You can now search, but not book, Qatar Airways redemptions on ba.com

Well, its progress of a sort, I suppose.  Yesterday, Qatar Airways redemptions were loaded onto ba.com. This gives Avios collectors (and American Airlines members) a head start at making redemptions, ahead of Qatar’s official entry into the oneworld alliance at the end of the month.

For some reason, whilst you can search Qatar availability on ba.com, you cannot book it. You get an error message asking you to call your local BA service centre to complete the booking. You can, at least, use ba.com to find out what seats are available before you ring.

The key thing to remember when searching for Qatar redemptions is that they fly from lots of places, not just London! Manchester is the other UK departure point. Their interactive route map is here.

The current cities running the new B787 with the new business class pictured above are (ex-Europe) Copenhagen, London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Munich, Oslo, Stockholm and Zurich. If you can’t get a seat from London, you may want to try a redemption from one of the other cities. Non-European routes with 787′s are Bangalore, Delhi, Jeddah and Riyadh. Fly Qatar on other routes, including from Manchester, Paris or Brussels and you will get older equipment with older seats.

There are some good deals to be booked.

I did a random search last night. Fancy Christmas in Australia? Imagine you can’t get seats?

There are four seats from Manchester to Perth in Business Class on December 8th, for example.

My gut feeling is that getting TO Doha will be a doddle if you are happy to start from anywhere in Europe. Focus on getting seats for the ‘Doha to Your Destination’ leg and then add on the ‘Europe to Doha’ bit afterwards. Happy hunting.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)