Qatar Airways Privilege Club – UEFA Champions League

[zapato1060]

Thanks. Popcorn? I thought id heard it all.

[R2]

Winning bids for Matchday 6 – Tuesday’s Auctions. Average: 40k (+65k / -30k).

Girona FC vs Liverpool FC 69,000
GNK Dinamo vs Celtic FC 39,600
Atalanta BC vs Real Madrid C.F. 105,000
Bayer 04 Leverkusen vs FC Internazionale Milano 28,000
Club Brugge KV vs Sporting Clube de Portugal 22,002
FC Salzburg vs Paris Saint-Germain 22,000
FC Shakhtar Donetsk vs FC Bayern München 40,000
RB Leipzig vs Aston Villa FC 22,500
Stade Brestois 29 vs PSV Eindhoven 10,100

All time average now: 48k (+148k / -46k).

[GraemeP]

R2 wrote:

Winning bids for Matchday 6 – Tuesday’s Auctions. Average: 40k (+65k / -30k).
Club Brugge KV vs Sporting Clube de Portugal 22,002

I won this one.

[R2]

Winning bids for Matchday 6 – Wednesday’s Auctions. Average: 49k (+52k / -27k).

Atlético de Madrid vs ŠK Slovan Bratislava 41,000
LOSC Lille vs SK Sturm Graz 26,000
AC Milan vs FK Crvena Zvezda 41,000
Arsenal FC vs AS Monaco 91,000
Borussia Dortmund vs FC Barcelona 51,000
Feyenoord vs AC Sparta Praha 41,100
Juventus vs Manchester City 101,000
SL Benfica vs Bologna FC 1909 23,000
VfB Stuttgart vs BSC Young Boys 22,000

All time average now: 48k (+148k / -46k).

[R2]

Notes so far:
Lowest bid so far is 1,912 Avios due to auction site issues (re-bid issues?). Important to get your bid in early rather than a last minute bid, if you really want to go.

Niche, but this is a great way to go to a game/city. Flexibility is key as these are Tuesday/Wednesday night games.

Below table shows average and total Avios spent per game in each Country (Greater variance between cities in the same country e.g. France). Two matchdays remaining before the knockout stage rounds. Bids should logically be higher as less/better matches (if these redemptions continue?).

Country Average No. of Games Total Avios
Serbia 12,150 2 24,300
Austria 20,278 4 81,111
Croatia 20,756 2 41,512
Switzerland 21,750 2 43,500
Netherlands 23,800 4 95,200
Slovakia 28,000 2 56,000
France 29,625 8 237,000
Czech Republic 33,500 2 67,000
Portugal 39,189 4 156,755
Germany 40,644 12 487,731
Belgium 47,501 2 95,002
Scotland 52,400 2 104,800
Italy 53,500 10 535,000
Spain 77,788 8 622,300
England 101,424 8 811,391
Grand Total 48,036 72 3,458,602

It would be good to get some more reviews posted here from HfP attendee’s, no matter how small and especially ones to avoid. I personally hihgly recommend PSG with the Qatar lounge hospitality.

[GraemeP]

R2 wrote:

(Greater variance between cities in the same country e.g. France).

I looked at going to one of the Brest games, but they are being played in Guingamp due to the stadium requirements.

Guingamp is a small town and is quite poorly served by public transport and has very limited accommodation (not that Brest itself is much easier to get to).

[slidey]

Does anyone have any issues doing bids on Qatar auctions via mobiles? I get errors when trying to place bids on various browsers on my phone as well as on a different phone, but bidding on pc works fine?

[R2]

Graeme – Enjoy the next game. IMO smaller/older stadiums usually offer a different and somewhat unique experience.

Slidey – I have kind of the opposite. No issues on mobile, but I have difficulties when logging on from a MacBook. Looks like there are some different bugs out there.

[slidey]

I’m okay logging in via mobile browsers (chrome and ff), it just then refuses to go beyond the screen after where you submit the bid. The really weird bit is that it then seems to block me from the entire website, even going to qatarairways.com then gives a gateway error.

Is it possible to submit bids via the qatar app?

[R2]

I only know of bidding from the privilege club website.

[GraemeP]

R2 wrote:

Slidey – I have kind of the opposite. No issues on mobile, but I have difficulties when logging on from a MacBook. Looks like there are some different bugs out there.

Same for me – I can only bid successfully from my phone.

No joy using multiple web browsers on two different PCs.

[GraemeP]

Here’s my review of the experience at Club Brugge v Sporting CP on Tuesday 10th December.

Pre-event

Qatar Airways sent the Champions Club passes as PDFs by email, with the match ticket PDFs being sent by email directly by Club Brugge in the following days.

This time, a copy of our passports was requested by Qatar Airways, citing UEFA requirements due us being allowed pitch-side.

The Qatar Airways agency representative got in touch via WhatsApp and we arranged to meet inside the Champions Club.

At the event

The Jan Breydelstadion is an older stadium than Tehelné pole (Slovan Bratislava), so the same level of hospitality space was not built into the stadium from the start.

Consequently, the Champions Club space was not as well organized or fitted out. It was a quite narrow linear space, which made circulation difficult, causing delays getting to and from the various food and drink locations.

There was limited seating, meaning most guests were standing around high tables eating and drinking.

There were a large number of people in there – a few hundred at least. I suspect a lot of home supporters had bought directly from Club Brugge.

Directly outside the Champions Club was “The Pub” which seemed to be another hospitality space for home fans. The area around the entrances to these two spaces was busy throughout.

Welcome glasses of wine were offered and thereafter it was case of going to one of the bars for your own drinks and food as required.

As usual there is a dedicated Heineken bar, plus another bar serving wine and soft drinks.

There was plenty food available, but I didn’t see any available after full time.

Otherwise, the same competitions, music, photo booth etc as at Slovan.

We were escorted pitch-side approximately an hour before kick-off. This involved leaving the Champions Club the same way we came in and walking through the Club Brugge supporters outside the stadium (but within the ticketed area) and through a metal gate at the corner of the pitch.

I explained to the UEFA representative that we had been behind the goals at Slovan and he said “OK, let’s change it!”, so we went to the side of the pitch next to the technical areas instead. We were allowed to sit in the dug outs if we wanted to.

We went back to the Champions Club for a pre-match drink, then made our way to our seats. Access to the seats was available directly from the Champions Club. The legroom was tight – certainly not the usual level of comfort expected in hospitality.

Once again, the Qatar Airways agent wasn’t permitted to stay for the match, so we said goodbye and watched the match on our own.

The direct access to the Champions Club meant that it was possible to return there for drinks and snacks at half-time.

The match finished shortly after 23:00, but the Champions Club closed at 23:45, which was 15 minutes shorter than the one hour advertised.

I didn’t see any food available at full-time, but drinks were available throughout.

The parting gift this time was a large (76 x 144 cm) Champions League microfibre towel.

Summary

While this was not as pleasant an experience as Slovan, I’d say it’s still decent value (22,002 Avios for 2 people).

The Champions Club was a lot more crowded and therefore less pleasant, but to some extent this is a limitation of the stadium itself.

[R2]

Good thing you spoke up, regarding being behind the goal for the pitchside experience (First timers perhaps wouldn’t have known to ask). Could always be a risk with older stadiums also perhaps.

These tickets are sold as Category 1 seats (not hospitality) so that would explain the lack of legroom.

FYI. The Qatar Airways Privilege Club platform was heavily advertised in and around the fairly recent Qatar Formula 1 Grand Prix > so winning bids theoretically will become increasingly higher. Opportunities still to be had though.

[GraemeP]

Just to clarify regarding the lack of legroom.

I wasn’t expecting luxury, but the legroom was less than the standard seating in almost all stadia that I regularly visit!

[Hunmike83]

I won previously tickets for a home game of FK Crvena Zvezda. I was contacted by Qatar client support next day by e-mail and after providing my passport and personal details over a link, I got all the info, tickets and uefa lounge passes two days before the game.

Rajko Mitić stadium is pretty old, access by car or public transport is very difficult. I booked an airbnb flat within walking distance.

The champs lounge was a seperated VIP area for uefa guests with its own entrance on the top floor called “VIP galerija”. We met the Qatar agent and UEFA rep there. Opened 2 hours before the game, good quality of cold and hot dishes, only non-alcholic drinks. Was only crowded before the kick-off.

45-50 mins before the game we got our badges and were escorted by UEFA rep to the pitch.
Only negative part was that we had to go completely outside and enter via another entrance which was a long tunnel down to the pitch. It was like hundreds of stairways up and down…not recommended for older fans. We stayed like 25mins next to both fields.

Seating was very comfortable, leather seats with armchairs.

After the game the gift was a large (76 x 144 cm) Champions League microfibre towel.

All in all, it was worth to bid…for around 8000 points I got two tickets and a good hospitality service which would cost about 300-400eur per person.

[ankomonkey]

Are children allowed as the guest? Not interested in the booze, but my son would love to be pitch-side when the players are warming up. I wouldn’t bother bidding if he likely wouldn’t be allowed.

[GraemeP]

Hunmike83 wrote:

only non-alcholic drinks

Thanks for the review! Is there really no alcohol in hospitality… in Serbia?

[GraemeP]

ankomonkey wrote:

Are children allowed as the guest? Not interested in the booze, but my son would love to be pitch-side when the players are warming up. I wouldn’t bother bidding if he likely wouldn’t be allowed.

I can’t comment on Crvena Zvezda, but there were certainly children in the Champions Club at Slovan Bratislava – one of them was playing football with his dad after the game, using the signed ball he’d just won!

I can’t see anything in the T&C which prohibits children from being at pitchside either… indeed Mastercard sponsor a load of kids for a pre-match activity, they were standing next to us at pitchside at Club Brugge.

[ankomonkey]

GraemeP wrote:

ankomonkey wrote:

Are children allowed as the guest? Not interested in the booze, but my son would love to be pitch-side when the players are warming up. I wouldn’t bother bidding if he likely wouldn’t be allowed.

I can’t comment on Crvena Zvezda, but there were certainly children in the Champions Club at Slovan Bratislava – one of them was playing football with his dad after the game, using the signed ball he’d just won!

I can’t see anything in the T&C which prohibits children from being at pitchside either… indeed Mastercard sponsor a load of kids for a pre-match activity, they were standing next to us at pitchside at Club Brugge.

Thanks for the reply! Sounds hopeful!

[Hunmike83]

GraemeP wrote:

Hunmike83 wrote:

only non-alcholic drinks

Thanks for the review! Is there really no alcohol in hospitality… in Serbia?

There was a Heinekein stand, but only 0% alc beer…and in did not see any alcohol in the other bar. I think this is Beograd specific, maybe high risk game.

As for the other question, I also saw many children in the lounge and there was nothing about this in the info package. Only thing that a valid passport or Id needs to be provided in advance.

[R2]

Winning bids for Matchday 7 – Tuesday’s Auctions. Average: 51k (+151k / -43k).

AS Monaco vs Aston Villa FC 92,500
Atalanta BC vs SK Sturm Graz 19,900
Atlético de Madrid vs Bayer 04 Leverkusen 27,000
Bologna FC 1909 vs Borussia Dortmund 21,000
Club Brugge KV vs Juventus 22,100
FK Crvena Zvezda vs PSV Eindhoven 8,000
Liverpool FC vs LOSC Lille 202,000 (Record High)
ŠK Slovan Bratislava vs VfB Stuttgart 30,200
SL Benfica vs FC Barcelona 38,200

All time average now: 48k (+154k / -46k).

[Hunmike83]

I won this time the Slovan match tickets…

[pmcg]

Just tried a bid again after having 100K+ Avios sitting in account for over a month.

“pmcg, thank you for bidding 1,011 Avios…….Another member has won this auction

Note sure where they get the 1,011 from as auction was already way above this!

[R2]

Winning bids for Matchday 7 – Wednesday’s Auctions. Average: 58k (+48k / -46k).

FC Shakhtar Donetsk vs Stade Brestois 29 12,100
RB Leipzig vs Sporting Clube de Portugal 24,400
AC Milan vs Girona FC 41,256
AC Sparta Praha vs FC Internazionale Milano 21,000
Arsenal FC vs GNK Dinamo 106,000
Celtic FC vs BSC Young Boys 76,000
Feyenoord vs FC Bayern München 74,100
Paris Saint-Germain vs Manchester City 83,000
Real Madrid C.F. vs FC Salzburg 86,000

All time average now (for 90 CL games): 49k (+153k / -47k).

Remarks:

Will we see Matchday 8? 29th January is fast approaching…

After one year of The Qatar Airways Privilege Club collection, ~20M Avios to date have been redeemed across ~300 events ranging from F1, football, basketball, padel, concerts, Goodwood festival, Horse racing to a Bicester shopping experience. It’s a good redemption scheme and has provided many great memories to those that have redeemed.

The website has the option for ‘Buy’ it now redemptions. I am yet to see any ‘Buy’ it now options? Will this ever be an option? Time will tell…

[GraemeP]

Bidding for MD8 (all 18 matches to be played simultaneously on 29 Jan) is now open.