Evan Wilson

Hi all,

I am a Miles and Smiles Elite member and fly mostly with Turkish. From time to time I end up on a Qatar Airways flight, and whether in business or economy, I find the comparable flight with Turkish is of lower quality, and I always consider moving over to Qatar Airways as my primary airline. The service is just far better, the organization and management of the airport, and especially the friendliness of the staff at Qatar I find far better than Turkish, which has really declined over the past few years

I am wondering if anyone has made this move and what their overall experience is? How do you compare the perks of the higher tier of their rewards programs? Any otheror any considerations? My main issue would be leaving the Star Alliance network which I find more vast than One World.

All comments welcome!

ISTFlyer

So in the air Qatar Airways is much better than Turkish Airlines. Both in Business Class and Economy Class.

However, on the ground, they are both at similar quality. For me, as I speak Turkish and as I have a TK ticketing office nearby that I could visit in person, the service is a bit better; however, for phone customer service the QRPC Gold/Platinum team is a bit better than the TK Elite/Elite Plus team.

As a top-tier of both airlines, when it comes to frequent flyer programs; Qatar Airways's program is not an easy program to qualify/requalify as TK Miles&Smiles and does not have sweet partner redemptions as TK do.

To answer the question regarding which FFP would be better for your case; could you provide whether you have any oneworld status at this time?

Evan Wilson

At this time I am just a burgundy member with Qatar Airways' program. I just did business one way NBO-OSL and got 70 Qpoints, and ca. 8500 points, I belive. I usually travel economy and could probably manage 3-4 more trips from OSL to Africs in the next 12 months if I stayed committed to them. How far would that get me?

ISTFlyer

QRPC Gold is 300 Qpoints per year and 270 Qpoints to retain it.
An Economy round-trip from Oslo to Nairobi would be 50 Qpoints at a promo ticket and 66 Qpoints for Economy Convenience.

Unless you are flying QRPC Business several times a year, it's not easy to maintain QRPC status.

I don't know if you could fly 4 BA segments but if OSL-NBO is your general route that you fly, you could alternatively collect miles at BA Executive Club as a round-trip Y ticket on QR would give you 80 Tier Points and a round trip J ticket on QR would give you 560 Tier Points. With the COVID related reduced thresholds 2 Business Class round-trips + 4 BA segments would make you Oneworld Emerald which is the equivalent of QRPC Platinum.

Mwenenzi

BA operated flights and IB marketed-operated flights also count for the 2/4 BA required flights. Check the detailed rules on the BAEC web site and BA FT subforum

A BA vs QR ffp thread--->Switch from BAEC to QRPC?

IAN-UK

They are both flakey. But unless you speak Turkish, QR is far easier to deal with, A good proportion of TK's agents are not entirely comfortable using English as a lingua franca: this goes for cabin crew as well as call centre agents. It's got better in recent years, and there are of course many exceptions where employees have well developed language skills. On the other hand QR's personnel are truly international and as well as exceptional skills in english the cabin crew are likely to have members with fluency in a number of other languages.


The Turkish FFP is more generous and easier to climb through than QR's, but it is spoiled by archaic mechanisms and poor transparency. TK's "upgrade with evoucher" is a welcome perk, but it can be a difficult perk to employ: it certainly helps if you have a nearby TK office you can deal with. I have still to discover any sweet spots in QR's programme.

This year I'm rationalising my adhesion to FFPs. QR and TK are "fringe" programmes for me, duplicates in alliance terms of my long-standing Lufthansa and British Airways memberships. I'm finding it far easier to give up QR Platinum than TK E+; I can see no compelling reason to remain with QR, but I find it difficult to ditch TK. QR has managed to irritate me over recent years in personal interactions and in its wider approach to customer service and marketing. I admit to a soft spot for TK and things Turkish, so perhaps i am more forgiving of the airline's shortcomings.

At the end of the day, you'd be crazy to fly with an airline/alliance that doesn't match your travel profile.

Evan Wilson

Thanks for this great answer. I feel the same was about TK, can't seem to ditch it. But watching the decline of the airline has promted me to reconsider whether I want to keep them as my primary. I work a lot in East-Africa and am based in Oslo. Thus my best options are ET, QR, and TK.