Qatar Devaluation: Increase in Carrier Fees [Reversed, sort of]

[levelnine]

Qatar Airways reverses the bulk of its Avios fee increase

Qatar Airways has rolled back the huge rise in Avios taxes and charges from Saturday night, although fees are still higher than they were.

www.headforpoints.com

The tax/cash component for BNE-DOH-IST is "down" to $511. Not great but better than the $855 I saw yesterday. There were only 3 J seats I could find for the BNE-DOH segment in Jan/Feb so I bit the bullet and grabbed one. I won't be the only one worried there may be more devaluations in the future. At least I will get to try a Q Suite for once in my life.

Good to hear that the news is less worse than it first appeared!

 

[Tiki]

Good to hear that the news is less worse than it first appeared!

They probably did it on purpose. The lesser increase was planned all along. They put a shocking "mistake" increase to freak everyone out. Then when they corrected it to what they planned people will be relieved it was less worse that it first appeared.

 

[tinkybelle]

Id be interested as to what happens if you change the date on the award ticket do you pay the b booking fee again or just the change fee?

 

[DAC1]

They probably did it on purpose. The lesser increase was planned all along. They put a shocking "mistake" increase to freak everyone out. Then when they corrected it to what they planned people will be relieved it was less worse that it first appeared.

Agreed. My MEL-ATH redemption on Saturday which was $370 per passenger when I booked is now $504 (which is still better than the $848 from yesterday).

 

[AFF Editor]

We checked the new "reward fees" as of last night on a range of routes, which you can see here:

Qatar Airways Increases "Reward Fees" to Australia

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has quietly increased the surcharges payable when you redeem Avios on many of its flights, including to Australia.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

For reference, the old "carrier charges" were USD25 per sector in Economy or USD50 in Business/First. They now seem to be a fixed rate which is linked to the geographical "zones" you're flying between, and are based on the Origin & Destination rather than per segment.

 

[levelnine]

We checked the new "reward fees" as of last night on a range of routes, which you can see here:

Qatar Airways Increases "Reward Fees" to Australia

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has quietly increased the surcharges payable when you redeem Avios on many of its flights, including to Australia.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

For reference, the old "carrier charges" were USD25 per sector in Economy or USD50 in Business/First. They now seem to be a fixed rate which is linked to the geographical "zones" you're flying between, and are based on the Origin & Destination rather than per segment.

A small correction.

Etihad's saver level awards are lower than that, arguably making them a good choice except for the fact that they have very punitive cancellation fees:

 

[AFF Editor]

A small correction.

Etihad's saver level awards are lower than that, arguably making them a good choice except for the fact that they have very punitive cancellation fees:
View attachment 407863

Interesting - Etihad wanted 266,000 miles for "GuestSeat" Business seats on the dates I looked at. It doesn't seem to be at all consistent any more.

 

[levelnine]

Interesting - Etihad wanted 266,000 miles for "GuestSeat" Business seats on the dates I looked at. It doesn't seem to be at all consistent any more.

I believe they have different tiers of 'saver'-level awards. IIRC 190K is the lowest for East Coast Australia to Europe. There's plenty of 190K in late January, for example.

seats.aero can find it pretty easily.

 

[Mwenenzi]

As an earn to burn comparison for a MEL LHR cash paid business class how many ff miles/points/avios are earned?
Guessing transfers from credit cards are the same.
From the AFF article

Airline	MEL-LHR Business Class redemption cost (one-way)
Qatar Airways	90,000 Avios + $534.08
Etihad Airways	190,000 to 266,000 Etihad Guest miles + $125.09
Emirates	128,000 Skywards miles + $1,861.14

 

[Davidozusa]

Does any one know what the new “fees” are for flights using Qatar avois for virgin Australia flights ie bne-Mel? It looked like over $100 per sector in business yesterday and I couldn’t get a competent agent to explained it. Any help appreciated

 

[WilsonM]

Does any one know what the new “fees” are for flights using Qatar avois for virgin Australia flights ie bne-Mel? It looked like over $100 per sector in business yesterday and I couldn’t get a competent agent to explained it. Any help appreciated

Honestly, don't have any idea where these fees came from.

Compared it to the AFF article on redeeming Qatar Avios for VA flights: You Can Now Redeem Avios for Virgin Australia Flights Online

Screenshot there gives MEL-PER at $41.82 (stolen from the article)

Now, the same route has carrier charges 8 times higher:


Makes zero sense of course - the co-payment figure was always low before, but it looks like they've applied the redemption/reward fee on partner tickets as well.

Edited as I put in the wrong screenshot

 

[AFF Editor]

Does any one know what the new “fees” are for flights using Qatar avois for virgin Australia flights ie bne-Mel? It looked like over $100 per sector in business yesterday and I couldn’t get a competent agent to explained it. Any help appreciated

We put this question to Qatar Airways and they told us that there have been no changes to its program. This clearly isn't the case, as we explain here:

Qatar Airways Massively Hikes Virgin Australia Reward Charges

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has increased the Redemption Fees payable when using Avios to book Virgin Australia reward flights by as much as 700%.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au