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The Qatar Airways Privilege Club and Accor Live Limitless (ALL) have announced an expansion of their partnership that will allow travelers to earn the currencies of both loyalty programs on just a single booking.
Earn both Avios and Accor points on a single booking
Just as Hyatt’s agreement with American Airlines allows travelers to earn both Hyatt Points and AAdvantage Miles when they fly or when they book a paid stay, the newly improved partnership between Qatar Airways and Accor allows travelers to earn Avios and ALL Points in a similar way.
To make the most of this partnership, travelers will need the following:
- A Qatar Airways Privilege Club account (free to join here)
- An Accor Live Limitless account (free to join here)
Both accounts will also have to be linked (which can be done from this Qatar Airways page).
Once the two loyalty accounts are linked, a traveler will automatically earn Avios and ALL points when they credit flights to their Qatar Airways Privilege Club or when they credit hotel bookings to their ALL account.
Note: You can only link one airline account to an ALL account at any given time and you can only change which airline account an ALL account is linked to after 12 months have passed since you last linked accounts.
Earnings
When crediting flights to the Qatar Airways Privilege Club, members of ALL will earn 1 Point per $2 spent on top of the Avios that they’ll earn in the usual way through the Privilege Club.
When staying at Accor properties and crediting their stays to their ALL accounts, members of the Qatar Airways Privilege Club will earn up to 10 Avios per €10 spent.
The 10 Avios per €10 relates to stays consumed at all but the following Accor brands:
- Adagio – 4 Avios/€10
- Adagio Access – 2 Avios/€10
- Ibis, Ibis Style, and Mama Shelter – 5 Avios/€10
This means that stays at popular brands such as Sofitel, and Novotel will earn the full 10 Avios/€10.
There’s a status match opportunity too!
To celebrate this enhanced partnership, Qatar Airways and Accxor are offering status matches to members of each other’s loyalty programs.
- ALL Gold members match to Qatar Airways Silver tier (oneworld Ruby)
- ALL Platinum members match to Qatar Airways Gold tier (oneworld Sapphire)
- ALL Diamond members match to Qatar Airways Platinum tier (oneworld Emerald)
These status matches are not immediate – there’s a further step. ALL elite members wishing to enjoy one of the status matches shown above must book an international flight through Qatar Airways and credit it to the Privilege Club before the match will be honored.
- Qatar Airways Gold members match to ALL Silver status
- Qatar Airways Platinum members match to ALL Gold status
As is the case with the matches to Qatar Airways status, these matches require a further step. Qatar Airways elites wishing to status match to ALL must first book an Accor stay and credit it to ALL before the match will be honored.
Thoughts
Overall, this is a very nice enhancement for ALL and Qatar Airways Privilege Club members because it’s always great to be able to earn two currencies on a single booking, but there are a few things that everyone should keep in mind.
As Qatar Airways Avios can be transferred across to British Airways with relative ease (and from there to Iberia Plus or Aer Club), there’s no downside to adding your Privilege Club number to your Accor bookings and picking up some bonus Avios.
However, when it comes to earning ALL points through Qatar Airways flights, things aren’t quite so clear-cut.
To earn ALL points from Qatar Airways bookings, those bookings will have to be credited to the Privilege Club and while that won’t be an issue for people who already do exactly that, it will be a big issue for those of us who usually credit our Qatar Airways flights to other oneworld programs (like the British Airways Executive Club or the American Airlines AAdvantage program).
Considering the earning rate on offer here is 1 ALL point/$2 spent with Qatar Airways, is it worth giving up BA tier points or AA loyalty points to collect the ALL points on offer? I doubt it.
With the value of ALL points fixed at €0.02 each, a $3,000 Business Class fare (for example) credited to the Qatar Airways Privilege Club would earn a traveler 1,500 ALL points worth just €30 and that’s definitely not enough compensation for the BA tier points or AA loyalty points that would have to be given up.
If you care about BA or AA status, you should almost certainly not be looking to earn ALL points through Qatar Airways flight bookings.
As far as the status matches go, they seem a little one-sided.
The potential for ALL members to earn valuable oneworld status is fantastic but when you take a look at the benefits that come with ALL Silver and Gold status, you have to wonder if it’s worth going out of your way to book a stay with Accor just to earn status for a year (remember, these status matches are not forever. Just for a year).
if you’re planning on staying with Accor anyway, matching your Privilege Club status to ALL is a no-brainer (why not get a status that’s being given away), but the upside of these status matches is definitely to be found when matching Accor status to the Privilege Club and not the other way.
Bottom line
Qatar Airways and Accor have expanded their partnership to allow (most) members of each other’s loyalty programs to participate in a status match (terms apply) and to allow all travelers to earn both Avios and ALL points when they credit flights to the Privilege Club and when they book stays with Accor.
Featured image: Sofitel New York courtesy of ALL
It’s probably worth mentioning that if, like me, anyone has already linked their ALL account to AF/KLM following the recent offer of 500 bonus ALL points after an Accor stay, then you won’t be able to now additionally link to the Qatar Privilege Club, sadly. There has to be a 12-month gap/wait. I tried unlinking my AF/KLM account, but the Qatar link it still wouldn’t work, so I reinstated the AF/KLM easily enough.
Good point. I’ve added a note. Thanks.