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I asked Qatar and the response was, separate bookings can’t be linked or merged.
However they suggested that for our flights from London to Awkland next year we can likely ask the staff to check our bags through (nto having to collect in Doha). It woul dbe up to the London staff though.

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Morning, I’m trying something similar and wonder if you managed to get Qatar to link your separate bookings into one to allow through check-in? Thanks.

Sorry haven’t requested yet. But will report him when I have.

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Mart16 wrote:

Was it necessary to transfer all avios from BA Avios to Qatar Avios before booking?

No, linking the accounts was enough.
During the Qatar payment process a BA website prompt comes up to approve the transfer of the required Avios.

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OP reporting back after lots of fun booking flights to NZ.

I successfully managed to book Q Suites seats from LHR – DOH – AKL and back again for the two of us.
Cost was 86K Avios (LHR-DOH) + 140K (DOH-AKL) and then then the same in reverse so a total of 452K Avios + approx £1.8K in taxes.
If I take a value of 92p per mile, then the cost is equivalent to a total of £5,950 (or £2,975 per person round-trip).

For sure if I could book a return flight without ticketed stop in Doha it would be cheaper, but availability would be a challenge/impossible.

I had to grab each leg of the flight at midnight 362 days ahead (I had some flexibility so the fact it took a few attempts to be fast enough was fine). Rarely did the business seats remain visible after 5-10 mins past midnight.

With BA I understand you could ring the executive club and have the separate reward flights combined.
Does anyone know if that’s possible with Qatar?

Since it’s cheap £19 per person to cancel each leg of the flight, I could look out for alternative deals between now and next February (on Qatar or elsewhere), but at least we have something booked now.

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Responding the amazing feedback above.

NorthernLass wrote:

Are you seeing “flexi” business class seats at all? QR often only releases these at peak time, and they charge double avios for them.

No

NorthernLass wrote:

You could look at using the BA vouchers to get as far as SYD (if you’re very lucky), or SIN/HKG/KUL etc and get separate flights to NZ.

Yes, I have seen BA flights briefly be available at Midnight – though it will be a race to secure them.

NorthernLass wrote:

When you say “family holiday” to Orlando, do you mean taking children? From your post it sounds as though only you and your wife will be travelling to NZ (just before I post a load of stuff about getting to Orlando in school holidays!).

Orlando in Sept 2026 will be with 2 grown up kids and we can fortunately avoid school holidays 🙂
Yes, it’s just myself and my wife goign to NZ.

BJ wrote:

First choice would be the Qatar option if you can get it as it’s a simple ticket/routing on a decent airline at a good price.

Agreed and QSuites seem excellent!

BJ wrote:

Second option would be Finnair to Hong Kong then Cathay to NZ. Prjce wou,d also be very good bug to get mosf out of this you would want to have the time and desire to use stopover breaks in Finnair Zone 1 abd HKG facilitated by multiple tickets. Book via Finnair.
Option 3 is similar to option 2 except swap HKG and Cathay with TYO and JAL.

Interesting, I hadn’t come across this as an option before!

BJ wrote:

Heading East from UK to NZ I would not even consider using BA, it will be relativeky poor value overall even with a voucher. You will get better value from your voucher going to USA.

That’s what I was thinking and we for sure are going to Orlando next year and Business seats to MCO seem plentiful.

HSV wrote:

You can use 2-4-1 on Iberia from Madrid to Tokyo which is excellent value and then as BJ says above.

Another interesting suggestion!

JDB wrote:

Yes, difficult to understand why one would choose BA to fly to Australia as it’s so expensive in Avios, timings with two overnights are worse than so many alternatives and the idea of c. 22h30 in BA CW or even F is quite grim. The same journey with QR will not only be cheaper but leave you arriving fully refreshed to enjoy Australia.

The only reason would be to leverage the 2-4-1 and upgrade vouchers I think.