The airline is also offering some good prices on economy tickets.
In particular, there is a VERY novel ‘kids fly free’ deal. On some economy tickets, children under 12 do not pay anything except for taxes.
There is a catch. This deal is only valid on ‘Economy Saver’ tickets in N and S class. On some routes you will find cheaper tickets in booking classes T, O and W (‘Economy Promo’) which negate the saving.
Here is an example I found to Doha:
As you can see, the two children pay nothing apart from £60 of taxes. The adults are paying £570 each, however, which is higher than many sale Economy fares to the Middle East.
That said, the average price per ticket in this example is just £313 per person which is exceptionally cheap for a DIRECT economy flight to Doha from Heathrow.
This deal is available on all Qatar Airways routes if you can find dates where the cheapest available Economy ticket bucket is S or N. You can ONLY book via this specific page of the Qatar Airways website – this deal is not available via Expedia etc.
You need to book by 5th September for travel by 30th June.
Another decent Club Europe meal!
After all the recent reports of British Airways cost cutting, which even reached The Economist, it is only fair to speak up when I find something improving. And, for the second time in a fortnight, I got an impressive hot lunch in Club Europe yesterday flying back from Venice.
What you have in the picture below is a stuffed chicken breast with potato and sun dried tomato. There was also a salad alternative:
If you didn’t see my similar article two weeks ago, this is the ‘cod and mash’ dish I had when we flew to Palma:
These were both decent dishes and hopefully represent a pick-up in the quality of CE meals at lunch and dinner on the longer European routes.
It certainly beats the airberlin economy snack we got flying from Palma to Innsbruck!
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
I didn’t find the IC Geneva that great, slept very badly and it was surprisingly noisy due to a building site even up on the top floor. Let’s say hello if you’re in Geneva!
Three of our four LHR-ZRH-LHR lunchtime flights over the past month have been variations of cold chicken with no apparent choice. (I don’t particularly enjoy cold chicken.) Two were chicken salad, i.e. with lettuce, and one was with couscous. Yesterday’s was a cold meat salad with blobs of cream cheese.
My own resolution (1): When I declined, I was offered ‘a biscuit’. Not the biscuit I’d had in ET in the past but a lemon flavour biscuit dipped in white chocolate. Mmm! I managed three on the way out and two on the way back. They go down well with champagne.
My own resolution (2) : At least at LHR T5 First lounge, I had a late full English breakfast, which did the job. Mrs Roger had eggs benedict and was well pleased.
Unfortunately, yesterdays lunch choice at the ZRH D lounge was said to be chicken curry and basmati rice. The ‘curry’ benefited from having had no contact with curry and the basmati rice was soggy. At least they were warm-ish. But why were Coke Zero and other soft drinks only available in litre bottles?
Raffles (or anyone else) – Do you know whether it is just Dubai which gets you the extra tier points as a result of the second leg being flown in First class? I am looking to book to Addis Ababa and BA’s tier points calculator puts it at only 40 tier points for business, even though it’s a 4 hrs, 20 mins flight!
On regional short haul flights, Qatar only has two classes – First and Economy. As there is no Business class to Dubai it is obliged to book you into First which triggers the extra tier points.
If there is business class on the Addis flight then that is where you will be sat. Annoying it is short of the 2,000 miles required to be treated as long haul.
Annoying indeed. Thanks for the explanation!
I was unaware you could secure a second adjoining room with Hilton at a 50% discount. Can this be done online or do you have to call?
OT: I’ve just hit the £7k spend on my Lloyds avios card, how and when is the voucher usually issued? Do I check my avios statement to see it?
Mine arrived automatically in my Avios account within a week, followed by an email a few days later.
Thanks, will keep a lookout for it soon then although I have no need for it until early March.
There’s a vouchers section in your account on Avios.com. I found it showed up there then later an email and finally a snail mail letter was sent confirming the voucher had been issued. Wish there was some added benefit for spend above the £7k though.
Agreed, I was begining to think the card was a bit redundant after hiting the spend target, I even moved it out of my everyday wallet into my overseas one. However, with the MBNA news today it is set to come back out again soon as the amex will become my highest earning avios card in absence of a BAPP. Given ever declining standards at BA, need to change at LHR and ever increasing difficulty of collecting avios I think I’ll probably just save them for shorthaul flights in Europe and Asia and buy my longhaul flights for cash going forward.
Look what I found:)
LHR-SEZ next easter break from 02/04/2017 to 09/04/2017 for 2Adult+2Child for 1846 or £462 pp in Economy via DOH of course.
I dont know my airport codes that well..but that seems an expensive daytrip to the beach on those dates Roger.
it is to Seychelles International Airport from London for a week during Easter break.
OT – Economist deal seems to be extended to 31 Oct but can’t get Canada to work?
OT: 1000 free IHG points https://www.opinioncheckin.co.uk/en-gb/general/lp-1000?jtype=d&offer_id=3351&affiliate_id=5587
OT: I see that Roger (not me) and roger (not me either) have posted in this thread, as well as me.
I’ve no idea who has the longest posting history. Only Raffles would know that (if he bothered). So I’ve added an asterisk to my name to try and make a difference. 🙂
You can also go to gravatar.com and add a profile pic associated with your email address 😛
Thanks, Alan. Just did it, so this is my first HfP attempt with Avatar.
Bingo! A bit small so I may change.
im getting cheaper tickets through the economy promo :/ …whats the point of the kids fly free program…