Qatar Airways' Double Avios "Flex" Awards: Not A Bad Deal

This simply shows that you've become rich (or anyone willing to pay 2x is rich). Of course it's not a bad deal when you're willing to pay twice the cost, equivalent to an extra $700-1000. This is also reflected in many other posts, from just paying cash for hotels, not finding $400/night hotel as something to pause at, paying upwards of $100/hour for domestic business class and so on.

Unfortunately this valuation doesn't reflect that of the vast majority of people, and it seems that being rich now has given you "blinders" to find these a reasonable deal.

Thanks for explaining what 2x Avios means! I've recently acquired some Qatar Aviosand have been perusing the site, and couldn't understand the extra expensive redemptions.

@ Noa -- I don't think that's a fair criticism. As I explained in the post, this is something to simply be aware of, and not a way I necessarily recommend redeeming points. I've never booked a Qatar Airways award this way, and I don't plan on redeeming a Qatar Airways award this way. I like redeeming at the saver level.

This has nothing to do with me, or me being "rich." As I also explained, the double Avios option is still cheaper in the end than an Emirates first class award at the "regular" cost. There are some markets where Qatar Airways releases almost no first class award availability, so for some people, this might be worthwhile.

I'm just trying to make readers aware of yet another redemption option. Sorry if that makes me so bad.

Very helpful. We are often traveling as a family of four, and needless to say it’s difficult/impossible to find that many J saver seats. So this is a helpful tip to round out 1-2 of our family’s tickets if needed, which will allow us all to be on the same flight

I’ve got a 2X reward ticket for next month’s RTW. An equipment change caused a day delay that had me with 90 minutes transfer in Frankfurt from 1 ticket to the next. Even through this is the backup to Lufthansa not opening up First FRA GRU I took it for peace of mind and I’m Rich! 😉

I have two Qatar First Class SYD DOH & CHC SYD DOH AUH using 100,000 AA miles

I don’t understand how you present this article like it’s something good??

Agreed, with a family, it's helpful to understand these options. @Ben, ignore the naysayers.

If you are considering 2 x Avios, depending which currency zone you reside, you'd be wise to check the cash price of the said ticket.
QR have worthwhile sales all the time although they do a pretty awful job of getting the word out.

One thing to keep in mind with the flexi awards is that the phone agents are in general not trained to see flexi availability and trying to change a booking is extremely difficult (possible but not easy).

He's just offering another perspective Noa. He has no need to book like this, travel bloggers give us excellent examples that may not help a majority of us but may help a few. Remember, full time travel bloggers can book these trip with very little time restrictions. Regular joes may be constrained to certain DATES. Bloggers are not. They'll get saver level every time. Im actually considering this as a return trip has proven difficult to catch at a saver level, but I may exercise an option on another carrier...

Anecdotally, this may also be available for other Avios programmes. My dad was looking for an LHR-SYD redemption on BA recently and the phone agent offered him any flight at double the Avios. In the end he chose a paid booking on cathay.

So it seems that BA phone agents can do this, at least for gold card and higher.

What would be really, really helpful would be a round-up of where one can find decent long-haul business/first availability, without paying double. For instance, Lufthansa, if it's less than two weeks out. British Airways seems to offer that consistently across the Atlantic, as long as you're flexible on the US side. Qatar used to offer that from the US to Doha, but judging by this article, maybe they don't, now.

This is simply a published benefit of holding BA Gold status. I do not believe this applies to any other oneworld carrier / Emerald tier membership. There is also a catch: you have to pay the ‘lowest cash’ amount for a Gold 2x Avios booking. For example, many award flights with BA now give you the option to pay £1 and redeem many more Avios. Typically these are extremely poor value as the £/point value is drastically reduced. This is the rate at which you must pay double Avios. I needed to do this on an upcoming flight from ATH-LHR. We needed 4 award seats and BA only had 3 available. The 4th seat ended up costing me almost the same number of points as the other 3 passengers which had been paid for at the ‘normal’ Avios rate. There really is no value in using this perk anymore. Head for Points have some very good articles detailing why, for anyone who is interested.

Similar to SQ advantage awards, which can be great value compared to cash fares, and allow 30 day stopovers.

In economy you can get these as long as B class is available, which is the 2nd most expensive revenue booking class. They’re only about double the mileage of a saver award.

Not exclusive to Qatar Avios members. You can redeem these with Alaska miles, too, also at double the rate.

The timing of this post was perfect for me. I want to fly Qatar from Los Angeles to Zanzibar. I have a a lot of British airways avios that I've been sitting on for some time and not able to use effectively. I was confused by the 2x notation in looking at tickets for next year. Now I understand. I see that if I wait for tickets to be released to British Air or American airlines I might spend a lot less but I might not be able to find three seats. Guitar lets you book further ahead than either of those two programs.
Thanks!

@Noa: How you could find Ben’s informational and extremely helpful article to be all about him “simply” becoming “rich” is mystifying and absurd. To a balanced and objective reader, the article had absolutely nothing to do with that. I, for one (and, as the comments prove, there are others like me) did not know about the Qatar 2x particulars, and was very thankful and glad to learn about them.

The person wearing “blinders” is you. Your blinders are envy, resentment, bitterness and a simmering hatred of the “rich,” which you apparently define as anyone who has become, no doubt through very hard work and significant service to others, more financially successful than you. What a narrow, jealous, sad, defeatist and non-aspirational way to view the world.

@Noa, I also run a company, and (respectfully) people like you make me never want to own a business again. You always see the worst in people for no reason. It's really unfortunate. I'd rethink your life.

@Noa. Bitter troll.

Well, first kindly check how much you would need to spend on tickets to get the 140k miles, lol. QA has TERRIBLE ratio of how difficult is to get the miles and little it's worth...

Who has to be rich to accumlate Avios? Amex is practically giving them away, no they really are giving them away in bushels. Between Amex, Chase and Capitol One it's pretty easy to accumulate hundreds of thousands of points that can be easily transferred to British Airways and onto Qatar. We're planning on cashing in 340000 points to grab 2 seats LAX to Zanzibar. It hardly put a dent in our points stash. Well, I guess you do have to have an OK credit score to play this game.

I have a question. Qatar ostensibly allows booking out 361 days in the future
Today, May 12 shows up in their booking calendar, but I then get a message that "my request cannot be processed". I try May 11, and I get the same message. For May 10 I am only shown Economy awards. For May 9 I am shown business class availability. Any idea if this is an anomaly or their pattern?

Thank you Ben for this article. I read it a week ago, thinking that's an interesting way of seeing it. Never thought that today I actually might have to use this strategy to ensure a family member can travel together with me in J. I must have snatched up the last saver award on a particular route/date few months ago, as it showed 2xAvios straight after. It's 'painful' to have to pay double, but in the end being able to share the experience with someone you love (and for extra long trip too!) is worth the price!

I have now successfully booked 4 flights on Qatar. On several flights I had to use the double miles to get the seat and flight I wanted. On one flight so far I was able to refund the 140000 points and rebook at 70000 points. So, as always, it pays to go back and check. In this case it was only a few days later. So, the quirk seems to be that when they initially release space it's at the higher point rate, and then a few days later (random as far as I can tell) they drop the points for a few seats.