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How do Qatar Airways ‘double Avios’ Flexi Awards work?

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Back in March 2022, Qatar Airways announced that it was adopting Avios as its loyalty currency. You can now link your British Airways Executive Club and Qatar Airways Privilege Club accounts via the method we explain here and book Avios flights via the Qatar Airways website.

In most cases, however, you don’t need to book Qatar Airways redemptions via qatarairways.com. The same seats, with the same taxes and charges, are usually available via ba.com.

One exception is ‘double Avios’ redemptions.

How do Qatar Airways 'double Avios' Flexi Awards work?

Qatar Airways has its own equivalent of the British Airways ‘double Avios for extra availability’ scheme, although there are significant differences.

Using double Avios on British Airways

The BA ‘double Avios’ scheme is called the Gold Priority Reward, explained in this HfP article.

In simple terms:

  • only Gold members of British Airways Executive Club can use it
  • you can book any seat, on any flight, for double the normal amount of Avios
  • you can book for anyone, not just yourself
  • you must book 30 days in advance
  • only British Airways flights are available
  • you can only book by telephone
  • pricing is based on the ‘most Avios, least cash’ option shown on ba.com (usually the £1 cash option) which means the flight requires a disproportionately high number of Avios

Using double Avios on Qatar Airways

The Qatar Airways version works totally differently:

  • any member of Qatar Airways Privilege Club can use it, regardless of status
  • you can book seats on SELECTED flights for double the normal amount of Avios
  • you can book for anyone, not just yourself
  • only Qatar Airways flights are available
  • you can book online

Here is an example from the Qatar Airways website:

How do Qatar Airways 'double Avios' Flexi Awards work?

This is a flight from Manchester to Melbourne on 7th November.

As you can see, no seats are available in Business Class for the first option. However, you can still book the second option.

Note the little ‘Flexi’ logo in the Business Class boxes for the second option. This means that you can book these seats, but it will cost you double the usual number of Avios.

In this case, for a one-way Business Class flight from Manchester to Melbourne, the cost doubles from 90,000 Avios to 180,000 Avios, plus £375 of taxes and charges.

(If you fancy this trip, note that you can book on 5th November for the standard 90,000 Avios one way at the time of writing. I cannot see these seats via ba.com, just qatarairways.com)

Here is ba.com for 7th November:

How do Qatar Airways 'double Avios' Flexi Awards work?

No Avios seats are available on Qatar Airways via ba.com because these ‘Flexi’ seats come from additional availability that Qatar Airways reserves for its own members and offers for double Avios.

Is this good value? It’s up to you. In general, the ‘double Avios’ seats are not cheap but if you are Avios-rich and cash-poor you may get good value.

You also, of course, retain the flexibility to cancel your ticket and rebook should an Avios seat at the standard price level appear later.

For Australia and New Zealand in particular, 360,000 Avios for a return Business Class ticket from the UK on the excellent Qatar Airways is still arguably a great deal. At the standard 180,000 Avios return in Business Class, of course, it’s laughably cheap although availability at this level comes and goes in waves.

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

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Barclaycard Avios card

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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British Airways American Express

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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

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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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

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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

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American Express Business Gold

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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 (25)

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

  • Ben says:
    24 Jan24 January 08:05

    Used this for flying Zrh – Mel over Christmas with the family. A lot of avios but relative to cash price of all carriers, still a decent use of points! Service and food on QR not quite as good as previous trips, but likely to be due to full business cabins on every flight.

  • doctorbee says:
    24 Jan24 January 08:10

    I am looking for Qatar reward flights to Zanzibar, and even though there is availability via Qatar (non-flexi), nothing shows up on ba.com for the same dates. Are you sure that you can book all normal Qatar reward flights via ba.com without having to move Avios to Privilige Club?

    • Rob says:
      24 Jan24 January 08:36

      In theory you can but there are IT issues. Works both ways – I got A380f via BA that QR didn’t show itself.

    • James says:
      24 Jan24 January 13:13

      I believe the main issue is ba.com only shows flights with connections up to 3 Hours (not sure of the exact time).

      Booking on Qatar or AA allows connections in Doha up to 24 hours so you get a lot more availability and options.

  • Tony says:
    24 Jan24 January 09:02

    “Arguably” is incorrect when emphasising a point…it’s “unarguably” !!

    • zapato1060 says:
      24 Jan24 January 09:14

      But inarguable is a dead cert. Arguable is reserved for opinion, and mine is that 360k pp is too high.

  • Mark says:
    24 Jan24 January 09:05

    One thing I’ve noticed is if I click on seats priced at the normal avios amount and don’t instantly book them, the next day they become flexi
    This happens often and is no coincidence.

  • MisterE says:
    24 Jan24 January 09:21

    Are Flexi Awards available in First?

  • ElSemm says:
    24 Jan24 January 09:41

    After months of laborious searching for any 180k return fare to OZ or NZ from Europe I gave up & booked BA with a 241. Seems like standard 180k rtn fares are rare.

    • babyg_wc says:
      24 Jan24 January 10:32

      When QR adopted AVIOS they were easy to find – i booked multiple EU-downunder trips, sadly they are super tricky to find these days… ive had to piece together IB(mad-doh)/QR(doh-akl)QF(akl-syd)BA(syd-lhr) to get to NZ for my last booking…

      • Rob says:
        24 Jan24 January 11:04

        There was a big drop of seats recently – we did an article. This may be the way forward now, with a huge deluge every few months and then nothing new released apart from the guaranteed number per flight.

    • Rob says:
      24 Jan24 January 11:07

      Except, erm, for the one on 5th November which I found at first try as per the article!

      You need to keep an eye on HfP for articles about seat drops.

      • babyg_wc says:
        24 Jan24 January 11:31

        indeed, November was no good trying to fly to NZ for xmas…. but the Hfp articles are great, so thanks! That said ideally seatspy would do QR reward flights (and extra BA 241 seats)….

        • Rob says:
          24 Jan24 January 12:48

          It can’t, because Qatar uses married segment availability. It may block off Doha to Sydney if you start in London but open it if you start in Dublin, Copenhagen etc.

          This is because the London ticket would cost more for cash than a ticket from, say, Copenhagen due to simple supply and demand, and Qatar’s algorithm means that it takes a larger implied loss opening that seat for Avios.

  • Grant says:
    24 Jan24 January 11:36

    Is there anyway of forcing BA to show the Qatar options? For example EDI-DXB if you search on BA will only provide BA flights (EDI-LHR-DXB) even when Qatar options are available.

    • NorthernLass says:
      24 Jan24 January 16:20

      It does often show these – I regularly see availability from MAN on QR. It could be to do with the connection times, as mentioned above. Have you tried searching separately for each leg?

  • Bunter says:
    24 Jan24 January 11:46

    If you book on a third party OW carrier I.e MH, are carrier imposed charges less if booked via QR than BA?

    • Aston100 says:
      24 Jan24 January 12:44

      I appreciate you may have been talking about cash tickets, but here is an actual genuine example using Avios:
      2 adults
      MH782 KUL > BKK
      Economy (as MH seem to never release more than one J reward seat)
      Through Qatar = 33000 Avios + 266 MYR (approx £44 at time of writing)
      Through BAEC = 36000 Avios + £69.60

      • Bunter says:
        24 Jan24 January 13:24

        Thanks Aston.
        I was looking at BLR KUL with MH, 1 adult, business –

        Booked through BA – 22000 Avios + £ 230.40
        Booked through QR – 22000 Avios + INR4160 (approx £39.27 at time of writing)

        Is this a bug within the QR website or have I missed something somewhere along the way – apologies for the if so!

        • Rob says:
          24 Jan24 January 13:42

          The only ‘match’ between BAEC and QAPC is for BA and Qatar redemptions.

          For all other partners, both airlines set their own Avios pricing and make their own decision on surcharges. The extra £190 that BA wants for this ticket is pocketed by BA – only the £39 that QR asks for is passed across to MH.

          • Bunter says:
            24 Jan24 January 14:25

            Thanks Rob, so in other words booking a redemption on another OW carrier should not be done via BAEC.

          • Rob says:
            24 Jan24 January 15:08

            If the taxes are the same then I’d do it via BAEC simply because cancellation is easier and BA allows online booking for more partners than Qatar does. If taxes are not the same then use Qatar.

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

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