Qatar Airways Restricts Award Bookings For Others With Absurd New Rule

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 execution leaves a lot to be desired, and there’s one rule that will lock many people out of being able to redeem.

Qatar Airways limits awards with “My List,” “Family & Friends”

Historically, Qatar Airways has allowed Privilege Club members to redeem their Avios for anyone. Admittedly fraud and bartering of rewards has become an increasingly big problem for loyalty programs, so we have seen more programs add restrictions on who rewards can be redeemed for, in an effort to minimize fraud.

Along those lines, Privilege Club has just greatly limited who members can redeem their Avios for, thanks to two new initiatives:

• With the new “My List” feature, Privilege Club members can only redeem rewards for up to four other Privilege Club members, and they have to be saved to the account; once added, they have to stay connected to the account for at least six months before being removed, limiting the ability to cycle through redemption options
• There’s also the “Family & Friends” feature, whereby Privilege Club members can redeem rewards for up to six other people who are not Privilege Club members, and they also have to be saved to the account

Just to be crystal clear, this restriction is specific to Privilege Club, regardless of the airline you’re redeeming on. Conversely, if you book through another loyalty program (even if it’s for travel on Qatar Airways), you’d be subjected to the rules of that program.

On the surface, this seems totally fair. For example, just on the fraud front, having to first invite other members as redemption nominees adds another step that makes it harder for hackers to steal rewards. For that matter, limiting the total number of people you can redeem for helps with limiting the bartering of rewards, since you can only redeem for so many people out of your account.

The issue is the restrictions for creating these nominee lists

Here’s where this policy goes from fair to completely unreasonable, if you ask me. If you look at the terms, you’ll see that you’re only able to invite others to partake in the Friends & Family or My List option if they meet the following two criteria:

1. The member’s Privilege Club account must have been active for a minimum 30 days
2. The main member must have completed at least one qualifying activity;
   1. A flown flight accrual with Qatar Airways or any partner airline
   2. At least one eligible co-branded credit card accrual transaction

Requiring someone to be a member for 30 days is fair, and not an unusual restriction. However, the real issue is that you need to either have credited a flight to Privilege Club, or must have a co-branded credit card.

So this isn’t about security or fraud, but instead, it’s about encouraging people to engage more in the program. And while I can appreciate the concept of programs increasingly wanting “more” from those redeeming (whether it’s more points, an elite status or credit card requirement, etc.), a blanket requirement to have further engagement in the program to redeem for others strikes me as rather odd.

For example, I’ve redeemed a countless number of Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios over the years, but I’m not actually eligible to redeem for others anymore. Sad!

Bottom line

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has just added a major restriction when it comes to redeeming Avios for others. You can now only redeem your Avios for up to four other Privilege Club members, or up to six other non-Privilege Club members, and each “nominee” needs to stay connected to the account for at least six months.

That’s fair enough. What’s going to cause a lot more frustration is the rules. If you just transfer points from bank programs, you’re now technically out of luck, and can no longer redeem Avios for others. Instead, you need to actually credit a flight to the program, or have a co-branded credit card from the program. Bleh.

What do you make of Privilege Club’s new redemption restrictions?