Discounted Qatar Airways Business Class to Europe

Qatar Airways currently has some great Business Class fares available from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to Helsinki, Finland from under $6,000 return. That’s around $4,000 cheaper than normal!

With this deal, you’d fly Qatar Airways Business Class to Doha, connecting onwards to Helsinki with Finnair.

If departing from Melbourne or Brisbane, you’d fly in Qatar Airways’ famous Qsuite between Australia and Qatar. Flights from Sydney to Doha are on Qatar’s Airbus A380 featuring more traditional lie-flat Business Class seats with direct aisle access, as well as an on-board bar. On the Sydney-Doha and Melbourne-Doha routes, Qatar Airways even serves caviar in Business Class.

Between Doha and Helsinki, you’d be flying on Finnair’s Airbus A330 with its excellent AirLounge Business Class seat.

Which flights have these discounted airfares available?

These fares are only available when flying from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane to Helsinki via Doha. Although Qatar Airways also flies from Perth and Adelaide, these prices unfortunately aren’t available from those cities.

This price also isn’t available to other Qatar Airways destinations in Europe. However, Helsinki is a hub for Oneworld airline Finnair and there are lots of cheap flights available from there to other cities all over Europe. (You could also redeem Qantas points for Finnair flights out of Helsinki.)

Here are some examples of Qatar Business Class prices we’re currently seeing to Finland:

• Brisbane-Helsinki for $5,853 return
• Sydney-Helsinki for $5,880 return
• Melbourne-Helsinki for $6,022 return

We can find Business Class airfares around these prices for various travel dates in May, July, August, October, November and December 2024, as well as January 2025.

These don’t appear to be limited-time promotional fares, and should remain available until sold out. However, they aren’t available on all flights.

To access these cheaper Qatar Airways Business Class prices, you would need to depart Australia between Monday and Thursday. On the return trip, you’d need to depart Helsinki between Sunday and Wednesday. These are “I” class fares, so there would also need to be availability in that fare class on any flights you want to book.

Fare inclusions

On the way back, if you’re flying into Sydney or Brisbane, you’ll need to stay at least one night in Doha as the Helsinki-Doha and Doha-Sydney/Brisbane timings don’t align. (If you’re flying to Melbourne, a shorter connection is available.)

Qatar Airways may provide a complimentary hotel room and airport transfer where the shortest available connection time in Doha is between 8-24 hours. (If transiting Doha for under 24 hours, note that you won’t have access to your checked baggage while in Doha.)

If you’d like to break up the trip with a longer break in Doha, you can choose to stop over for up to 15 days at no extra cost.

You can book on the Qatar Airways website. These are “Business Comfort” fares which include a 40kg checked baggage allowance and lounge access, including to the superb Al Mourjan Business Lounge in Doha.

Earning points & status credits

You can earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points and status credits for these flights, albeit at the lower earn rate that applies to flights on partner airlines. For a return Business Class trip from Sydney to Helsinki via Doha, you would earn 20,800 Qantas points and 280 status credits.

You could also credit these flights to another Oneworld frequent flyer program. For example, you could earn 26,058 Avios + 600 Tier Points by crediting to British Airways Executive Club.

You could alternatively earn 160 Virgin Australia status credits each way if crediting the flights between Australia and Doha to Velocity Frequent Flyer. However, as the Doha-Helsinki legs are “QR” codeshares operated by Finnair, these aren’t eligible to earn Velocity points or status credits.

There have been some problems with earning Qantas points on Finnair & Qatar Airways codeshares, but these should now be fixed.

Find cheaper Business Class fares from Asia to Europe

These discounted Qatar Airways airfares from Australia to Helsinki are a good deal, especially if you value the convenience of flying all the way through to Europe on a single ticket. But you can often find considerably cheaper Business Class fares to Europe from Asia, including with Qatar Airways.

Even after adding on separate positioning flights from Australia to Asia and back, you can still save a fair bit of money.

For example, Qatar Airways recently had Business Class available from Singapore to Athens for around $3,500 return. Other airlines also regularly have great Business Class pricing – often under $3,000 return – from places like Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Manila to Europe.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.