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Qatar Airways is currently running a sale on all of its routes out of the US and two cities in particular are currently offering some very good deals indeed. What makes these deals are all the more interesting is the fact that they offer travel in Qatar Airways’ QSuites Business Class cabin and Business Class cabins don’t get any better than that.
Qatar Airways USA Sale – Headline Rules
- Sales Period – February 11 to February 18, 2019
- Travel Period – March 1 to December 11, 2019
- Offer is valid for flights booked on qatarairways.com only for Qatar Airways operated flights from selected origins to selected destinations as shown above.
- Minimum stay: 5 days (R)(I). Maximum stay: 1 month (R)(I).
- Advanced reservation of 21 days before departure (R), 14 days (I).
- Seats are limited and are subject to availability of the relevant booking class: “R” for Economy.
- Changes at any time for a fee of $220 per person, per transaction. Cancellations at any time for a fee of $330. No child discount applies (charge is the same change fee for adult and child). No change fee applies to infants not occupying a seat.
Click on ‘Fare Conditions’ from the online quote to view these and other applicable fare conditions. Fares are applicable to round-trip fares purchased at time of booking on qatarairways.com/us. - Blackout dates apply: Outbound: May 30 – June 7, 2019 & August 8 – August 13, 2019. Inbound: June 7 – June 15, 2019 & August 15 – September 1, 2019 and weekend surcharge may apply. Please refer to the fare rules for details at the time of booking.
- Please refer to the fare rules at the time of booking for changes, cancellations and No-show conditions.
- Any change or cancellation less than 3 hours prior to the stated time of departure will be considered as no-show.
- For travel involving multiple booking classes, the most restrictive fare rules apply to the entire itinerary.
The full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page
The Deals
Qatar Airways is offering sale prices out of all the US cities it operates services to (see here) but these are the four best deals I’ve spotted:
- Los Angeles – Delhi from $2,364
- Los Angeles – Bangkok from $2,608
- Los Angeles – Kuala Lumpur from $2,697
- New York (JFK) – Bangkok from $2,632
Availability
Availability varies from route to route but a few quick searches appear to show that these fares are not limited to just a few dates….although the summer months don’t seem to be showing very much.
Here’s fare availability for LAX – Delhi in March and May for example….
….here’s availability for LAX – Bangkok in May and September….
….and here’s availability for JFK – Bangkok in August and October:
Qatar Airways QSuites
Qatar Airways has been offering its QSuite Business Class cabin on the Doha – LAX route since the beginning of this month and both flights on the Doha – JFK routes now offer the QSuite business Class cabin too.
As things stand these fares guarantee travel in the Qatar Airways QSuite Business Class cabin for at least the USA – Doha portion of the journey…but you can actually do even better.
Here’s an itinerary for Los Angeles – Doha – Bangkok which I selected at random….
…and here’s the seat map for the LAX – Doha sector (for the exact same date) showing the Qatar Airways QSuite cabin configuration:
Also, here’s the seat map for the second flight of the itinerary (Doha – Bangkok) and, as you should be able to see, this offers the QSuite cabin too:
I haven’t had the opportunity to test this out but it may well be possible to fly in just the QSuite Business Class cabin on some of these fares if you choose your flights carefully.
Where To Credit?
The most obvious place to credit these flights is the American Airlines AAdvantage program and these itineraries can earn you a LOT of credit towards elite status.
Let’s take the Los Angeles – Bangkok itinerary as an example.
This routing takes in approximately 23,180 miles of flying….
…and as Qatar Airways flights credited to American Airlines earn miles and elite credits based on the distance traveled this is what you can expect to earn from the “R” coded fares:
- ~34,770 Elite Qualifying Miles (34% of the way to Executive Platinum status)
- ~4,636 Elite Qualifying Dollars (33% of the way to Executive Platinum status)
Redeemable mileage earnings will vary according to what elite status you hold…
- No status – 23,180 miles
- Gold status – 32,452 miles
- Platinum status – 37,088 miles
- Platinum Pro status – 41,724 miles
- Executive Platinum status – 50,996 miles
Some of those are pretty impressive earning rates which just makes these fares all the more interesting.
Bottom Line
Some of these fares may not be for the shortest routing to the final destination but all of the fares offer travel in the world’s best Business Class cabin and, at the same time, will earn a significant number of elite qualifying credits in the AAdvantage program.
With fares starting at just $2,364 for roundtrip Business Class travel I’m not sure we’ve seen many cheaper deals for travel in the Qatar Airways QSuites out of the United States.
Minimum stay: 5 days – i can travel to other countries for 5 days & be back to board the returning flight, correct?
If you mean that, once at your destination, you can do whatever you like (flight-wise) as long as you’re back in time for your return flight – yes.
My search LAX-KUL r/t search shows change fee $545 and cancel fee $1075.
Does Qatar sometimes do aircraft substitution? I’m looking LAX-Doha-BKK departing 10/28 (Flight #740), and Seat Guru is showing it as a 777-200ER, but with the old Business seats.
The end of October also signals the end of the summer season and the beginning of winter flights and it looks like Qatar Airways hasn’t updated its seat maps for winter.
There’s no aircraft change (the 777-200LR continues to serve LA) it’s just that 26 October is the last day that shows the Qsuites cabin on the seat map – I fully expect this to be updated (and the Qsuites to return for winter season) when Qatar Airways gets around to updating its winter schedule. It’s unlikely that Qatar Airways will remove Qsuites from the LAX route.
Your math is incorrect for EXP in the above example. EXP earns 120% bonus, so the total miles earned for 23,180 flown is 50,996.
Nice catch, now corrected (for some reason I had only applied a 110% bonus)