Doha with Qatar Airways

[bungalow]

The wife and I are looking at a few weeks in Qatar/Doha later this year, but could do with some advice on a couple of things.
We usually go to Dubai Oct/Nov but BA business availability is in short supply, and as we live in NI the connections are becoming a bit of an issue as well. One of the options thrown up in the BA avios search was via Doha, so I thought, we don’t do much other than eat and lie about in the sun all day anyway so why not just go to Doha!
That prompted me to search via Dublin, and I have found direct business flights Dublin/Doha with Qatar Airlines with Avios on the BA website. The flight number QR17 I have discovered is a Boeing 787-8, but I’m sure I recall an article Rob done a while back that all Qatar business fares are now NOT the same, ie some have restricted lounge access etc? How do I know if I book these seats which category of “business” they fall into, there is no further information on the BA website other than the flight number?

Also, we have Hilton Diamond and Bonvoy Platinum with plenty of points, so looking at Hilton Doha and JW Marriott Marquis, if anyone has any info on these it would be very much appreciated, I assume I can get a vodka or two in either of the hotel lounges…? Have been to Doha once before, but only on cruise stop, visited a few stadiums but never been in a hotel.

Many thanks for any advice

[SJ]

Try here, shows what’s included with each fare class.

[bungalow]

SJ wrote:

Try here, shows what’s included with each fare class.

Thanks for that SJ, that’s the article I was taking about, however it’s all cash purchases, it doesn’t explain what sort of product you get with an Avios ticket. No mention of what category you get when buying on BA, I guess you just have to suck it and see, and find out when your ticket is actually produced!

[Jacob]

I believe award tickets still include lounge access. Do a quick google search and you’ll find a couple of articles, one even quoting QR spokesperson as recent as May 2022. Additionally, if you try to make an award booking through Qatar website, it explicitly says lounge access included (at least on the random date I tried).

Anyway, you will be departing Doha, not transiting for 6 hours or something, so I personally wouldn’t care that much.

[bungalow]

Jacob wrote:

I believe award tickets still include lounge access. Do a quick google search and you’ll find a couple of articles, one even quoting QR spokesperson as recent as May 2022. Additionally, if you try to make an award booking through Qatar website, it explicitly says lounge access included (at least on the random date I tried).

Anyway, you will be departing Doha, not transiting for 6 hours or something, so I personally wouldn’t care that much.

Thank you Jacob. I couldn’t get any info on the Qatar website either, despite having almost 500k Avios, I had trouble all day yesterday getting the Qatar website (or app) to quote me Avios flights to anywhere on Qatar metal. Even though I knew there was plenty of Qatar availability to Doha direct from Dublin, it always threw up BA flights with a London connection!
I then decided to try transferring 200k Avios into my Privilege account and ‘bingo’, the Qatar flights started to appear! Just in case anyone else has a similar issue.
Thanks again.