Qatar Airways Reverses (Stupid) Call Center Decision

As mentioned before, it is difficult to register for their promotions as there are always technical glitches and you have to email their support. Most of their policies and procedures on the ground are more cumbersome or nonsensical than for other carriers (eg denied lounge access when you pay $3000 to upgrade). But their on board service and product is just amazing.

Greetings, Lucky--long time reader, first time poster. I too can't believe it took these guys so long to get phone service back. Crew down here in Doha told me it was a security measure, not cost, but either way, the impact on frequent travellers was a disaster. Your assessment that you "simply can’t think of any reason to bother crediting flights to that program" is likely based on pure award chart comparison shopping. I'd be crazy to book my miles elsewhere--they run so many more points promotions than any of the other OneWorld carriers, I receive at least 50% more miles with them than I would with anyone else. They make it hard as H*** to register for promotions, but it's almost like the old SPG once you are. The charts are a bit more expensive depending on destination, but are a bargain compared to their expensive cash prices if you live in Doha. The availability people are talking about can also be poor, but it's much better if you're in PC. It's obvious they try to preserve seats for their own members because there are probably so many members of inferior airlines' programs trying to grab their superior seats with other OW miles.

Is QR still blocking ALL F award availability for partners?

QRPC is not "actively bad". You can't just look at the mileage redemption charts. The program has its advantages when earning the mile through flight promotions instead of credit card point conversions. They used to have highly lucrative promotions including the Globetrotter campaigns. Often it was possible to combine multiple promotions such as 3x/4x mileage earning promotions and destination-based bonuses. It was the perfect program for hardcore maximizers loving fine-tuned adventurous mileage runs while enjoying high-end onboard service. Admittedly, the status requirements were always harder than BAEC, but not unreasonable (no spending requirements, Qpoints multiplier promotions, reduced status requirements through special campaigns such as Globetrotter). I have earned and redeemed about 1 million miles in their program, mostly before the devaluations, and achieved an excellent redemption value. The value of the award tickets (even if just comparing them with promotional paid fares) by far outweighed the costs for the tickets to earn the miles. Of course, there have been program devaluations since the Qatar crisis, but they still have decent redemption rates with very low surcharges on partner airlines, avoiding the award redemption fees they charge for QR awards. Over the past months, we have slowly been seeing 3x/4x/5x mileage earning promotions returning. For example, the LAX-DOH-AMM route in their current Prix Fixe offer combined with a 5x mileage multiplier (that some members have received this month) would earn 6.25-fold distance miles for R and 10-fold for A, resulting in about 51800 + 10300 + 10300 + 51800 = 124200 Qmiles. With the QR Platinum tier bonus, it would be even close to 143000 miles for a round trip.

@Kevin - BA is one of the easiest in OneWorld to progress to higher status tiers so I pick that BUT you have to do 4 flights per year on BA (if you don’t, pick something else)