Qatar Airways has just made changes to the redemption fees that it charges when booking award tickets. We’re not talking about change or cancelation fees, but rather about the carrier imposed fees you have to pay in cash when redeeming Avios.
In this post:
Qatar Airways updates redemption ticket surcharges
In the past couple of years, we’ve seen Qatar Airways make significant changes to how it releases award availability. Back in the day, the program released the same amount of award space to all partner programs as it did to its own Qatar Airways Privilege Club members, so redeeming on Qatar Airways was a real sweet spot of programs like American AAdvantage or Alaska Mileage Plan.
That’s no longer the case, as nowadays Qatar Airways makes most premium cabin award space available exclusively to those accruing Avios currencies, whether it’s Qatar Airways Privilege Club or British Airways Executive Club.
That hasn’t been the worst thing on earth, since fortunately redemption rates for Qatar Airways premium cabins have been quite attractive. Furthermore, Avios are at least really easy to accrue with transferable points currencies.
One downside to redeeming Avios for travel on Qatar Airways is that this comes with some redemption surcharges. As of today (Sunday, September 15, 2024), Qatar Airways has changed how it charges fees on reward tickets. While they were previously charged based on the number of segments flown, they’re now charged based on the distance flown.
The airline states that surcharges on some rewards have decreased in cost by up to 15%, some have remained unchanged, and some have increased. As you’d expect, the more distance you travel, the more expensive a redemption will be in cash.
Note that these redemption fees apply when booking through Qatar Airways Privilege Club or British Airways Executive Club, or any other program that passes on surcharges. Programs like American AAdvantage and Alaska Mileage Plan don’t pass on surcharges.
So, what are fees like under the new system?
- A Male to Doha to Miami business class award now comes with a $250 redemption fee, in addition to government imposed taxes and fees
- A Jakarta to Doha to New York business class award now comes with a $250 redemption fee, in addition to government imposed taxes and fees
- A Chicago to Doha business class award now comes with a $200 redemption fee, in addition to government imposed taxes and fees
- A Perth to Doha first class award now comes with a $200 redemption fee, in addition to government imposed taxes and fees
- A Frankfurt to Doha to Bangkok economy class award now comes with a $90 redemption fee, in addition to government imposed taxes and fees
Note that when Qatar Airways first started rolling out these updates overnight, the airline erroneously showed higher costs than intended, and that has now been fixed. So the pricing you see now should be accurate, and in line with what the airline intends. For example, earlier I saw some routings with $500 surcharges, and those have now been lowered to $250. So it’s at least good news that this isn’t as bad as we first suspected.
I’m not a fan of the redemption surcharge concept
I’d say these changes to Privilege Club redemption rates are moderately bad, though honestly, at least they weren’t worse, as we had initially feared. For the most part, we’re seeing increases of no more than $50-100 one-way, and not all routings are going up in price.
However, I can’t help but be frustrated by the general existence of these surcharges. While it’s not uncommon for some airlines to pass on carrier imposed surcharges on award tickets, typically those surcharges reflect the ones that would be charged when booking a revenue ticket. In the case of Privilege Club, though, these fees don’t even reflect the carrier imposed surcharges on revenue tickets, but rather it’s a redemption fee.
These fees aren’t actually based on anything, they’re just intended to improve the economics of redemptions for the airline.
It just seems odd to essentially make every award booking a cash & points redemption of sorts, where you’re charged some arbitrary cash amount in addition to the Avios. On the plus side, at least Qatar Airways’ surcharges remain downright reasonable, compared to what Emirates charges on its Skywards redemptions.
Bottom line
Qatar Airways has just adjusted the cash fees it has on award redemptions. These fees have gone from being segment based to being distance based, so you can expect that awards covering a longer distance will be more costly than before. This applies when booking through Avios currencies, whether it’s Qatar Airways Privilege Club or British Airways Executive Club.
There’s still lots of value to be had with Qatar Airways Privilege Club, as the redemption rates are reasonable, and it’s also easy to rack up Avios.
What do you make of Qatar Airways adjusting its redemption fees?
Curious why you reposted the same article, deleted the previous, and removed all the comments originally there? Odd.
Have you ever held any airline frequent flier program accountable? EVER?
Josh Cahill does. Ben keeps it careful and smooth. Not as pussyfoot as Sam Chui, but careful.
This is another nail in the coffin of Avios. Essentially all Avios carreirs will revert to this for parity and the awards will be worthless.
There should be laws against imposing such arbitary fees.
Eventually miles will have a fixed value with perhaps limited exceptions, basically like Delta, Southwest, Jetblue, etc. It will suck but it's inevitable. These cash fees - not like it's any different than the massive BA surcharges - are another step towards that.
They prob aren't making much $$ off current awards bc there are so few avalabel Saver awards (business, first). So annoying.
Is there a way to calculate the carrier-imposed fees without having the necessary miles for an award? I'm thinking of SFO to SIN via Doha. It's about 12K miles each way. Would the fee be $250 each way, or something higher. I couldn't tell on the Qatar website because I don't have enough miles on account for those flights.
Try using the mobile app
It is time to get rid of antitrust regulation for the carriers and alliances as well as as open skies. All of those rules serve one purpose only, collusion/ price and supply fixing and driving prices up. Interlining will and has worked in the past. That will make loyalty valuable and possibly make flying competitive again. Look at the alliances now, they are becoming regional duopolies at best.
“There’s still lots of value to be had with Qatar Airways Privilege Club” I’ve never seen it. Especially if you’re on the west coast. LAX and SFO are cash-pay routes in any class other than economy.
Exactly. Same with every other departure city, it feels. I've searched them all.
@Regis
Dynamic pricing is enabling airlines to more effectively ensure they maximize the value for each and every seat in every flight. Many sweet spots were legacies of the old table-driven pricing.
The game has been shifting continuously for the past 15+ years. Just talk to anyone who was playing back when cash back was king.
It does seem we currently are in yet another transition.
For at least 5 years the old "fare...
@Regis
Dynamic pricing is enabling airlines to more effectively ensure they maximize the value for each and every seat in every flight. Many sweet spots were legacies of the old table-driven pricing.
The game has been shifting continuously for the past 15+ years. Just talk to anyone who was playing back when cash back was king.
It does seem we currently are in yet another transition.
For at least 5 years the old "fare rules" strategy has been out of favor. Maybe it will have its day again.
It's much much more difficult for airlines to efficiently and effectively use dynamic fare rules. Historically those kinds of sweet spots have been the most lucrative.
Y award seats will still be plentiful. Those at the front with doors? Nope.
What’s the point of posting these new fees on different routes when u don’t even post the old fees for comparison???
Award sweep spots, going away one by one. Is the end of our points game coming?
Without question. At the same time the formal alliances are being weakened as more airlines restrict premium redemptions to members of their own program, or in this case, to programs using the same "currency". The points have also become massively devalued, firstly by the huge increase in redemptions rates across the board, and also by the gargantuan number of points floating around the system from credit-card spend, etc, which is directly attributable to airlines trying...
Without question. At the same time the formal alliances are being weakened as more airlines restrict premium redemptions to members of their own program, or in this case, to programs using the same "currency". The points have also become massively devalued, firstly by the huge increase in redemptions rates across the board, and also by the gargantuan number of points floating around the system from credit-card spend, etc, which is directly attributable to airlines trying to wring every last red cent out of their frequent flyer programs by selling them to all and sundry.
I can't see things getting better. I think the premium redemption market will become ever-more compartmentalized and rarefied ala La Première, which is accessible only to AF/KLM's most frequent (and lucrative) customers.