Why 180,000 Avios to Australia or New Zealand in Qatar business class is the new sweet spot

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• Yarki says:

  14 Oct14 October 05:26

  From most cities in Europe to Auckland is more than 180,000 Avios if booking through BA. BA wants 226,000 (? – definitely began with a 2 anyway).

  QR also does NOT release 2 Business Class seats per flight, so not sure where you’ve got that from. Or if that is the policy, it’s not followed.

  • MisterE says:

    14 Oct14 October 05:35

    How does this play out in First? I know BA F is more or less impossible although we have been lucky once or twice. What about F availability on Qatars A380s?

    • BJ says:

      14 Oct14 October 06:16

      There are only 6 QR a380s I think. They mostly service only London, Paris and Bangkok, and are to be phased out anyway. They have older hard products with some believing F is inferior to Qsuites. A lot of hype surrounds QR, including in this article. While I agree it is generally better than BA in most respects and is certainly amongst the better carriers, I disagree on the scale of those differences and consider it still lags CX, SQ, NZ, AF LP, and LH F. This year across 4 segments the in-flight dining was very poor, the lounges in Doha were horrendous, and the OTT personal attention was too much as always.

      • Harry T says:

        14 Oct14 October 06:22

        I don’t get any attention on BA, so I’d take too much any day of the week 😊

        • Andrew J says:

          14 Oct14 October 06:34

          Absolutely! The more attention the better. Nothing beats QR in every respect for me.

    • Rob says:

      14 Oct14 October 07:44

      My wife is flying it to Dubai next week (first leg anyway). 2 seats would be very hard though.

      • BJ says:

        14 Oct14 October 07:55

        I’ve noticed that sometimes when searchibg J award seats from EDI-BKK on QR on the QR site it sometimes returns segments in F on the a380 while keeping the cost at J redemption rates. These required longer layovers in DOH though so I never followed through to confirm if it would actually ticket in F at J price.

        • polly says:

          14 Oct14 October 13:59

          Useful to know. We booked QR J from DUB to HKT end Jan ret Feb. Must check again see if F available, worth a change fee for that option.
          However, if a QR ex EU J sale pops up, we will cancel those. Fees as stated above. V low.

        • BJ says:

          14 Oct14 October 15:29

          @Polly, F showed up on the DOH-BKK sector because it’s operated by an a380 on two of the daily rotations. It’s not going to show to HKT unless on the LHR-DOH sectors. I think I read that the a380 is being dropped from CDG.

  • Rob says:

    14 Oct14 October 07:44

    That is the policy. Guy who put this together is a friend of mine.

    • 1ATL says:

      14 Oct14 October 08:51

      Plagiarism at it’s finest…. by Rob Burgess …. and Guy

      • Rob says:

        14 Oct14 October 11:16

        He’s not called Guy, he is a guy!

        It’s not plagiarism of the Avios system, it is a deliberate attempt to align with it – with more to come.

        • Hbommie says:

          14 Oct14 October 14:47

          Oooh, 241’s?

          Game changer.

        • 1ATL says:

          14 Oct14 October 15:09

          👍

        • BJ says:

          14 Oct14 October 17:33

          These days I thought ‘guys’ were non-binary and the appropriate pronoun is ‘they’. Bur who knows, it gets more complicated by the day.

• Harry T says:

  14 Oct14 October 05:49

  It’s all fine until they overbook the flights and deliberately downgrade the passengers with redemption bookings. Multiple recent anecdotes on flyertalk regarding this.

  • Harry T says:

    14 Oct14 October 05:51

    But yes, you’d have to be mad to book Avios on BA when the alternative is QR. Far less taxes and charges with QR and it’s actual business class, instead of economy class service with an average to poor seat.

  • BJ says:

    14 Oct14 October 06:33

    Difficult now with the 744s gone , but on BA and other carriers it is always best to book both revenue and award flights on carriers that operate 4 cabin aircraft. On BA I always tried to redeem F so that any downgrade meant J, while on AF/KLM I opt for AF versus KL J because KL don’t have premium economy as insurance. Downgrades are rare in the grand scheme of things but where possible it is good to factor in some protection against them. With AY introducing PY, I think it will jump to top of my list heading East from Edinburgh, previously I was reluctant due to risk of downgrade.

    • Richie says:

      14 Oct14 October 08:18

      BTW KL are introducing PE, they already have some Dreamliners with PE. I don’t think HfP covered this news.

      • BJ says:

        14 Oct14 October 09:19

        Thanks, I heard it was in the works but not thay it had already started arriving.

• Rob H not Rob says:

  14 Oct14 October 06:21

  We’ve done this Oz booking though Qatar, 360k for two for LON – PERTH, returning MEL – LON not long after Hfp initially detailed the Qatar tie up so big thanks guys.

  A little bit of searching to find suitable availability dates, combined taxes were £1100 +/-.

  No idea what availability looks like now, but it worked our at just over 3p per avios value at the time.

• Andrew J says:

  14 Oct14 October 06:27

  Good to know. I certainly couldn’t imagine anything worse than Club World all the way to Sydney.

  • BJ says:

    14 Oct14 October 06:46

    I still have a soft spot for old CW for the single reason I enjoy sitting face to face with my partner. I am not tall or of large build so the seats work fine for me but appreciate that could be significant for others. To be fair to BA cabin crew, I have rarely had a bad experience and consider that they get the balance of attention and formality about right for me.

  • AJA says:

    14 Oct14 October 07:18

    I imagine economy all the way to SYD is worse…

    • BJ says:

      14 Oct14 October 07:33

      Rhys on the experience …
      https://www.headforpoints.com/2020/03/23/how-i-survived-a-24-hour-flight-to-australia-in-economy/

      • Andrew J says:

        14 Oct14 October 07:39

        I’d be staying at home then.

      • Panda Mick says:

        14 Oct14 October 08:54

        When you’ve done SYD-KUL-LHR-LAX in one go in economy, give me a shout 🙂

        (I worked for BT, and SYD and LAX were two different projects, so I wasn’t allowed to book SYD-LAX, because, you know, stupidtown. I did manage to convince the Virgin staff that my KUL-LHR trip was enough to push me into gold so then spent 7 hours in the VS lounge at LHR 🙂 )

        • BJ says:

          14 Oct14 October 09:23

          Sounds totally unbearable.

  • SamG says:

    14 Oct14 October 07:47

    Club Suites from end Oct

  • 1ATL says:

    14 Oct14 October 09:00

    What a sheltered life you must lead. How about Economy Class on any airline London to Sydney? Or Air India Business Class London to Sydney? Granted, Club World isn’t exactly a pioneer in Business Class travel anymore but it’s not exactly Gulag Class either. A sense of perspective wouldn’t go a miss.

• JC says:

  14 Oct14 October 07:01

  Does anyone know if the upgrade voucher earned through the barclaycard avios card can be used with qatar airways?

  • Rob says:

    14 Oct14 October 07:41

    No

  • Ted says:

    14 Oct14 October 14:23

    Integrating this and the 2-4-1, so we can use them at QR and BA would be immense, for us.

• AJA says:

  14 Oct14 October 07:15

  “Using a 2-4-1 and spending 300,000 Avios on British Airways to Sydney is not sensible in most cases. You can spend 180,000 Avios per person for a superior experience on Qatar Airways, , whilst also:paying less in taxes and charges & getting a superior seat and service”

  Not sure that makes sense. If you use a 2-4-1 aren’t you getting 2 seats for those 300k Avios? In other words 150k each? How is paying 180k each on a Qatar plane or 60k more Avios better value unless the lower taxes save you £600? The superior seat and service on Qatar also assumes that Qatar doesn’t swap your plane from Doha with one of their inferior 2-2-2 biz class aircraft plus you get the “privelege” of changing planes at 2am.

  Of course balancing that out BA also swaps planes to their old CW layout and the chance of snagging a 2-4’1 to SYD is rarer than most other redemption.

  Am I missing something?

  • Andrew J says:

    14 Oct14 October 07:30

    You are, yes:

    – paying less in taxes and charges
    – getting a superior seat and service (albeit BA now has Club Suite on Sydney)
    – having a wider choice of UK departure airports
    – having a far wider choice of Australia and -New Zealand destination airports and
    – saving your 2-4-1 voucher for another trip

    • BJ says:

      14 Oct14 October 07:44

      It comes unstuck for those who want to do a stopover somewhere on the way out and/or back, and I am guessing many people still do. If so, then there are better options to put the trip together using miles and save cash. Still, for those who just want to get down under as quickly and cheaply as possible with flexible tickets, and especially from the regions, this is a sweetspot that’s definitely worth highlighting.

    • AJA says:

      14 Oct14 October 07:45

      I can read.

      I am asking how paying an extra 60k Avios can be considered cheaper than not paying an extra 60k Avios (assuming you can spend your 2-4-1 on the hallowed LHR-SYD route)?

      I am not asking whether doing so gives you better value. And given my nearest airports are LGW and LHR I am not particularly interested in departures from EDI.

      I also pointed out that you are not guaranteed to get Qsuite on Qatar any more than you are guaranteed to get Club Suite on BA.

      I will concede the ability to fly to more destinations in Australia may make spending an extra 60k Avios worthwhile.

      • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

        14 Oct14 October 10:08

        You are not comparing like-for-like : The 60k saving is COSTING a 2-4-1 that otherwise could be saved for another trip. Most on here will use these vouchers for long haul redemptions and so likely save c.100k Avios on a future redemption. Ascribe a fair cost to the 2-4-1 makes the overall cost comparison very close indeed. That is before QR’s lower taxes/charges too.

      • Alan says:

        16 Oct16 October 23:35

        According to the article above you’re looking at about £200pp more in taxes/fees with BA cf QR plus you’ve not spent the 241 so could use it for somewhere else like the USA, etc. Also not everyone travels as 2 people, so it 1, 3 etc then the 241 saving isn’t as relevant.

        It doesn’t apply to you but avoiding LHR and only one stop to Oz from outwith London is definitely a big differentiator.

• Paul says:

  14 Oct14 October 07:43

  I like QR but Q suites was a bit meh for me. Their F product on he A380 was classy despite its age and the lounges in DOH still the best.
  Sadly I couldn’t find availability for my trip to OZ but I did find and even better deal.
  Amex points transfer to Delta almost instantly and Delta let’s you search using points even if you are not a member. Multiple seats on multiple carriers ex EU and LHR to Sydney and Melbourne. Fees ex EU were very low. I booked two one way flights as I was flying to MEL and returning from SYD, the latter be direct to LHR.
  I chose Vietnam airlines but KLM, Air China, Air France we’re all available when I booked in September for January.

  • Louie says:

    14 Oct14 October 08:01

    Intrigued by your Delta experience, but are you sure about KLM and Air France? I don’t believe either airline flies to Oz (I think BA are the only European airline that does).

    • Paul says:

      14 Oct14 October 19:11

      Correct, they don’t but, they were offered in conjunction with others. Vietnam via SGN and Hanoi was widely available then suddenly vanished, replaced by Air China via TPE (which had a 55 minute transit time.) A few days later VN was back. Air France and KLM offered SIN with VN or AirChina. Not the best routes but for 90,000 points and very low fees, a bargain.

      I couldn’t get stopovers to price at the same rate so chose a route that gave me a full day in Hanoi to explore and decide if I go back at a later date. I then fly to SGN and onto MEL.
      Returning is SYD SGN LHR. The timing of the return is the same as BA but layover in SGN is 3 hours. Not the best but again given availability and price beggars can’t be choosers. All flights on 787.
      Once I had the route I joined the Delta programme, transferred the points from Amex and worried!! But 2 minutes later points were there and I could book.
      I could not book seats either with Delta or Vietnam, indeed could not manage my booking on VN. I sent an email to VN London and got no reply. I sent the same to VN Germany who responded in 30 minutes. After that the booking was available in MMB and I selected seats.

      It was all very easy to do and I am looking forward to my trip

      • Louie says:

        14 Oct14 October 23:47

        Thanks for responding, I’ve learned something today. I find AAdvantage miles on Etihad to SYD/MEL is something of a bargain but it’s so difficult to earn AA miles, I might look at cancelling that to save the AA miles for later and use Delta instead. Any idea how Vietnam Airlines and China Airlines business classes compare?

  • Lottie says:

    14 Oct14 October 08:29

    I would be really interested in an article with a few popular routes in, for example, South East Asia and South America, and how to get there using an alternative to ba/Avios. My knowledge is really limited on booking points flights with other airlines. I have plenty of membership reward points, but need a steer in the right direction.

• Charles Martel says:

  14 Oct14 October 08:29

  Any gossip or rumours on whether:

  1. Seatspy will add Qatar availability.
  2. Amex 241s being used on Qatar.

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