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Qatar Airways / QR: Redeem AA Miles for Award (master thd)

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Old Nov 19, 2013, 3:20 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: Prospero
Covid-19 Update:
  • Sapphire+ status pax are temporarily allowed to use the Al Mourjan Business Lounge
  • Only tickets issued on QR 157 stock are eligible for the Extending Our Commitment (EOC) rebooking policy
link to QR Travel Alerts)

For further information on AA awards see:

HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Help, Assistance & Discussion

and

AA oneworld and Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (2015 on)

N.B. Upgrades on QR book into fares not granted EQD/EQM by AA. If you're upgraded on QR, be prepared for pushback from some AA agents. You may have to submit a formal request with accompanying documentation reflecting you purchased an eligible fare class.

NOTE:AA has removed most EY and QR award access from aa.com due to a glitch booking these:

From One Mile at a Time (link)

Bottom Line

For the time being you’ll have to call American if you want to ticket AAdvantage awards on Etihad & Qatar that aren’t for travel to & from the US or Canada. It makes sense that American took these awards “offline,” and now it also makes sense why so many passengers have been having issues with checked bags on awards.
If you experience difficulties with the AA reservations system, you may be able to book by calling AA Australia (+61 2-9101-1948 ) then press 4 - or the New Zealand number (+64 09-308-4014) as an alternative - although the call center is actually in Suva, Fiji (South African agency Mindpearl) - as they can often see the inventory more reliably, and you can book.

NOTE: USA Canada travel on QR will earn EQ miles etc. in accordance with the fare class purchased.

Links:

Link to AA.com Qatar miles earning etc.

AA miles earning on QR changed 1 May 2016 (Link):

Minimum miles guarantee applies.

Checking QR award availability:

You can check QR availability on AA's site, BA's site, QF's site, www.awardnexus.com (which pulls from BA and/or QF), or the KVS tool. (A certain number of searches are free to FlyerTalk members at AwardNexus; click the "more signup options" link under the green Purchase button to sign up as a FlyerTalk member.)

When checking QR award availability, you have to check each segment individually. Both BA and QF can generate very misleading information if you try to check QR award availability all the way through [xxx-(DOH)-yyy] in one step. Be aware AA can only book 330 days out, even if you see availability farther out.

Awards on QR may not be visible to AA agents if a multi-segment itinerary is requested; broken into individual segments will generally reveal availability, however.

As well, AA Australia or New Zealand (actually MindPearl in Fiji) can often see and book AA awards on QR US-based ones might not be able to.

From danger: For AA awards, Economy is X, Business is U, First is Z. NOTE: Those with Z (First) awards may see "Z (Business Class)" shown on the QR website; this is a known glitch.

As well, QR sells intra gulf two class service as First and Economy, as AA does domestically. This can cause some issues with a Business flight including a Gulf "First" flight potentially incurring an F award redemption.

From hotelmotel: "Got my QR PNR from AA. Popped over to QR and selected seats." (AAdvantage award.)

Days of the week: To/from the USA, especially in business class, Qatar often only offers awards seats for Mon..Thu departures, not Fri..Sun departures. So makes sure you check different parts of the week, and not just always weekends (if you're not finding anything on weekends).

NOTE: At DOH / Hamad International Airport, lounges as follows:

Qatar Airways Al Safwa First Lounge (not a oneworld lounge): only accessible to those flying First Class on Qatar or oneworld airlines and QRPC Platniums flying in ticketed Business (not oneworld Emeralds flying other lower classes of service)

Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge (not a oneworld lounge): only accessible to those flying Business Class on Qatar or oneworld (not oneworld Sapphire flying lower classes of service)

Oryx Lounge: Third party lounge.

Qatar Airways HIA First Class Lounge (oneworld lounge): First Class ticketed customers, Emerald members, as well as their accompanying guests, travelling on Qatar Airways and other oneworld member flights.

Qatar Airways HIA Business Class Lounge (oneworld lounge): First and Business Class ticketed customers, Emerald and Sapphire members, as well as their accompanying guests, travelling on Qatar Airways and other oneworld member flights.

Arrivals Lounges (not oneworld lounges): only accessible to those arriving in First or Business Class on Qatar Airways (not oneworld Sapphire flying other oneworld airlines or other classes of service)

See FT: QR Lounges at HIA

Selecting Qatar Airways Seats
If you want to assign a seat after booking an award, you should first try the Qatar website or app. If you experience issues, please try a partner site like Royal Jordanian, Malaysia Airlines, or Sri-Lankan. You can also reach out to the QR Twitter team to fix your record in order to be able to select seats on their own site.
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Qatar Airways / QR: Redeem AA Miles for Award (master thd)

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Old Feb 11, 2019, 8:02 am
  #661  
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 599
Originally Posted by DFWsakp
Economy is widely available (maybe missing 1 - 2 days a month), but Business is totally gone past 1st Nov 2019
Hope they release biz availability soon. wishful thinking?
lincoln boy is online now  
Old Feb 11, 2019, 8:43 am
  #662  
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Programs: SQ Gold, Marriott Platinum, IHG Diamond Ambassador, DL Silver, AS MVP, B6 Mosaic, QR, EY, KE, CX, PR
Posts: 317
Booked CRK-DOH for May 2019 using the AA website. Process took less than 10 minutes from requested to ticketed. Y and J plenty available. Helps that it's not from/to US-DOH though.
SpeedAdvantage is offline  
Old Feb 11, 2019, 10:51 am
  #663  
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Programs: UA, Marriott, Sixt, Avis
Posts: 1
Spoke with AA agent on Feb 8 looking for Jan 2020 DOH-US availability in business, who said that they received a memo earlier that day regarding temporary unavailability of such award space. Agent said there was no time frame indicated as to how long this may last. Not sure whether this is indicates bigger concerns down the road...
blucastle is offline  
Old Feb 11, 2019, 11:14 am
  #664  
Moderator: American AAdvantage
 
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
Originally Posted by blucastle
Spoke with AA agent on Feb 8 looking for Jan 2020 DOH-US availability in business, who said that they received a memo earlier that day regarding temporary unavailability of such award space. Agent said there was no time frame indicated as to how long this may last. Not sure whether this is indicates bigger concerns down the road...
At least QR CEO Akbar Al Baker showed up at the recent oneworld meet and there seems to be no problem in terms of that relationship.
JDiver is offline  
Old Feb 11, 2019, 2:31 pm
  #665  
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Austin
Posts: 4,629
Originally Posted by JDiver
At least QR CEO Akbar Al Baker showed up at the recent oneworld meet and there seems to be no problem in terms of that relationship.
I think a more accurate statement would be that QR has no immediate plans to leave.

Last edited by millionmiler; Feb 22, 2019 at 3:02 pm
millionmiler is offline  
Old Feb 15, 2019, 11:55 am
  #666  
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 54
Originally Posted by olouie
Try another call center? Sometimes the US ones aren't good at seeing inventory (for Etihad I know this is true, but not sure about Qatar)
Thanks for suggestion. Update and DP - managed to book return ticket ZAG-DOH-MLE for 3 pax for Dec 24-26. It was not possible to complete the booking at aa.com website, even though some availability was shown. So I did call up the aa number in australia - they actually saw more flights/seats available and made the booking without charging any handling fees. I also used ExpertFlyer to find/monitor availability, however although it was showing plenty, only few seats were actually visible/available to the cs rep when I called.
ijakov is offline  
Old Feb 15, 2019, 12:03 pm
  #667  
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 5,631
Originally Posted by ijakov
I also used ExpertFlyer to find/monitor availability, however although it was showing plenty, only few seats were actually visible/available to the cs rep when I called.
That is interesting, because EF does not show QR award availability. Were you booking awards, or paid tickets?
SeeBuyFly is online now  
Old Feb 15, 2019, 12:28 pm
  #668  
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 54
Originally Posted by SeeBuyFly
That is interesting, because EF does not show QR award availability. Were you booking awards, or paid tickets?
You are right, QR can not be searched under the award availability tag. I searched flight availability with I and X codes and the results were showing quite a few seats under these codes. It might be though that these were actually not award seats...

I booked award tickets.
ijakov is offline  
Old Feb 22, 2019, 8:50 am
  #669  
 
Join Date: May 2017
Location: SIN
Programs: AS MVPG75k, AA Plat
Posts: 741
Does Z space always trigger F award pricing? For SIN-CAI in business, AA website suggests SIN-DOH-AMM-CAI, but DOH-AMM on QR Z, and then it keeps erroring out saying the itinerary is no longer available when I try to press continue.
Unionruler is offline  
Old Feb 22, 2019, 12:23 pm
  #670  
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: NYC
Programs: AA EXP, 1865 Voyager, *G
Posts: 112
FYI, if it will help anyone, I'm likely to release two (2) A350-1000 Business Class Q-Suites from DOH->JFK (QR701) on 26-May tonight or tomorrow.

Finishing off our honeymoon and decided to go via AUH and First on the A380 a couple of days later.
dp4m is offline  
Old Feb 22, 2019, 5:47 pm
  #671  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,740
Originally Posted by Unionruler
Does Z space always trigger F award pricing? For SIN-CAI in business, AA website suggests SIN-DOH-AMM-CAI, but DOH-AMM on QR Z, and then it keeps erroring out saying the itinerary is no longer available when I try to press continue.
In the past when QR was not bookable online, some aagents knew the regional F was not a F but a business class. Some aagents had no clue. However most people were able to get the regional "F" segments treated as a J segment and ticketed with J price.

Have you called AA to find out more?
Happy is offline  
Old Feb 24, 2019, 7:46 pm
  #672  
 
Join Date: Feb 2017
Programs: AA : EXP / AR : ORO
Posts: 55
Last Sunday I booked a return EZE/DOH/MLE in J for May 2019. Seeing QR awards on AA.com made the whole process much easier.
There was plenty of availability in May and June (very rare for the EZE/DOH flight - via GRU, now in Q Suites).
I'd had it on hold for most of the week, but when I tried to renew my reservation, all availabilty dissapeared.
So I just went ahead and ticketed it last Friday.
90,000 miles each way + $200 total in taxes.
Considering that I will be spending roughly 24 hours in the air, it's quite a good value.
pdcarg77 is offline  
Old Feb 25, 2019, 10:08 am
  #673  
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Programs: Delta PM, Hyatt Plat, IHG Diamond AMB
Posts: 52
Originally Posted by lincoln boy
I agree. But there were certain days that had no availability between US and DOH in economy. It looks like at least in economy seats are available now between US and DOH.
Seems to be zero biz availability JFK-DOH in the next few months into the summer... did this recently change?
mikeb99 is offline  
Old Feb 25, 2019, 10:24 pm
  #674  
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Kansas City, MO
Posts: 71
Originally Posted by mikeb99
Seems to be zero biz availability JFK-DOH in the next few months into the summer... did this recently change?
Yeah, they have those dates blacked out for the summer, I believe across all routes in J
hargobind is offline  
Old Feb 26, 2019, 2:53 am
  #675  
 
Join Date: May 2017
Location: SIN
Programs: AS MVPG75k, AA Plat
Posts: 741
Originally Posted by pdcarg77
Last Sunday I booked a return EZE/DOH/MLE in J for May 2019. Seeing QR awards on AA.com made the whole process much easier.
There was plenty of availability in May and June (very rare for the EZE/DOH flight - via GRU, now in Q Suites).
I'd had it on hold for most of the week, but when I tried to renew my reservation, all availabilty dissapeared.
So I just went ahead and ticketed it last Friday.
90,000 miles each way + $200 total in taxes.
Considering that I will be spending roughly 24 hours in the air, it's quite a good value.
DOH-GRU is painful enough without the EZE tag, like you eat, sleep, and wake up not knowing what to do for the latter half of the flight. I always get off in GRU pitying the other J pax headed to EZE!
Unionruler is offline  


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