Qatar Airways Privilege Club has changed award pricing for redemptions with partner airlines.

Typically, when a loyalty program changes redemption rates, it’s for the worse; however, in a very welcome turn of events, the award pricing has actually improved by a significant margin.

Qatar Airways Privilege Club Changes Partner Award Pricing

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has changed the rates for redemptions with partner airlines. Across the board, redemption rates have improved to be largely in line with the same flights booked through British Airways Executive Club.

The new partner award chart also caps out at 7,001 miles, whereas its predecessor had more distance bands that didn’t cap out until 12,001+ miles flown.

Here’s what the new Qatar Airways Privilege Club partner award chart looks like:

For comparison, here’s what the old Qatar Airways Privilege Club partner award chart looked like:

As you can see, award pricing in some cases has dropped by upwards of 50%. Given the number of devaluations we’ve seen to loyalty programs in the recent past, this is surely a welcome development.

One thing to keep in mind is that it’s still relatively cumbersome to redeem Qatar Airways Avios for most of its partner airlines. Aside from flights with British Airways or American Airlines, you’ll need to call the contact centre or fill out a form to make a booking.

Given that you can book many of the same awards at the same rate using your British Airways Executive Club account, and you can transfer your Avios freely between the two accounts, it may just be easier to use British Airways Avios instead.

This doesn’t take away from the fact that this is an improvement to the program, which is both unusual and unique these days.

Redeem Qatar Airways Avios for Other Airlines

Recall that Qatar Airways is a member of the Oneworld alliance. This means that you can book flights from your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account on many of the same Oneworld-member airlines as you can from your British Airways Executive Club account.

However, perhaps the most interesting development with the improved partner award chart is redemptions with non-Oneworld airlines.

Qatar Airways Avios can also be used for flights with other airlines, including Virgin Australia, RwandAir, MEA, Oman Air, and LATAM Airlines.

For example, a one-way flight between Sydney and Melbourne with Virgin Australia measures 439 miles. The corresponding price for flights booked from a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account would cost 6,000 Avios or 12,500 Avios in economy or business class, respectively.

The same flights booked with Aeroplan would cost 8,000 or 20,000 Aeroplan points, respectively. In this case, it’s more advantageous to book with Qatar Airways Avios.

If you’ve ever wanted to try out RwandAir, MEA, or LATAM Airlines, you may want to consider a redemption from your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account, as the new award pricing could very well be your best option.

With the exception of Oman Air, which is also an Aeroplan partner airline, it’s relatively difficult to find award space for partner airlines without contacting Qatar Airways or filling out a form. Hopefully, this process improves in the near future, and it would be great to book all partner airlines online at some point.

Conclusion

Qatar Airways has improved award pricing for redemptions with partner airlines. By and large, the pricing is equivalent to partner awards booked from your British Airways Executive Club account.

However, Qatar Airways also has some unique partner airlines that aren’t members of the Oneworld alliance. It could be worthwhile to book intra-Australian flights on Virgin Australia flights using Qatar Airways Avios versus Aeroplan, for example.

It’s great to see positive changes to a loyalty program, and hopefully next up will be the ability to book all partner airlines online.