BA or Qatar x3 avios seats business class.

[Woody]

Good evening,

I’m planning a trip to Australia for UK School Summer holiday 2026… most likely taking little one out a few days before term ends. She’ll be 5 so not the end of her educational world.

Anyway, I’ve collecting points for a few years, but pretty naive as to maximising them and apologies if my questions are basic.

Is it ever possible to get x3 return tickets business class on either BA or Qatar using avios?

If I book via BA I will also have a BA companion voucher and cabin upgrade voucher in my wallet.
But appreciate it’ll be a slim chance of using these.

If I book via Qatar, I know I can’t use the vouchers but my partner and I have enough avois to cover the return, and I’m presuming we could use our avios to also cover our daughters flight as she doesn’t have her own avios pot.

Just trying to figure out if it’s even going to be possible to book x3 seats or if both airlines only ever release x2 business class reward seats per flight.

Thank you so much.

[M001]

BA is virtually impossible – you can call up 355 days before at midnight and hopefully get them but far better to go Qatar…there is a good article on here about it if you search for Australia on the main site.

In my experience, Qatar only release 2 x business class at saver level. We travel as a 3 and usually have to book 2 seats at saver level and then 1 seat on a separate booking (same flights) at double the number of points. It still works out cheaper than BA. However, don’t search for 3 seats as they will all be priced at double points.

[NorthernLass]

@Woody, you’d benefit from doing some proper research on avios and the 2 vouchers – the articles and threads on here are full of useful info. See especially Rob’s guides to avios and vouchers and the “booking the return at T-355 with the 241” thread.
BA guarantees to release 4 x CW seats (and the 241 can increase this) on each flight and people do manage to book them – a new reader posted just yesterday that they’d managed to book SYD for next December.

[MallyEFC]

Good luck getting Qatar classic award seats during peak times. I did read on here that Qatar claims to release two classic award seats per flight, but the experience of one chap on here trying to book them during the summer months would suggest otherwise. I have recently been trying to book them for next December, and they were always available on the off-peak days. However, as soon as Qatar switched over to peak on 15/12/2025, they were no longer available. I checked every night at midnight, and they were never there.

[phantomchickenz]

I booked four seats to NZ last Christmas two at the ‘regular’ 90,000 Avios and two at double cost. Have recently done the same for December 2026, although still waiting for the double Avios availability to appear. Make sure you book little one as one of the initial two seats as you’ll struggle to book her a ticket by herself! You can book for others on Qatar – the Avios holder doesn’t need to be flying.