BRUTAL! The End Of Avios Bargains: Qatar Devalues AA/Alaska Award Chart By As Much As 64%!

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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.

ZoneFlight DistanceSample routesCoachBusinessFirst
1 1-650Cleveland-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 ?
2651-1,151Miami-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 ?
31,152-2,000Chicago-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 ?
42,001-3,000LA-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
53,001-4,000Dallas-Honolulu
NYC-London
BA/Qatar 20,750BA/Qatar 62,000BA/Qatar 82,500
64,001-5,500NYC-Sao Paulo
NYC-Buenos Aires
BA/Qatar 25,750BA/Qatar 77,250BA/Qatar 103,000
75,501-6,500Dallas-Tokyo
NYC-Tel Aviv
BA/Qatar 31,000BA/Qatar 92,750BA/Qatar 123,750
86,501-7,000NYC-TokyoBA/Qatar 36,250BA/Qatar 108,250BA/Qatar 144,250
97,001+NYC-DelhiBA/Qatar 51,500BA/Qatar 154,500BA/Qatar 206,000

 

The JetBlue chart is still unchanged for now, making for some outsized values. Book them while they last:

Flight distanceEconomy BusinessSample routes
0-1,1008.5K17KJFK-Boston, Chicago, or Fort Lauderdale
1,101-2,00013K26KJFK-Aruba, S. Maarten, or S. Thomas
2,081-2,80018,50074KJFK-Barbados, Liberia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or Seattle
2,801-3,70025K78KJFK-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.

You can still book AA awards within the US49 and Canada for just 11K Finnair Avios in coach or 30K in first class, 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?

Leave a Reply

40 Comments On "BRUTAL! The End Of Avios Bargains: Qatar Devalues AA/Alaska Award Chart By As Much As 64%!"

All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.

H

Guess the low conversion rates weren’t providing the government enough $$ for their terrorism funding.

All set now

Yc

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?

Yandmk

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

mark n

I guess now you can stop supporting qatar all under the guise of being their “least valuable customer”.

Yanki

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

Jeremy

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.

Shaila

What should i do with my ba miles and how much are they worth now?

Teshuva

You should use them for flights you need. Happy Flying!

xbox 360

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

Shimi

The taxes also went up huge. Just checked Phx-SAN $143

Shimi

Please delete, made a mistake.

Mordy

How do you use the JetBlue points? Or is it using their points to fly on JetBlue?

Eitan

The best deal is still Alaska miles for 4,500 on domestic AA flights, right?

Yosef

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 🙂

AE

Where are the DD Seminars when you need them?!

nbt91

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.

Don\'t use QR

Not Avios. But fly AA with Qantas points. Ticket that was 12k BA Avios is 8K on Qantas.

54austin

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.

Valentin

Two AA award tickets, Helsinki to Houston on Finnair but had to call

Valentin

Sorry, meant Helsinki to Dallas

yy

Qatar system allows you to book flights to TLV? I get Airport/City not found.

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