After wanting to purchase some flights within the middle east lately, I have found that it is often cheaper to buy the skywards miles for a reward ticket to that destination, then to buy a paid ticket - even when the flight is wide open

For example, recently I was trying to find DXB-DOH vv tickets

Paid fares were around 300GBP (!) high season mabye?
The amount of miles required for an award ticket was 10k which came out to 250$ USD in total - much cheaper than buying a ticket, and with lots of availability.

The one caveat though - you can only purchase a max of 25,000 miles a year.

Next time you need a flight within the middle east - look no farther than skywards


Cheers