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A new cheaper way to fly Qatar Airways First Class with Avios – from Frankfurt

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Qatar Airways has announced that it will switch one of its two daily Frankfurt flights to an A380 from 31st March 2019.

This may, in itself, not sound very exciting.  Don’t be fooled.  It opens up some very interesting possibilities for anyone wanting to tick Qatar Airways First Class off their bucket list, especially for anyone who wants to try out the amazing First Class Lounge in Doha. 

This is why:

Qatar Airways only offers First Class on its 10 A380 aircraft

Flights from London are blocked for First Class redemptions and even if bookable are expensive, at 160,000 Avios return plus charges

Flights from Paris now seem to be blocked for First Class redemptions (they didn’t used to be) and even if bookable are expensive, at 160,000 Avios return plus charges

The new flights from Frankfurt are NOT blocked for First Class redemptions and are NOT expensive, because Frankfurt is nearer to Doha than Paris or London.  You will only pay 100,000 Avios return, plus charges.

As usual in the wacky world of BA, the taxes and charges don’t make any sense:

One-way Frankfurt to Doha in Qatar First is 50,000 Avios + £227

One-way Doha to Frankfurt in Qatar First is 50,000 Avios + £99

Return Frankfurt to Doha in Qatar First is 100,000 Avios + £412 (so save yourself £86 by booking as 2 x one-ways)

Here is my review of Qatar Airways First Class (I flew it from Paris when you could still get First Class redemptions from there) and here is my review of the Al Safwa First Class lounge in Doha.

At present, there are 2 First Class seats and 4 Business Class seats showing for Avios on virtually every Frankfurt to Doha A380 flight from 31st March.

Business Class is also a good deal from Frankfurt, of course, as you are paying 75,000 Avios return compared with 120,000 Avios return from the UK.  If you wanted to try Qatar’s Business Class then you will save a lot by flying from Frankfurt and booking a separate connecting flight from London – although you’ll miss out on the excellent Qatar Airways lounge at Heathrow.

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

20,000 points sign-up bonus 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.

Category

Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (113)

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

  • LewisB says:
    20 Nov20 November 09:42

    OT – Has anyone thought about phoning BAEC and simply asking if Iberia can take out avios points from the 90k promotion?

    • Rob says:
      20 Nov20 November 10:28

      As if the call centre would have a clue …!

    • marcw says:
      20 Nov20 November 11:35

      From the Combine My Avios T&C: “Once Avios have been transferred to a Programme they are subject to the Terms and Conditions of that Programme as applicable at the date of transfer. In the event of any dispute as to the entitlement to the Points originally issued to a Member the Terms and Conditions of the Scheme under which Points were issued shall apply.”

  • Christopher Chan says:
    20 Nov20 November 09:45

    OT – My Swiss flight LHR – GVA was cancelled (fault on the plane I believe) and the alternative offered (landing 9 hours later than originally scheduled) was of no use and so I didn’t end up flying to Geneva. My return was booked on BA GVA – LCY. I have been refunded by Swiss for the outbound, however was just wondering if a) am I entitled to a refund on the return leg and b) if I can also claim compensation under EU261.

    • Richard says:
      20 Nov20 November 09:51

      Unless they were booked as one ticket, which I don’t think they are: no

      • Alex Sm says:
        20 Nov20 November 19:03

        I guess, this is the flipside of booking two separate flights as a security in case if you cancel/change outbound, your inbound is not affected

    • Rich says:
      20 Nov20 November 09:54

      No refund for GVA-LCY. That’s a downfall of separate tickets. You could try your insurance.

      No compensation for the outbound either, just the refund you’ve already had. (If you’d taken the flight 9 hours later you could have had the compensation, as long as not extraordinary circumstances, but no the refund.)

      • Sam G says:
        21 Nov21 November 03:23

        I had a problem with BA over two separate tickets both on BA….so no chance here! Their outbound was cancelled due to ATC computer failure and they wouldn’t refund my separate inbound, even though they hadn’t managed to get me there to fly it….

        Everyone I spoke to thought it was madness….even Ryanair aren’t that unreasonable. In the end CR gave me a healthy chunk of Avios to make up for it

  • Adam Brown says:
    20 Nov20 November 10:14

    Whenever I think about cancelling my Amex Platinum card I see how much it would cost to get the same with Priority Pass directly and suddenly 450 for 4 doesn’t seem so bad!

  • Ping Pong says:
    20 Nov20 November 10:47

    OT I still have the Amex Gold charge card. If I upgrade to Plat using the upgrade link, would the balance on the Gold card count against the £1000 spend to trigger the upgrade points?
    And how long does it take to upgrade, instantly or a few days as when applied to a new card?
    Also are the offers saved on the Gold card lost or retained?

    Many thanks

    • Genghis says:
      20 Nov20 November 10:53

      1) no. £1k new spend.
      2) instantly for the account (it will turn Platinum coloured). You can continue to use existing cards for spend
      3) retained.

  • flyforfun says:
    20 Nov20 November 10:56

    Priority Pass – Groupon offer a £6 voucher that gives you 50% off the Standard Plus offering. No sure if you can combine it with the deal above.

  • Richard says:
    20 Nov20 November 11:00

    OT – Dubai BA CW flights have been switched to Air Belgium – anyone got any experience of these? Worse, the same or better than BA? We’re travelling with an infant so have the middle pair of seats at the back on the BA seat map which would be ideal if Air Belgium have the same layout

    • Rob says:
      20 Nov20 November 11:31

      We did a reader review recently. They are ex-Finnair planes so better seats than Club World. Unfortunately they are ‘proper’ business class seats and not CW which is actually less ideal with an infant.

      • Richard says:
        20 Nov20 November 13:34

        Thanks Rob. The BA seat map has been updated now and we’ve been moved to row 1 (only bassinet). So might stick with air Belgium for the outbound (as overnight) and try and get the in bound changed to BA (as it’s a day flight and it’ll be easier to have the little one enclosed!)

  • Russ says:
    20 Nov20 November 11:39

    Can we have a minutes silence please for the passing over of the DOH-BKK A380 run to Frankfurt. I need a moment…..

    • flyoff says:
      20 Nov20 November 22:49

      Nooooo. That is a huge disappointment to me. I was wondering what route was going to lose the 380 party bus. The bar was superb. We were lucky when we were upgraded at the gate to First Class – I never got to the main course as the starters were so nice.

  • memesweeper says:
    20 Nov20 November 11:56

    OT: Trying to make an HMRC payment today with my trusty Curve MC Debit Card, and the payment is failing — the error message saying it’s not the right card type (as though the BIN range is not recognised as a Debit Card). I’ve used the card before, as recently as last week — is anyone else getting this problem today?

    • Anna says:
      20 Nov20 November 12:04

      I had an issue making a “Business Services” transaction yesterday. Declined 3 times but seems fine today, so may be wait 24 hours? I would always counsel waiting and trying again rather than contacting Curve with what might not even be an issue…

      • memesweeper says:
        20 Nov20 November 12:17

        This wasn’t (I don’t think) a decline by Curve. I get a different message when that happens.

    • Rob Walker says:
      20 Nov20 November 18:02

      I get a similar message when trying to use Curve with the government tax free childcare scheme. I assumed they were using a different payment provider to HMRC, but I’m not really sure as I haven’t had to make a HMRC payment for a while.

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

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