Avios Vs AA miles

[JayTee]

Attention experts!!!

First class from Sydney to Istanbul on Qatar Airways is available for 115,000 miles and $115 USD when booked through American Airlines. However, booking the exact same flight directly through Qatar requires 127,000 miles and $545. Can someone explain the logic behind this pricing difference?

Also, in terms of finding award availability, the AA website is just as effective as Qatar's, if not better. AA even provides more flexible connection options when your preferred direct flight isn’t available. For instance, they might offer SYD-ADL-ATH (Qantas to Adelaide, then Qatar to Athens) for 90,000 miles, which Qatar’s site wouldn’t show because they only offer direct routing. Again, can someone help make sense of this discrepancy?

 

[RooFlyer]

If you are “booking through Qatar“ then you’ll be spending QR Avios not AA Miles. The value of various frequency flyer currencies aren’t exactly aligned one to one.

And different airlines impose different carrier charges on top of taxes so that’s the cash difference I suspect. Emirates for instance charges enormous carrier charges, as much as thousands of dollars.

 

[JayTee]

If you are “booking through Qatar“ then you’ll be spending QR Avios not AA Miles. The value of various frequency flyer currencies aren’t exactly aligned one to one.

And different airlines impose different carrier charges on top of taxes so that’s the cash difference I suspect. Emirates for instance charges enormous carrier charges, as much as thousands of dollars.

Thanks for the clarification — I definitely understand that Avios on Qatar Airways and AAdvantage miles on American Airlines are two separate loyalty currencies, and not interchangeable in that way. I suppose what I was really trying to get at is more about the relative value between the two.

For example, when comparing the same Qatar Airways flight booked through American Airlines using AA miles versus through Qatar Airways using Avios, the number of miles/points required is often significantly lower when booking with AA miles. So I was wondering if that's simply because AA miles are considered more valuable per mile than Avios — and that's why the redemption cost appears lower — or if there's more to it than just value per point.

 

[RooFlyer]

Can’t help with the fundamental value difference reasons, sorry. But I wonder in this case a factor may also be that the same flight falls into different categories in the two airlines mileage charts?

I recall sometime ago I was looking at the same flight on Qantas in Australia redeemed through BA Avios versus Qantas FF points. The BA Avios number was considerably less than the FF points and at that time I thought there might be some sort of currency factor at play. Pound being much stronger than A$, maybe the cash accounting of the points exchange might involve the currency difference

 

[Mwenenzi]

Earn to burn is what matter. While credit cards often transfer at the same rate, earning ff from flying can be very different
FF miles/avios/points are not 1:1 to earn or burn. More so with method to get awards:- zones or more distance based. For example with AAdvantage SYD-CBR needs the same AA ff miles as AKL-PER
And carrier add on fees can vary. Real govt taxes are same for all