In our series Award Success, I have a case of redeeming a ticket using Qatar Airways Privilege Club miles for a partner award on Cathay Pacific this week that I booked on relatively short notice. When using Avios, you...
In our series Award Success, I have a case of redeeming a ticket using Qatar Airways Privilege Club miles for a partner award on Cathay Pacific this week that I booked on relatively short notice.
When using Avios, you currently have the option of interchanging the miles between all programs that use Avios as their currency, including British Airways, Iberia, and Qatar Airways Privilege Club.
Qatar Airways has many advantages over British Airways, especially surcharges that are sometimes lower and a much cheaper cancellation fee (US$25 for Burgundy, Free for Gold and above up to 24 hours before the flight).
We needed a relatively last-minute award from Bangkok to Hong Kong last week and looked over my flight options, first as paid tickets and then as an award.
Various choices came up, including Thai Airways for roughly US$150 one way, but the last few times, I had a pretty bad experience with them, using bus gates frequently and being delayed. The cheapest would have been Hongkong Airlines for $59 ($78 with baggage). Cathay Pacific would have been the best choice as we still had one paid ticket return portion left over but even Economy one was was US$277 this time.
I then checked mileage tickets which were pricing as follows:
Cathay Asia Miles: 10,000 miles + $55 (440 HKD) tax/fees BA Avios: 12,000 Miles + $1.50 tax/fees (42 Baht – not sure how that is even possible) Qatar Privilege Club: Y 9,000 Miles + $21 tax/fees (750 Baht – the departure tax and airport fee) Qatar Privilege Club: J 16,400 Miles + $131 tax/fees (incl supplement fee as the acct only had 15k balance)I decided that the Qatar redemption was the best value here for the extra ticket, so I decided to book it online.
However, the booking for the Business Class ticket errored out and I decided to consult the chat which was an extremely positive experience:
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CX750 BKK – HKG1
1140 – 1530
CX750 BKK – HKG
1140 – 1530
Definitely quite competent service and miles better than most other chats and chatbots offered by airlines and hotel companies that are completely useless. This agent deserves a great rating and I submitted it after.
We were fine with this particular flight in Economy; on the BKK-HKG route, it’s usually only 2 2-hour flight duration or less, and with status, it really is the best value.
Another big advantage is that you can cancel award tickets issued via QR Privilege Club up to 24 hours before the flight for just $25 as Burgundy/Silver member, until 3h before the flight it’s $100 and completely free for Gold & Platinum members. This was a Gold account so that’s an extra assurance just in case.
You can find more about Privilege Club’s cancellation policies here.
Compare that to BA where they charge US$50 even to their Gold (Emerald) members. Due to this alone, I almost always try to issue via Qatar Airways these days, even though the process for most partner carriers is cumbersome, and the website needs an urgent update to go with the times.
Conclusion
This was a rather good redemption value using up these Qatar Privilege Club miles that were accumulated naturally by some flights over the last year or so, not transferring in from other programs.
The miles were on the Gold account that we status matched pre-pandemic but Qatar extended the tier level multiple times so that now it’s still Gold for another week.
I would definitely recommend linking your Avios accounts to use this opportunity when the pricing makes sense.