San Gottardo

My Gold status with QR is expiring next week, just as I am about to start another period of travel that will route me through Qatar frequently.

I am just wondering: are there any benefits of being Gold or Platinum on QR when in any case I am flying them in Business or First, when I have OWE from another program (BAEC) anyway? If not, I'd rather credit the miles to another OW program

Luggage allowance - I only have hand luggage
Lounge passes - Never found a possibility to use them
QCredits - never found a possibility to use them
Tier bonus - I rather concentrate all my mileage earnings in one program (BA in this case). I have >300k Qmiles, and I am really annoyed that every time I want to use them QR wants double miles
Priority checkin, boarding - comes with J/F

The only thing I sometimes use is the Al Maha service, which is handy for transfers and arrivals. But for the few occasions when I need it I can pay for it, it's not that expensive.

Is there something that I haven't seen that people would say make renewal of QR Gold worthwhile?

srbrenna

BAEC is slightly easier to move through the tiers. I'd stay with them and concentrate your earning there.

roadwarriorafrica

I also face a similar conundrum. I see very little benefit in having QR Gold or Platinum when flying in J. With Platinum, you get access to some F lounges around the world inc. HKG, SYD, MEL and LHR.

Pyros

Yeah, but BA Gold would be even easier to achieve than QR Plat and that would give access to the same lounges...

San Gottardo

Exactly. And since I have BA Gold anyway (and my QR flying will probably even get me to GGL, even though I doubt that's worth that much), I think I'll just stick to people's advice and will credit on BA instead of trying to hang on to Gold or regain Platinum.

Thanks for all the hints.

amnicoll

On the whole I found being elevated to Gold underwhelming both with Qatar and Etihad apart from a obtaining mileage.

If you are able to get Platinum then there is a benefit (for me) with the first class lounge access

I know that people have different needs so for some extra baggage allowance is attractive and if traveling in economy then priority check in and lounge access is important but I do not think that either Qatar or Etihad have really considered the needs of their premium passengers with the gold cards

NetJets Germany

I've got a somewhat related question:
Shall I pursue Gold status on QR or CX, given that I am based in SIN and mainly want to redeem in long-haul J to Europe and the US? If I fly on paid QR tickets I could collect more miles on their own program, but it seems that award availability on AsiaMiles seems is pretty good, and flying via HKG might arguably be more pleasant and also shorter when going to the West Coast. What would you recommend?

jdtravels

Honestly, QR's programme is only great for easy status - fly Europe-Doha-SEA return twice and you're at OWS. With their Globetrekker and other promotions, you can even be OWE with those flights...

But if you actually plan on redeeming miles, QR has the worst system I've ever experienced. Firstly, you cannot see availability of individual flights on the website - booking requires a complicated process of submitting a form and waiting for an email reply on the available flights for the day, or by calling through to QRPC call centre. Then, the availability itself is also poor - I've tried redeeming for short haul flights with lots of seats, e.g. HKG-BKK, and while both CXAM and BAEC list seats available on multiple flights, QRPC replied with one option only - and not on a flight with the best schedule either... Changing dates around via the call centre wasn't helpful either with repeated "no availability" as the reply. And that was when I was still QRPC Platinum. I sometimes wonder whether they have a special booking class just for QR that is never available.

So no, I certainly cannot recommend QRPC unless you fly very infrequently but still want status. For long haul redemption, I believe people do recommend AA's programme? But there's a lot more information on that in the AA and BA forums.

San Gottardo

+1

Although it might be worthwhile mentioning that QR flights can be booked through their website. Which doesn't help the person wanting to fly on OW partners from SIN, but I jut mention it for a more complete picture.

The trouble with QR flights though is that often they slam a "x2" multiple on it, at least that is what I have seen for popular destinations at popular dates.

What I don't know is whether QR Gold/Platinums have a better award availability oN QR flights than lesser privilege club members

impeymac

Obviously everyone's experience is different with QR awards flights, that's why we have so many points of view here. However, here's what happened to me when I booked Awards flights for Mrs IM & myself to Muscat earlier in the year;

Went to my PC account & used the booking tool to see availability around the dates I wanted. Found return flights in J/F, not ideal times by any stretch, but as this was a short break with only taxes to pay they were good enough. Confirmed the flights using the booking tool (price shown in QMiles + taxes rather than Ł's) & received confirmation email with PNR. All other flights had shown as x2 QMiles, which had made them unacceptable to me.

Kept checking the dates via my account & the booking tool & about 6 weeks before departure noticed more acceptable flights were now showing as x1 Qmiles. Rang the Gold helpline who, after a bit of fuss & 3 callbacks, swapped us over to the new flights at a cost of Ł19. Excellent customer service as far as I'm concerned.

Have also managed to secure J to F upgrades for next year using QCredits from 2 different PC accounts under the same PNR by ringing the Gold helpline.

The system isn't completely rubbish, there are some successes out there, though probably not as many as we'd like so keep trying.

San Gottardo

But you are talking about something entirely different. You have booked a flight on QR with your miles. The poster you replied to was talking about award availability on OW partners, where indeed you have to send request forms.

It is easier to use QR miles on QR flights, because there you can book online, just what I said in my previous post and what you confirmed. To book flights on OW partners is a huge hassle.

impeymac

That's not how I read it.

Jdtravels' first para talked about QR's programme & went on to say how poor it was for redeeming miles.

Regardless, there's no need to jump down my throat for mis-interperating something & trying to help.

remdk

jdtravels have you tried starting a booking filling in your itinerary and letting the system present you with the possibilities? But first you need to ensure that you are NOT logged into PC! When the next page is shown to the far right there is a slider button 'Book using Qmiles' turn this ON and you will get the PC login. Award flights are shown and you can choose other dates easily. You can complete the booking just as any other online ooking.

jdtravels

Sorry guys/girls! My mistake for not being clear in my post - just to clarify, I was referring to booking OW partner flights through QRPC system. (sorry!!!)

On another note, I have yet to consider booking QR flights with Qmiles, seeing that they run such frequent promotions, I often feel that using miles on their flights would be poor value, but then again, YMMV.

NetJets Germany

Thanks for the feedback, guys! Am I missing something, or can I only see award availability for those flights that I would already have enough miles for to book? In other words, I tried to look at general award availability for certain routes, just to get a feel for how much / little is available on QR for certain routes, but I got an error message saying that I didn't have enough miles to redeem for the route in question... That's a bit annoying! Is there a way around this?

I have got to say that one of the upsides of CX / Asiamiles is that you can see availability on their own and partner flights pretty easily, even if you have to look on a day-by-day basis, and there generally appears to be pretty good availability if one is reasonably flexible (I.e. can fly +/- 2 days from the optimum date)...