Back in October Qatar Airways announced their intent to join the OneWorld alliance, a process which would take 12-18 months. Historically airlines will sometimes already launch individual partnerships prior to the official join date, while in other cases they don’t.
Well, it looks like American will be kicking off their relationship with Qatar Airways sooner rather than later, as they’ll begin codesharing on February 10, 2013, for flights beginning February 26, 2013.
This is great news because it means it’ll be possible to earn both redeemable and elite qualifying miles with American for travel on Qatar Airways. The key is that in order to qualify the flights have to be booked as codeshares, meaning your Qatar Airways flight has to have an American flight number.
Unfortunately no time frame has been set yet for the ability to redeem miles on Qatar Airways. It may only be possible once they join OneWorld or it may be possible earlier; it’s anyone’s guess.
It’ll be interesting to see what the implications of this are in regards to American’s relationship with Etihad Airways. I can’t imagine they’re all too thrilled about American partnering with one of their main competitors, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that partnership end, especially once Qatar Airways joins OneWorld.
What airline miles can I currently use to book a Qatar award ticket? Have many cc points and want to fly YUL-DOH-KTM in Oct
Tnx
Well,
I can tell that Qatar Airways codesharing flights now shows up on AA website, flight DOH-IAH is labeled as AA7972, and the JFk-DOH is 7972.
This is exciting news for those living in Middle East and want to re-qualify for status with AA.
I have been trying to get the flights on aa.com with no avail! I started on Feb 10 all the way to Today Feb 26th; is it because I need to call American? or should I see it in Qatar airways website?
Now all I'm waiting for is Garuda and Delta to start a codeshare, I don't want to wait until 2014 to fly Garuda and earn MQM.
@ DL -- Service on both is hit-or-miss. Food on both is quite good. I tend to think Etihad has a better hard product in first and business class than Qatar, though, so I'd probably prefer them.
But I don't think there's any chance of Etihad actually joining OneWorld. So given the choice I'd probably take Qatar in OneWorld over Etihad as a partner (given that being in OneWorld gives more benefits, like lounge access,...
@ DL -- Service on both is hit-or-miss. Food on both is quite good. I tend to think Etihad has a better hard product in first and business class than Qatar, though, so I'd probably prefer them.
But I don't think there's any chance of Etihad actually joining OneWorld. So given the choice I'd probably take Qatar in OneWorld over Etihad as a partner (given that being in OneWorld gives more benefits, like lounge access, being able to include them on a OneWorld distance based award, etc.).
(excuse my typos!)
No having any knowledge or experience of either Etihad or Qatar, what are your thoughts on their respective merits (hard & soft product, destinations served, etc...)? If you could have either/orin the OW alliance, which of the two would you prefer to be in it?