Booking an award ticket with Qatar. What are the differences between Saver and Flexi tickets
Since Qatar adopted avios as the currency of its loyalty program, it has become the "go to" company [...]
Qatar Airways
Oneworld
Recommended by TFC
Since Qatar has adopted avios as the currency of its loyalty program. Has become the "go to" for airlines putting Emirates in the shade which simultaneously raised to levels, indecent, the fuel surcharges applied to award tickets. Obviously is also thanks to the beautiful QSuite, the best business class cabin in the world.
I often receive questions about How to transfer points from British to Qatar, and reflexively how to convert Membership Rewards points to Qatar. Above all, however, there are many questions regarding how to look for availability and prices of award tickets.
Therefore, I decided to make this mini-guide to help all "newbies" untangle and don't make red circle mistakes.
How much do award tickets with Qatar cost
Thanks to the Doha company's website feature, it is possible to get an idea of how many points are needed for a given route in the different classes of service.
Same with regard to individual route upgrades, the cost in this case varies based on the class of ticket purchased. The advantage is that QR allows, unlike other companies, to make the doopio jump: from economy to first class using avios points.
How to search for an award ticket on Qatar
You must have an active account, having an active account means that you need to have at least a handful of points in order to search and proceed with the reservation.
By going to the appropriate section Spend with Avios from the company's website you can do a search for award tickets aboard Qatar, British, and American Airline (and in a few weeks on Iberia as well.) If, on the other hand, you want to search for a flight with a oneWorld partner company, just go to the appropriate section.
My advice when searching is to always be flexible, Evaluate any nearby or secondary airports. For example, next October we will be vacationing in Bali with Marika and Bete and we could not find seats directly on Depansar, so in the end we opted to fly to Jakarta and from there move to the island on a low-cost domestic flight.
Saver or flexi ticket
Qatar Airways Privilege Club offers the largest number of award places of all loyalty programs. That's a lot of seats, but they are just as sought after so finding the award ticket is often not so easy, especially at the "saver" fare, i.e., the cheaper fare compared to flexi. These tickets are widely available but at twice the cost of saver award tickets.
Unlike, for example, Flying Blue, which adopts a dynamic price table for award tickets. Qatar's Privilege Club has a fixed table, and flexi tickets cost exactly twice as much as requested on the same route in saver fare.If you don't see Flexi above the search results, then you know you are paying the lower "Saver" fare, which is a very good deal.
For example, a "Saver" award for a one-way flight from Milan to Bali costs 80,000 avios. while the flexi fare is 160k avios for the two-flight ticket. Milan/Doha and Doha/Bali. To figure out which days have saver seat availability just see the labels when looking for an award ticket on the calendar. If Q2 appears instead the fare available is only Flexi.
The same is true upon entering the details of the operative, on the results page the Qatar site/app will list the different possible options and you can then choose your preferred combination. One important thing to know if you are seeking QR award tickets through partner carriers is that availability will only be for Saver seats, while Flexi fares are visible only through Qatar's website.
Does it make sense to book a Flexi ticket?
The answer is NO, and the reason is simple no award ticket can cost one-way what a round-trip ticket potentially costs. The basis of traveling using points is to have flexibility of one's schedule, and there is no point in paying twice as much if you can fly the next day or the day before at half the price.
We are not talking about deals, such as those that Singapore Airlines and Air France release every month, here we are talking about an increased price of 100%, and like in a restaurant no one should be willing to pay twice as much for the same plate of pasta, just because the restaurant is full that day, I go there the next day and we eat for two at the same price.
In conclusion
Qatar Airways offers Flexi award tickets through its Privilege Club loyalty program. In exchange for more award seats, these tickets cost twice as much as the "Saver" tickets, my advice is to always look for other dates, or consider buying the tickets cash, for example if 2 people are traveling it might make sense to split the expense. Part points part cash, with the paid ticket also accumulating points and helping, in case, to achieve status.
- 6,000 Mile Registration Bonus
- Collect miles WITH EACH PURCHASE
- Your miles with no expiration*
- No fees for ATM withdrawals and foreign purchases
- Without having to change banks
- Autonomous card activation
- Multi-function mobile application
- Free travel insurance
- Free credit for up to 7 weeks
- Contactless Payment
- Mastercard® SecureCode
- 20€ discount directly in your statement by spending €60 in one or more transactions with Carta on Italotreno.it
- Free fee the 1st year. From the 2nd €5.50 per month
- You can choose to pay in full or in installments
- Premium level of the Italo Più program
- 4 Vouchers per year for access to Italo Club Lounges
- Preferential Access to Italo's Fast Track at the station
- For every 5 purchases of Italo ticketing and/or onboard services made with Italo American Express Credit Card you will receive 1 voucher for room upgrade
- Welcome bonus of 100,000 Volare points upon reaching 6 thousand in spending in the first 3 months after card issuance
- Accumulate 1.5 qualifying Volare points for every euro spent, accumulate an additional 3 non-qualifying Volare points ( for a total of 4.5 Volare points) for every euro spent on ticketing purchases and other services offered by ITA Airways
- Access to the Premium Club of ITA Airways' Volare program.
- ITA Airways Lounge Access
- Free excess baggage
- Points Back