Frequent flyers are accustomed to waiting hours or days after a trip for points to be credited to their accounts, but Qatar Airways has improved that.
Starting today, January 24th, members of the airline’s Privilege Club loyalty program will receive full Avios. Before their Qatar Airways Flight leaves the ground.
This is a welcome break from convention, and it also means you can use those Avios to request upgrades right away.
According to Qatar Airways, frequent flyers will have Avios appear in their account up to 120 minutes before flight departure.In fact, “up to 120 minutes from check-in,” said a Qatar Airways executive. Executive Travelerwhich includes online check-in.
For example, you can earn up to 15,000 Avios on a Qatar Airways business class flight from Sydney to Doha. This means travelers are free to use it while sitting in the lounge well before boarding their flight.
These Avios are typically used for upgrades such as departure upgrades on the first leg of a trip, connecting flights from Doha to other locations on the QR network, or transferred to a British Airways Executive Club account for redemption. increase. Against later point-based BA “reward flights”.
This innovation has been “soft-launched” as a live trial in the last few weeks and is now available to all 12 million Privilege Club members.
But a spokesman confirmed that that’s all Qatar Airways Privilege Club members can take advantage of this near-instantaneous Avios credit. This benefit is not available to members of other programs.
Turn your Doha stopover into a ‘shopping’
Another fresh opportunity for frequent flyers is a partnership with Qatar Duty Free to earn and spend Avios at Doha’s Hamad International Airport.
The proposal covers approximately 200 retail and dining outlets in a sprawling hub.
Thabet Musleh, Vice President of Qatar Duty Free, explains: “Whether it’s a cup of coffee or a Louis Vuitton handbag.”
“There is no one else in the world who can do this on our scale…Having one whole ecosystem makes us very unique,” he reasons. .
Not only can your stopover in Doha be an obvious point-earning ‘shopover’, but you can also purchase it using a combination of cash and Avios.
And if you get a credit card that earns eligible Avios, such as Qatar Airways or British Airways, you’ll unlock a valuable ‘double’ of Avios earned in this ’emporium in the airport’.
“We also work with various brands to create exclusive products just for our members.”
Musleh said:
Smooth transition to Avios
It’s been almost a year since Qatar Airways Privilege Club Uses the same Avios currency The airline, along with British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus, say the move “has worked surprisingly well, even better than expected” given its relative complexity.
“The actual technical side of things went well and[the Avios proposal]was very well received,” said Noora Al-Ansari, Qatar Airways Loyalty Marketing Manager.
A key metric for Al-Ansari was the number of loyalty accounts linked to, for example, the British Airways Executive Club. Transfer Avios between programs fast and free.
“We didn’t have a baseline to do this before, but we expected to get around 100,000 in the first year…we actually have over 250,000 linked accounts, which is what we expected. significantly exceeds.”