How To Fly Qatar Airways Qsuites with Points and Miles

The Qatar Airways Qsuite

I’ve flown thousands of flights on dozens of airlines and the Qatar Airways Qsuite business class is my favorite flying experience. There are of course ultra-high-end first class products out there like Singapore Airlines and Emirates suites, but for an exceptionally comfortable and enjoyable flight at a business class price, the Qsuites are in a league of their own.

I’ve flown in the Qsuite maybe a dozen times at this point. I’ve also experienced Qatar Airways standard business class (on planes without Qsuites) several times, and have flown in economy many times as well, on shorter legs or when upgrades didn’t happen. It’s an excellent airline overall, but the Qsuite is what you want to aim for.

Where Does Qatar Airways Fly?

Qatar flies to over 170 destinations, including 12 US cities (as of mid-2024). They fly almost everywhere. Having said that, it’s not easy for me to fly on Qatar. From Los Angeles they fly to…Doha, Qatar. In fact, all of their flights are either to or from Doha. It never makes sense for me to fly via Doha to Europe – that’s a lot of extra time on planes. But Qatar works well for Africa, the Middle East or India. Even Southeast Asia is doable. Last year the best option from LA to Phuket for spring break, taking into account flight times and layovers, was on Qatar.

Booking a Qsuite For Less

If you want to fly in a Qsuite, obviously look at the price of the tickets first. There may be a bargain. A round-trip business class ticket from the US to Africa via Doha for $3,500 or less? Grab it. Of course everyone’s budget and business class threshold are different. Mine has always been $4,000 – if I can be a lot more comfortable for 30-50 hours on planes (round-trip) for $4,000, I’ll do it. The added advantage to buying a ticket is that you’ll earn a lot of miles/points for the flight and a lot more by booking the ticket with your mileage-earning credit card.

The other option is to buy economy tickets and hope that there’s a good upgrade price as you get close to departure. I’ve done this several times, upgrading either 2-3 days before the flight (if available, the offer will come up when you’re in your flight record online or in the app), or at the airport when I check in. I’ve always felt like upgrades were worth $100/hour, so if it’s $1,500 to upgrade a 16-hour flight, I’ll consider it. If it’s $1,200 to upgrade a 6-hour flight, I won’t.

Using Miles and Points for Qsuites

If the ticket price is too high, your non-cash option is to redeem miles and points for free tickets (plus taxes of course). My process for this is as follows:

1) Earn Miles on Qatar and Partner Airlines

I earn miles for all of my flights and for all of my purchases. Since Qatar is in the OneWorld Alliance, I concentrate on Qatar and its partners British Air (BA) and American. Qatar now has its own credit card, but I like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card since their Ultimate Rewards (UR) points are more flexible (I have both cards). I also have the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard where I earn American miles (and status).

And you may as well get any of the above cards when there’s a good enrollment offer (for example, 80,000 points instead of 50,000). I track enhanced offers through the Daily Drop Newsletter, and where’s there’s a great deal, I sign up for the card.

An easy way to get extra points/miles: take advantage of transfer bonuses! A few times a year, there are bonuses (usually 30%) for converting UR points to British Airways Avios. As BA, Qatar, Finnair, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling all use Avios, and you can easily transfer Avios from one airline to another, BA Avios are the same as Qatar Avios. I’ll always take advantage of the transfer bonus, get a lot of Avios for my UR points, and then transfer most of the Avios to my Qatar account (I fly Qatar more often than BA). Again, the Daily Drop newsletter (free) is the best place to learn about current transfer bonuses. Right now (October 2024) there’s a 30% bonus for converting UR points to BA Avios. I saw that in the newsletter and immediately transferred 200,000 points, getting 260,000 Avios.

2) Search for Qatar Award Availability

Since I have frequent flier accounts with American, BA and Qatar, I’ll check all three websites for Qsuite availability. American and BA will prioritize their own flights, so you’ll need to go through all flight routing options to see if Qatar business class is offered. It helps to be flexible on dates and departure cities. If I really want a Qsuite and there’s no award availability from Los Angeles (my closest airport), I’ll look at flights from their other US departure cities – currently New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Houston, Dallas Fort Worth, and Washington, D.C. It’s usually easy to get a mileage ticket on another airline that connects reasonably well to a Qatar Airways flight.

Note that not all Qatar planes have Qsuites, and even if they do, the airline reserves the right to swap planes if necessary. If you go to Seat Guru, you can look up the flight and the date to see if Qatar is planning to fly a plane with Qsuites. If the plane has Qsuites, it will show a 1-2-1 business seating configuration. If it’s a standard business class (nice seats, but no suites), it will have a 2-2-2- configuration.

3) Book Qsuites Using Points and Miles

When I find the mileage flights that I want, if I don’t already have enough miles in that account (American, BA or Qatar), I’ll transfer miles in. Well, American is fixed – they don’t have as many transfer partners, so either I have the miles in my account or I don’t. For BA, I’ll transfer from Chase UR points or Avios from my Qatar account. If the award is on Qatar’s site directly, I’ll transfer Avios from my BA account. Transfers are usually completed in seconds.

A Note on Flexibility

I mentioned having flexible dates and departure cities above. Also, don’t feel like you need to book your entire itinerary as a round trip. You can even break up one-way trips into multiple tickets.

An example: I wanted to visit every continent last year and still had two to go, so I created an around the world itinerary to take me to Africa and Australia and then on to a conference in Japan. I booked a one-way Qsuite award ticket on Qatar’s website from LAX to Doha, continuing on to Zanzibar, still in business. From Zanzibar I booked an economy mileage ticket to Doha and then a separate business award from Doha to Perth. The Doha to Perth flight was on an A380, which doesn’t have Qsuites, but it’s still a great business class experience and there’s a bar on board! From Perth I used Star Alliance airlines to get to Sapporo and then back to LA. It wouldn’t have made sense to backtrack from Japan in order to stay on Qatar.

Using Points and Miles to Book QSuites – a Summary

Everything above is more complex than I’m presenting it. As part of OneWorld, Qatar Airways has a lot more partners than just American and British Air. If you’re a member of any of the programs, search there for Qsuite flights. I simply want to succinctly lay out what’s worked for me.

To make all of this even more simple, get a card that earns Chase Ultimate Reward points (Chase Sapphire Preferred and/or Chase Sapphire Reserve), convert them to British Air Avios when there’s a transfer bonus, and then transfer to them to your Qatar Air account. Daily Drop will let you know the best time to get the cards and will tell you when there’s a transfer bonus. Then search for Qsuite tickets on Qatar’s website. That works for me most of the time.

QSuites – Your Turn

Do you have tips for using miles and points for Qsuites? Please comment below!

Opinions expressed here are mine alone, not those of any bank, credit card
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