It’s devaluation season at mileage programs.
Qatar Airways has provided an absurdly good award chart for AA and Alaska flights ever since they joined the Avios program and OneWorld.
But outsized values never last forever and they have devalued their short-haul awards on AA and Alaska as of today.
They now have at least 3 hidden partner award charts, one for AA/Alaska flights, one for other OneWorld flights, and one for JetBlue flights.
By hiding them from the public, they can devalue them without warning.
Here is the new AA/Alaska award chart that I compiled after searching for award tickets on their site today. Included in this chart are the old Qatar rates, the new Qatar rates, and the current BA rates.
| Zone | Flight Distance | Sample routes | Coach | Business | First |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1-650 | Cleveland-NYC Pittsburgh-NYC | Qatar Was 6,000 Qatar Now 9,500 BA 12,000 | Qatar Was 12,500 Qatar Now 20,000 BA 24,000 | Qatar Was 24,000 Qatar Now ? |
| 2 | 651-1,151 | Miami-NYC Miami-Cleveland | Was 9,000 Qatar Now 13,000 BA 16,000 | Qatar Was 16,500 Qatar Now 27,000 BA 32,000 | Qatar Was 33,000 Qatar Now ? |
| 3 | 1,152-2,000 | Chicago-LA NYC-Cancun | Qatar Was 11,000 Qatar Now 14,500 BA 18,000 | Qatar Was 22,000 Qatar Now 34,000 BA 40,000 | Qatar Was 44,000 Qatar Now ? |
| 4 | 2,001-3,000 | LA-Honolulu NYC-LA | Qatar Was 13,000 Qatar Now 16,000 BA 20,000 | Qatar Was 38,750 Qatar Now 43,000 BA 50,000 | Qatar Was 51,500 Qatar Now 70,000 BA 80,000 |
| 5 | 3,001-4,000 | Dallas-Honolulu NYC-London | BA/Qatar 20,750 | BA/Qatar 62,000 | BA/Qatar 82,500 |
| 6 | 4,001-5,500 | NYC-Sao Paulo NYC-Buenos Aires | BA/Qatar 25,750 | BA/Qatar 77,250 | BA/Qatar 103,000 |
| 7 | 5,501-6,500 | Dallas-Tokyo NYC-Tel Aviv | BA/Qatar 31,000 | BA/Qatar 92,750 | BA/Qatar 123,750 |
| 8 | 6,501-7,000 | NYC-Tokyo | BA/Qatar 36,250 | BA/Qatar 108,250 | BA/Qatar 144,250 |
| 9 | 7,001+ | NYC-Delhi | BA/Qatar 51,500 | BA/Qatar 154,500 | BA/Qatar 206,000 |
The JetBlue chart is still unchanged for now, making for some outsized values. Book them while they last:
| Flight distance | Economy | Business | Sample routes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-1,100 | 8.5K | 17K | JFK-Boston, Chicago, or Fort Lauderdale |
| 1,101-2,000 | 13K | 26K | JFK-Aruba, S. Maarten, or S. Thomas |
| 2,081-2,800 | 18,500 | 74K | JFK-Barbados, Liberia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or Seattle |
| 2,801-3,700 | 25K | 78K | JFK-Amsterdam, Dublin, London, or Paris |
And the old Qatar OneWorld chart is still unchanged for redemption on other OneWorld partner flights, with good values, especially as Qatar charges lower fuel surcharges for many international flights:
Is it still worth booking AA or Alaska flights via Qatar? The savings are much less than before and booking fees (~$10 vs $5 on domestic one-ways) and cancellation fees (~$25 vs $5 on domestic one-ways) are slightly higher than via BA, but it may still make sense for you.
It can be tricky to book Qatar awards, so read this post first. I booked my last 6K AA award earlier this week from Cleveland to Chicago and was actually able to book an AA regional flight with the first Qatar agent that I called. It’s a shame that it will cost 58% more Avios to book short-haul routes like that in the future.
Technically, you can book AA awards within the US49 and Canada for just 11K Finnair Avios in coach or 30K in first class, however, I’m not sure anyone has actually gotten Finnair to successfully book AA awards. Post a comment if you have had success with that. You can combine Avios via this link via the BA site between BA, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair, and Qatar.
The Avios rates will be lower when you factor in bonuses like the current 30% from AMEX, but I never recommend transferring miles to airlines unless you’re ready to book something in the near-term. Keep miles with banks like AMEX, Capital One, Chase, or Citi and only transfer them over to airlines as needed. That way they won’t be devalued overnight.
Will you still book AA and Alaska awards via Qatar?
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39 Comments On "BRUTAL! The End Of Avios Bargains: Qatar Devalues AA/Alaska Award Chart By As Much As 64%!"
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Guess the low conversion rates weren’t providing the government enough $$ for their terrorism funding.
All set now
They were likely spending more than they were making on these bookings. Interesting that rates are still lower than BA though.
The Arab terrorists aren’t that smart so thats your answer
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/brutal-end-avios-bargains-qatar-devalues-aa-alaska-award-chart-much-64/comment-page-1/#comment-1724261
It’s amusing to me that despite the fact they are known for trying to actually bring both parties to the negotiation table, you call them terrorists. Even more amusing is that you continue to use their service despite calling them that. I’m American, but even I can see the lopsided murders of civilians on one side over the others this is a modern-day Vietnam, and the world will not look back on this kindly
Qatar itself is not a terrorist regime (per se). They just tend to tacitly support terrorists. A quick search shows that even Wikipedia – yes, the same entity that decided unilaterally that Gaza is a “genocide” – has a page titled “Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism”. Listed among the entities they have been accused of sponsoring: Al Qaeda; Al-Nusra; ISIS; Hamas; Muslim Brotherhood.
And no one ever looks on anything done by the Jews… wait, “Jews” is antisemitic, the operative word is now… Zionists kindly.
Source that’s it’s lopsided. From the sources I’ve seen, the combatants to civilian ratio is not lopsided at all.
Actually, you are wrong. Based on the available data, it is quite lopsided – in urban combat, the civilian to combatant death ratio is normally somewhere between 4:1 and 9:1 (according to the UN and other sources) – in Gaza, it’s around 1.5:1. (Possibly as low as 1:1, depending on who you believe. Amazing how 93+ civilians dead in a school – as unquestioningly reported by CNN and the like – the next day turns into around 40 in a Hamas command center in a school building, 75%+ of which were terrorists.)
So, lopsided in that there are WAY less civilian deaths than would be anticipated.
Is Alaska airlines the last bargain option for short haul flights?
With life miles, British, and qatar no longer nearly as good options… Is there anything else?
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we’ll have less temptation to do business with the greatest Hamas supporters TK and QR
Unfortunately, Qatar Airways is also the largest shareholder of IAG…
I guess now you can stop supporting qatar all under the guise of being their “least valuable customer”.
Qatar Airways is the largest shareholder of IAG, so be sure to also boycott Aer Lingus, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, LEVEL, and Vueling.
Big and obvious difference but glad you ignored the point.
Re: Finnair. I successfully booked 8 RT domestic tickets over chat last week. I searched for availability on BA. I booked them separately, on the return, initially they had issues booking it so I waited for the next day and they were able to book it.
Cancellation is the same as ba. Loose the $5.60 tax
Nice!
Can you give a little more detail if you can? Essentially if a domestic flight is shown on BA’s site as bookable it should also be bookable with Finnair, just need to find the right rep? Or only the lowest tier like saver tickets are bookable? Finnair seems to be great value if you can figure out how to unlock it.
Anything BA shows should be bookable by Finnair or Qatar.
What should i do with my ba miles and how much are they worth now?
You should use them for flights you need. Happy Flying!
i think focusing on percentages is a little shver for certain routes, for example 6k is a tiny number so any increase will automatically be a larger percentage. however, 9k for a domestic route that can easily cost 3 times that is decent, especially with transfer bonuses keeping it grounded at 7k about ATM
The taxes also went up huge. Just checked Phx-SAN $143
Not in my searches.
Please delete, made a mistake.
How do you use the JetBlue points? Or is it using their points to fly on JetBlue?
Using Avios to fly JetBlue.
How?
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/book-qatar-avios-award-bargains/
The best deal is still Alaska miles for 4,500 on domestic AA flights, right?
Hi! I’m new to this and need some guidance to get started. I have a few hundred thousand points between Amex, Chase and Capital One.
I have an international flight to book (Miami-Moldova) and wondering how to optimize points towards purchase of flights? I also travel often to Canada from Miami and wondering what is the best way to optimize points for that route.
I’m a quick learner if anybody is willing to help a fellow yid out for a few minutes.
Thank you 🙂
Where are the DD Seminars when you need them?!
That’s what DDF is for 🙂
Hello! Successfully booked through Finnair – AA DFW-ALB for 11k points/ticket, 2 travelers. Searched on BA to find availability. All I had to do was call em up and they were able to book it, no problem. The only hiccup was a “long” (maybe 5 minutes) delay in me receiving an email which contained a link for me to pay the $5.60.
Not Avios. But fly AA with Qantas points. Ticket that was 12k BA Avios is 8K on Qantas.
I’ve been able to book two AA tickets (for two people each), JFK-SFO, first class (A321T transcon) for 30k Finnair points. I did this via chat.
Two AA award tickets, Helsinki to Houston on Finnair but had to call
Sorry, meant Helsinki to Dallas
Qatar system allows you to book flights to TLV? I get Airport/City not found.
Try calling.