Qatar Airways Restricts Award Bookings For Others With Absurd New Rule - Qatar

Qatar Airways Restricts Award Bookings For Others With Absurd New Rule

Ben Schlappig — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:53:47 +0000

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has just added new restrictions regarding who you can redeem your Avios for. Essentially, you have to create a list of potential nominees who you can redeem your rewards for. While I can on the surface understand the value of this in terms of preventing fraud and bartering of rewards, the…

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Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.

Chris — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:47:53 +0000

Just spoke to amex and qatar. Transfered 450,000 points a month ago to take myself and my daughter from uk to Australia. I now cant use them as cant make a family account, I cant even book separately as she is 7 so needs an adult. 450,000 avios just wasted and gonna have to pay cash to emirates!

Chris — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:08:58 +0000

I literally just transfered 450,000 amex points to take my daughter to Australia from the UK with qatar and found i cant use them due to this, and cant transfer them back to amex...

Chris_ — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:39:41 +0000

Eh, since it's a once in a lifetime requirement, take a single AA flight and credit it to QR and you're good to go.

Darin — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 04:29:49 +0000

"why should they let anyone let anyone book award flights through them?" Because that's how airlines make money. They sell their miles to banks, people use those miles to book flights. Make it impossible to book award flights and that revenue goes away. Once they start losing those sweet bank dollars, you can bet this restriction will go away. Someone took a jackhammer to solve a problem that required a hammer.

Kyle — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 22:25:49 +0000

Using AA miles has nothing to do with the QR policy; if the flights are available on AA site (hah!) then you can book them with your AA miles.

MT — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:18:54 +0000

the OBJECTIVE is not absurd but the condition to apply it is: in Canada I do not have any plan to fly with a One Wolrd parnter in the year1-2 years BUT I accumulate Avios points and love to get my award with BA or QA. I bring them business in buying points so I do not understand why QA does not respect our situation. I was supposed to get an award ticket in november but I need now to change plans because the couple flights I have in the meantime are not with OW. I am ready to comply with my "other signiificant other" staying in the account for 2 years if they want! No problem with that. I do not participate in any scam! The condition looks like ones decided by a "creative" legal dpt....not a marketing one.

MT — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:11:23 +0000

Besides a comment sent to QA, what can we do? Protest to Amex for example since their points can be tranferred into Avios so they understand clients are furious? Social media post to QA and Avios? Anything else? The main thing here to obtain: an intelligent relief for parnters/spouses/children that have to be registered and stay in the account for (example) at least 6-12 months. The idea is that for a large portion of people we do not participate to scam and that the rule adpted has IMPORTANT UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES!!!!

Jane H — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 01:36:02 +0000

Sorry, I am very confused. I'm looking to book only myself, using AA mileage to book QR, PHL/JNB OW, does this also mean I must credit a flight to QR. I have been a QR member for 5 yrs with pd flights from 2021.

Michael_FFM — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:00:29 +0000

Thanks for highlighting this. I just tried to make a test booking for my wife and myself traveling together and I cannot do it because my wife is not on the friends and family list. This is simply insane. If this stays in effect I will not fly with them any more.