Qatar Airways selling Avios with 50% bonus

Unless you’re a very early riser, it’s no doubt more sensible to make any purchase you need during this promotion by the end of the day on Sunday 7th April 2024.

Other things to know

• You must have earned at least 1,000 Avios since you first joined the Qatar Privilege Club in order to buy Avios. Your current balance, however, can be less than this.
• These Avios can be earned through flight accrual, credit card points transfer, partner accrual or a transfer from British Airways Avios.

This is also a way to buy BA Avios

Since Qatar Airways shifted its frequent flyer currency into Avios, the loyalty points of the IAG Group in which the airline has a 25% stake, these frequent flyer points aren’t only good for redeeming with Qatar Airways itself.

You can now easily link your British Airways Avios and Qatar Airways Avios accounts together (see this guide) and make unlimited instant transfers back and forth between the two.

This allows you to tap good value short-haul redemptions on other Oneworld carriers at the BA Avios rates, which can be far better than the Qatar Avios rates when used to redeem Oneworld flights directly.

Citi PayAll is an alternative

Another way to “buy” miles, if you have sufficient upcoming expenses, is to use Citi’s PayAll service in Singapore.

Unfortunately a 1.8 cents per mile promotional rate, allowing you to buy miles for 1.2 cents each, has recently ended. However, the year-round earn rate for some Citi credit cards, coupled with the service’s 2.2% fee, still means potentially being able to generate miles at better rates than through this Qatar promotion:

These miles, credited as Citi ThankYou Points or Citi Miles, are are transferable into either Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios or British Airways Avios, provided you have enough total spend to reach one of the points transfer thresholds (10,000 Citi Miles or 25,000 ThankYou points, with identically-sized ‘blocks’ thereafter).

This obviously works out as a cheaper way to top-up your Avios balance, compared to this direct purchase promotion.

Pro Tip: Since Avios transfer instantly and fee-free between BA Executive Club and Qatar Privilege Club, provided you have an account with each programme and have linked them, it’s better to always transfer from Citi to BA Avios, even if you will then use them in the Qatar programme, because the conversion from Citi is much faster (24-48h to BA, vs. 4 days to Qatar).

You can also retain the points at the Citi side for as long as possible and keep a lookout for a transfer bonus from Citi into Qatar Avios. The most recent was in November 2023, with the airline offering a 30% boost on all transfers, with no upper cap.

Unlock valuable redemptions

For our readers based in Singapore, one of the best value redemptions on Qatar Airways is to Europe and back in Business Class.

Here’s an example of how you can use this buy Avios promotion to fly from Singapore to Athens and some other cities in Business Class on Qatar Airways for just 70,000 Avios + S$300 in taxes.

QRPC Cathay Pacific
Business Class redemptions from Singapore
(one-way)

Route
	QR Avios	Effective Cost (buy Avios bonus)	KF Miles
Singapore Athens	70,000 +S$305	S$1,449 +S$305	n/a
Singapore London	75,000 +S$305	S$1,553 +S$305	103,500 +S$65
Singapore New York	95,000 +S$359	S$1,967 +S$359	111,500 +S$89*

* S$126 if routing via FRA

As you can see, a purchase of 75,000 Avios in the programme for S$1,553 is enough to get you from Singapore to London via Doha in the Qatar Airways Qsuite Business Class, with around S$300 in additional taxes and fees to pay.

That’s a good deal compared to parting with 103,500 miles + S$65 with KrisFlyer, if you don’t mind a stop in Doha.

While a transit in Doha is inconvenient, do remember that Qatar Airways is serving many cities in Europe and the USA which require a transit anyway when you fly with SIA – like Mykonos, Sofia, Madrid, Boston or Washington.

You can also now book Cathay Pacific awards via Qatar Privilege Club wholly online at attractive rates, with no fuel surcharge added, as we recently reported.

QRPC
Business Class redemptions from Singapore
(one-way)

Route
	QR Avios	Effective Cost (buy Avios bonus)	KF Miles
Singapore Bangkok	16,500 +S$67	S$342 +S$67	24,000 +S$67
Singapore Hong Kong	22,000 +S$65	S$455 +S$65	34,000 +S$65

These awards represent significant savings on the KrisFlyer Saver award rate with Singapore Airlines, and allow Oneworld lounge access, arguably a superior pre-flight experience in Cathay Pacific lounges and those of their partners like Qantas.

As we mentioned before, 1 Qatar Avios point = 1 BA Avios point, so there’s a range of (mainly short- to medium-haul) redemptions you can unlock with this programme, by buying Qatar Avios with a 50% bonus, then transferring them free 1:1 into your British Airways Avios account.

Here are some examples.

BA Avios via QRPC
Business Class redemptions from Singapore
(one-way)

Route			Using KrisFlyer orAsia Miles
	BA Avios	Effective Cost (buy Avios bonus)
Singapore Kuala Lumpur (MH)	12,500 +S$79	S$259 +S$79	21,000 +S$65
Singapore Colombo (UL)	22,000 +S$194	S$455 +S$194	43,000 +S$65
Singapore Perth (QF)	38,750 +S$108	S$802 +S$108	40,500 +S$86
Singapore Helsinki (AY)	62,500 +S$87	S$1,294 +S$87	89,000 +S$87
Singapore Sydney (QF)	62,000 +S$118	S$1,283 +S$118	68,500 +S$106
Singapore Tokyo (JL)	62,000 +S$219	S$1,283 +S$219	52,000 +S$65
Singapore London (QF)	108,250 +S$82	S$2,441 +S$82	103,500 +S$65

* Based on off-peak travel dates. BA charges more Avios for travel on its own flights during peak periods.

As you can see you can unlock some attractive “fares” with this buy Avios deal.

A standout option here is the newly-valued Singapore to Helsinki option with Finnair, at just 62,500 Avios + S$87 in taxes, which you can effectively unlock with a S$1,294 Avios purchase during this sale.

Remember that even relatively basic awards like Malaysia Airlines Business Class from Singapore to KL are also your ticket to Qatar Airways’ superb Premium Lounge at Changi Airport, for some pre-flight Champagne and à la carte dining.

The Qsuite is back on Singapore flights

In some good post-pandemic news, Qatar Airways is once again dedicating only aircraft with its Qsuite Business Class product on all three daily flights between Singapore and Doha, since April 2023.

This has been made a permanent arrangement in the latest schedule update, as we predicted would happen (a return to the pre-COVID arrangement).

This has marked a welcome return for the carrier’s highly-lauded seats without the added risk of older products in the mix, and don’t worry – Qatar is sticking to it so far!

Buying Avios resets the expiry clock

Since July 2020, Qatar’s Avios work on an activity-based expiry policy, meaning any earning or redemption will ‘reset the clock’ for all Avios in your account – keeping them alive for another 36 months (as with BA Avios).

That means any purchase you make during this campaign will extend your entire stash for three years.

Do note that transfers between Qatar Avios and British Airways Avios do not reset the expiration clock (that would be too easy!).

Is Privilege Club trustworthy?

Here’s perhaps the biggest concern with this deal.

Qatar Airways has previously devalued its Qmiles overnight, without notice, by a whopping 40% (and on some routes by 80%).

That has always led us to recommend that QRPC is not a frequent flyer programme to trust with a large miles balance in your account for too long.

We would only recommend buying miles if you have a specific redemption in mind to book in the near future, even with this bonus on offer.

The ability to combine your Avios 1:1 with your British Airways account does hopefully provide some partial insurance here, since even if Qatar Airways devalues its own awards you should still be able to tap good value Avios redemptions in the region.

Which card to use

If you are going to buy miles in this promotion, and assuming like most of our readers you are based in Singapore, you’ll want to achieve the maximum number of credit card miles for the purchase itself when buying Avios.

The transaction happens in US dollars or the local currency of the market of your account address (the UK seems to work out best!), but in any case it’s not in SGD. Payment is processed by points.com.

You can earn the most extra miles for the purchase transaction by using one of the following Singapore issued credit cards if you can:

* Note: Our readers have reported that using the DBS WWMC card via points.com does not automatically award the higher 4 mpd earn rate. You must usually appeal and claim the bonus miles later.

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2.07 Singapore cents per mile is a competitive rate to pick up Qatar Airways Avios, but it requires a hefty commitment to purchase at least 51,000 miles during this flash sale.

A purchase of 70,000 miles to achieve a Business Class redemption from Singapore to Athens would come in at a cost of around S$1,449 during this offer – not bad at all, though you still have Qatar’s hefty award fee to pay on top of that.

Closer to home though, great deals include Cathay Pacific Business Class to Bangkok for 16,500 Avios or to Hong Kong for 22,000 Avios, with no fuel surcharge to pay, big savings on the KrisFlyer rates for a long-haul flat-bed experience on these intra-Asia sectors.

There’s also the recently re-valued Avios redemption from Singapore to Helsinki on Finnair for an incredible 62,500 Avios + S$87, via a 1:1 transfer into British Airways Avios.

Remember you can also transfer Citi credit card points at a 2.5:1 ratio (1:1 for PremierMiles cardholders), so there is often no particular need for most of our readers to buy Avios, and there’s still the cheaper Citi PayAll method if you have sufficient expenses coming up.

Another word of warning – given Qatar’s previous no-notice Privilege Club devaluation, we would only recommend buying Avios if you have a specific redemption in mind to book in the near future. This is not a frequent flyer programme to trust with a large miles balance in your account long-term.

  Buy Qatar Airways Avios