In July 2026, Qatar Airways’ Privilege Club loyalty program rolled out some major restrictions to redeeming Avios with the currency, specific to the ability to use Avios for others. There’s now some positive news, as Qatar Airways has quietly backtracked… yay!
Qatar Airways backtracks on redemption restrictions
With the Qatar Airways Privilege Club changes we saw a couple of months back, Qatar Airways limited the ability to redeem Privilege Club Avios for other people.
With these changes, if you wanted to redeem Avios for others (even if they’re travel companions), you had to add them in your profile to “My List” or “Friends & Family.” Fair enough, except being able to do that required completing at least one of the two following qualifying activities:
- Accruing Avios to your account by crediting a flight to it, either for travel on Qatar Airways or a partner airline
- Having at least one eligible co-brand credit card accrual transaction
While different programs add different restrictions to redemptions, this was among the most extreme out there. I guess Qatar Airways has realized that, because the company has now quietly eliminated these restrictions.
If you go to Qatar Airways’ website and look at the rules associated with “My List” or “Friends & Family,” you’ll now only see one restriction listed for adding someone to your account. Specifically, it’s that your Privilege Club account must have been created at least 30 days prior. That’s it.
Also, in practice it appears to be possible to add people to these lists again if you don’t meet the previous eligibility requirements, so that’s a reflection of how things have clearly changed.
I’m happy Qatar Airways came to its senses
Of course airlines use their loyalty programs to strategically further certain goals. The most common reason we see airlines introduce a “list” requirement in order to redeem for others is to prevent fraud, given the huge underground market of rewards brokers.
However, Qatar Airways’ restrictions were a step too far, in my opinion. Look, I totally get how the airline would like everyone to open a co-branded credit card, or credit a flight to Privilege Club. However, there’s a point at which restrictions like this do more to damage business than help.
Ultimately Privilege Club presumably partners with some transferable points currencies because it sees financial upside to this arrangement, even for those who might not otherwise credit a flight to the program. After all, lots of people may move over points, and then not actually redeem for a long time, but Privilege Club still gets paid.
My guess is that the program saw a decrease in points transfers and other activity, and that’s not good for those running the program. Executives want to be able to show continued growth, and these kinds of rules are counterproductive, for those purposes. So I’m happy to see they’ve learned from their mistakes.
Bottom line
Qatar Airways Privilege Club has backtracked on its extreme policy of restricting award redemptions for others to those who have credited a flight to the program, or have a co-branded credit card.
Obviously Privilege Club was hoping it would see a big increase in those activities because of that new policy, but I imagine that didn’t make up for reduction in other activity (points transfers, account sign-ups, etc.). I figured this policy would be dropped sooner or later…
What do you make of Privilege Club backtracking on this redemption restriction?
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