nkaufman

Hello,

I have Citi premier points (over 90K) and have the option of transferring them to a FF account and Qmiles is one option.

However, while checking for availability from IAD - CCU, I see nothing available for the months of Dec, Jan and Feb (except for a couple of days in Feb) and this is still October.

Also, nothing available for May,June, July as well.

Of course QRx2 was available at all times but that is not what I'm looking at.

Hence my questions are -
Is Qatar this restrictive all the time? Or will the situation be better if I book 6 months in advance rather than 3 months?

Also, my trips would most likely be in Dec and May of each year, so does Qatar have more restrictions in these months or I just happen to come across a time when FF seats are all taken.

Will be monitoring this for some time before I transfer points to QMiles. Have other options so will take a look at those airlines as well.

Thanks,

lowfareair

From my (admittedly minor) experience with QR redemptions, they tend to release award seats at schedule opening, and then it's very sporadic once those are taken, with only a small increase in availablility within several weeks of departure.

irishguy28

Next time don't be so restrictive with your advance planning!

nkaufman

Have no idea what you mean by this but frankly it does not add any value to this discussion specially considering that you are an FT Evangelist with thousands of posts.

nkaufman

Glad to know this.

Was kind of surprised to see that for travel during March-July 2016 also there was nothing available on my trip selection; of course QRx2 is available for all these periods and am wondering why next year's seats at regular miles are not available at this time. Seems kind of strange.

So far it does not seem like a good FF programme.

pstation

My strategy with QR is to forget about booking awards and instead booking cheap coach flights last minute on flights with fairly empty J cabins and using miles to upgrade at the airport.

ismann

Maybe I got lucky, but about a month ago (early Sept) I was able to book 2 QR J awards ORD-DOH-KUL departing Jan 22. I monitored availability using the BA tool and, in what I imagine is a relatively rare move, booked the tickets using OZ (Asiana) miles.

Sky Fly

I also have a Citi Premier card.
I mostly redeem my points on upgrades. I've redeemed a lot in the past 9 months. I've been very lucky...and pretty surprised at how easy its been to upgrade with points.
No experience in award tickets through.

nkaufman

So, based on the responses so far, people have been using QR miles more for upgrades than actual tickets. That is a shame! Not talking about people but talking about FF program.

I'm a member of United and AA and have had no problems with using their FF programs. Actually I've used AA miles to fly on Qatar.

It is just that being a Citi Premier card holder I need to transfer my points to miles (not in a rush to do so) and was evaluating Qatar's FF program. And so far with what I've read - 'IT SUCKS!!' - in my opinion.

Sky Fly

The FF program has gotten much better in the past 6 months, mainly in providing better upgrade opportunities/inventory. I would give the FF program a 6/10, many people on here would give it a higher score.
The main ding to the FF program is it bad lounge in DOH, sucks!

The points upgrade works very well, for now. I'm pretty happy with upgrades. I haven't tried award tickets, so I can't comment on them. Generally speaking, you will not get upgrade or award tickets in high seasons (at least according to the QR FF website).

ft101

Usually the best use of miles when reward tickets have onerous taxes/fees/charges on them.

pstation

Just flew ORD-JNB on a $480 ticket and was able to upgrade every segment to business class without a problem. $480 is cheaper than many other airlines charge in taxes/fuel surcharges and etc and all the while I'm still earning even more qmiles/qpoints. This of course doesn't work out for everyone of course, but I can't think of any other airline that has such a liberal and cheap upgrade policy.

sexten

The very limited options of award-space and high costs (mile-wise) is the reason I switched from QR to AA for earning.

I'm now using my QR-miles strictly for upgrades (QR is usually still the cheapest fare-wise).

nkaufman

I understand your decision. I have a AA account and the only reason I'm looking at QR is to transfer points since I do have about 20K QR miles and have enough to transfer about 70K that would be enough for a ticket provided Qatar Airways allocates some seats.

If one cannot book a trip in Oct-2015 for travel April-Aug 2016 then there is something seriously wrong with the program.

And that is why it seems more and more people have indicated that they use miles to upgrade.

My experience with AA, United have been much much better. Hope Citi adds these airlines to their program and I'd stop looking at QR miles.

nkaufman

Don't have any experience on how liberal or cheap QA upgrade policy is but the fact remains that a not so insignificant number of people would like to purchase tickets for their miles and QA just isn't upto par with other airlines such as AA, United etc.

Coming from USA, I do not have to deal with high fuel surcharges that most European airlines levy even on award redemptions.