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Qatar Airways, a OneWorld partner of British Airways and American Airlines, is offering some fantastic (and some reasonable) Business Class fares between Europe and various cities in Asia for travel commencing as early as right now.
Qatar Airways Airbus A350 on the Doha – Singapore Route (Curimedia via Flickr)
Destinations:
Singapore – From $1,732 (Purchase by 6 December 2015 – Travel by 15 June 2016)
Bangkok – From $1,760 (Purchase by 6 December 2015 – Travel by 15 June 2016)
Delhi – From $1,793 (Purchase by 22 January 2016 – Travel by 30 July 2016)
Kuala Lumpur – From $1,793 (Purchase by 22 January 2016 – Travel by 30 July 2016)
Phuket – From $1,816 (Purchase by 6 December 2015 – Travel by 15 June 2016)
Mumbai – From $1,822 (No purchase or travel restrictions that I could find)
Jakarta – From $1,869 (Purchase by 22 January 2016 – Travel by 30 July 2016)
Tokyo (1) – From $1,947 (Purchase by 6 December 2015 – Travel by 26 January 2016)
Shanghai – From $2,035 (Purchase by 22 January 2016 – Travel by 30 July 2016)
Hong Kong – From $2,115 (Purchase by 22 January 2016 – Travel by 30 July 2016)
Seoul – From $2,159 (Purchase by 5 December 2015 – Travel by 28 June 2016)
Tokyo (2) – From 2,129 (Purchase by 22 January 2016 – Travel by 30 July 2016)
Beijing – From $2,225 (Purchase by 5 December 2015 – Travel by 28 June 2016)
Note: You may be able to find fares cheaper than those listed above (for routes like Hong Kong) but they’ll almost certainly have very long layovers.
Departure Points
The departure points with the cheapest routes will vary from destination to destination but Oslo, Stockholm, Rome and Milan feature heavily.
Trip Durations
Most of the best fares will allow trips as short as 4 nights:
Singapore:
Bangkok:
A few of the fares will allow trips as short as just 2 nights.
The maximum stay for most of the fares is between 1 and 3 months.
How To Search For Fares
I found all of these fares using the ITA Matrix search tool (Hints on how to use this tool are here and here)
Initially I searched for fares on all airlines but, once I noticed that Qatar Airways was regularly providing the best fares, I limited my search to that airline using these parameters (insert destination of your choice):
What you won’t be able to see is the full list of departure airports that I used for my searches (the “departing from” box isn’t big enough to display them all) so, for anyone wishing to replicate the results in the ITA Matrix search, this is the full list of departure airports I used:
DUB, CDG, AMS, BRU, CPH, OSL, ARN, HEL, FRA, MUC, TXL, DUS, FCO, MXP, MAD, BCN
Things To Look Out For
Journey Times
The ITA Matrix search will return a lot of results and quite a few will offer trip lengths that are unnecessarily long. The fares I’ve listed above are all available for journeys of a normal length so, if you find yourself faces with a journey of 20+ hours to somewhere not that far away, use the filters to narrow down the journey times.
Don’t pick unnecessarily long journey times – you should be able to find reasonable flight for low prices
Airport Changes
I deliberately checked the box (in the ITA Matrix Search) that shows me fares for trips that originate in one European city by terminate in another. If you’re not happy with that make sure you uncheck that box before you start your searches or else you’ll see a lot of results that aren’t relevant to you.
Aircraft
- Make sure you do your research on Qatar Airways’ Business Class product. On their newer aircraft (A380, A350, 787) you’re guaranteed to get their latest Business Class product but that may not be the case for all the other aircraft on offer.
- For anyone wanting to try out one of the newest aircraft in the sky, the Singapore fare may be of interest – Qatar Airways flys their latest A350 aircraft between Doha and Singapore.
- And for those wanting to try out a whole host of different aircraft and Business Class cabins that Qatar Airways offers the Singapore route should be fun – 3 different aircraft in one trip:
Bottom Line
To my mind all the fares under $1,800 r/t are fantastic value, those under $2,000 are really good value and those higher in price are ok….but I have seen those routes cheaper in the past (on other airlines).
With Qatar Airways being a member of the OneWorld alliance these fares could be a nice tier point earning exercise (as well as a vacation) for British Airways Executive Club members and they could be a great way for American Airlines AAdvantage members to build up some redeemable miles before the devaluations kick in.
I’ve got all my travel for 1H 2016 already planed out so I can’t really make much use of these fares (which is annoying as I’d love to do the Singapore trip) – I just have to hope I find something equally good for later 2016. I’ll keep searching and let you know if I find anything 🙂
