Ruber74

I have about 94000 Amex points and looking to fly to Bangkok from JFK and wondering is there a way to get into business using Amex points if I buy an economy ticket or any other way. Reason I’ interested in flying Qatar is because a friend is flying from London and we were planning to meet in Doha and fly to BKK together. He is already in business. Appreciate any suggestions.
I looked into using Asia Miles and one world and at the moment there are no seats open on Qatar. Is there a way for me to check Qatar availability? I'm looking to fly on the 14th of Jan.
One way upgrade is fine as I'll probably take Emirate back.

Ruber74

Anyone?

fgw_

looks like there is availability on both flights out of JFK on 14th, morning and also evening, and also on connecting flights on 15th.
assuming u already registered as QRPC member u should be able to transfer your AMEX rewards points to QRPC. did this in the past. its at a rate of 5:4 and goes rather quick as i remember. but im based in europe, may be different for US customers?
but in any case i would call qatar first to check for availability before transferring any miles!!!!
u can check for availability yourself by loggin into QRPC and try to book with miles. when there is regular availability (not the green flagged Q2 Flexi awards) there should be availability! but again, call qatar to verify before transferring any miles or book any flight!

Ruber74

Amex US doesn't have ideal with Qatar unfortunately. I have to go through oneworld partners and looks like Qatar is not releasing seats to oneworld partners as there is nothing available on Asia miles.

fgw_

have a look at BA's program. was told u should be able to see availability there easy? never tried myself though

Ruber74

I checked BA, there is availability but getting ticket through BA is nuts, they're asking for 175000 adios plus cash just oneway

fgw_

idea was to just check for availability via BA site. if there is availability u should be able to book through any ow airline i guess.

but to make it even more complicated:

booked and upgraded some flights today myself. first checked on qatar site for availability and there was availability shown for all of my flights and also for flights on almost any dates around my flight dates. so i went ahead and called qatar before booking anything. didnt want to end up with some eco tickets booked not being able to upgrade them later. interesting response from qatar was, there is almost no availability for upgrades during whole month - although shown on the website?

so after about 3 calls i finally was able to get flights identified where there were seats available for upgrade. had to switch from KUL to BKK but couldnt care less. so booked them and upgraded myself through website. although it didnt work on first try, but it finally worked.used the upgrade function under my trips for the selected flight which didnt work for me. had to use the redeem miles option and selecting the flight from here to be able to upgrade! funny people this website developers from qatar!

its worth to note, that i also was able to upgrade the first leg using miles and the second leg using qcredits! this cant be done on the phone, as the person on the phone can just upgrade complete flights (both legs) using either miles or qcredits but not using both on one flight!

Ruber74

Thanks for helpful info, I'll keep checking if something may become available.