Qatar Privilege Club has made some changes to the program, “giving the members greater value, flexibility and ease of use.” Some of the popular aspects of the program are staying intact: miles are valid for five years, family accounts are available for up to nine and the award threshold starts at a mere 6,000 miles.

There is a new and simplified system to qualify for Gold, Silver and Burgundy membership — Qpoints, which replaces Status Miles and Status Sectors. Members will earn Qpoints with Qatar Airways according to the class of service they travel in, and the regions they are traveling to and from. For example, between Doha and region one (Dubai, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Kuwait, Dammam or Riyadh), a member will earn 8 Qpoints per one-way segment in coach, 16 in business class and 24 in first class. Qpoints will be valid for one calendar year (January to December) and will count towards the membership level in Privilege Club. Burgundy members will need to earn 50 Qpoints, Silver members 150 Qpoints and Gold members 300 Qpoints to qualify or retain the respective status.

Members will now be able to claim an award for anyone they choose and redemption rates have also been changed on several awards. Some awards are cheaper (Bangkok, Istanbul, Athens) while others have increased and members have until Feb. 28 to redeem at the current levels. A new region-based award chart has been introduced, allowing members to easily find out how many Qmiles are needed for an award ticket.

Rush awards have been introduced for a nominal fee. Gold members who wish to change their award booking at the last minute, can do so for free. Silver and Burgundy members will pay a $25 fee. And lastly, if you are a Gold member, you can book an award seat by redeeming double Qmiles up to 48 hours in advance of the flight.

To simplify membership, a Privilege Club membership year will now run from January to December as opposed to the date members joined and members will have one calendar year to earn or retain gold-, silver- or burgundy-level memberships. All existing members will keep their current membership level until February 2008.