Now that Qatar Airways Privilege Club has officially joined the Avios world, we can expect to see some interesting promotions..
The first promotion offers up to 10,000 bonus Avios for booking a flight on Qatar Airways. However, you MUST book using Privilege Club’s “Cash + Avios” function. And you must use the promo code QRAVIOS. You can earn:
- 10,000 Avios for a Business or First Class ticket
- 5,000 Avios for an Economy ticket
To qualify, you must:
- Book BEFORE March 31, 2022
- Fly BEFORE October 31, 2022
ALL passengers in the booking will earn the bonus Avios, as long as they provide their Privilege Club number as well. In addition, you should be able to earn these bonus Avios on one-way itineraries, although this might only be cost-effective on short one-way flights in the Gulf.
What is Cash + Avios?
If you are more familiar with British Airways, this is equivalent to what is often called “Part Pay with Avios”. In other words, you are booking a cash ticket, but partially paying for it using your Avios.
You can generally pay up to 50% of the ticket price using Avios. It doesn’t appear that you can get much higher than 1 cent per Avios, however.
As a result, you might want to consider using the absolute minimum of Avios – as few as 1,250 Avios in some cases.
Will I Earn British Airways Tier Points?
No. You would need to credit your flight to Qatar Airways Privilege Club in order to receive the bonus Avios. This of course means that you would be earning “QPoints”.
So, the typical InsideFlyer reader would be giving up as many as 560 Tier Points in exchange for those bonus Avios. Depending on how desperately you need Tier Points, you will probably find a Oneworld Sapphire or Emerald card to be more valuable than 10,000 Avios. YMMV of course…
Can I Move These Avios to British Airways / Iberia?
Yes. Once your first flight credits to Privilege Club, the bonus Avios are also supposed to credit. You can move them over to British Airways at any time thereafter…
Don’t Forget Your Other Options
I recently wrote an article explaining a few of your frequent flyer program options when flying on Qatar Airways. (click here)
For many readers, earning AAdvantage Loyalty Points or Alaska miles (225% of miles flown on ‘R’ and higher fares) will continue to be more valuable than 5,000 – 10,000 bonus Avios.
Bottom Line
Although it might be fun to “travel hack” lots of bonus Avios with short, one-way flights around the Gulf, I would recommend that you first consider whether the bonus Avios compensate for the British Airways Tier Points or American / Alaska miles you would NOT be receiving…
