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Qatar Airways has come out with yet more mind-blowing cheap Business Class fares for travel between Finland/Sweden and Dubai and, as I’ll show in this post, some of these fares could be a great way to earn some cheap miles if you’re crediting to American Airlines AAdvantage or Tier Points if you prefer to credit your flights to the British Airways Executive Club.
Qatar Airways Business Class Helsinki – Dubai
Cheapest Fare: $898/£689/€797 Round-Trip
This is the cheaper of the two fares that I’m writing about today although, as I’ll show, the more expensive fare from Stockholm has a couple of advantages over this one that should keep it in contention.
Headline Fare Rules:
- Cheapest fares available for travel between October and December 2016
- Tickets must be issued on/before 21 August 2016 for the cheapest fares.
- Minimum stay for the cheapest fares is 3 nights
- Maximum stay is 2 months from date of departure
- 1 free stopover of no more than 7 days is available
At the time of writing these fares were readily available on Qatar Airway’s website.
Availability:
October – November
Availability for the best fare starts off patchy in October (the fare doesn’t technically kick in until the 10th) but November looks fantastic for anyone hoping to escape the onset of the European winter:
December
The Good & The Bad
Hopefully it’s reasonably obvious that the best thing about this fare is the price (which is excellent) but another bonus with the fares I’m showing is that there aren’t any annoyingly long layovers to negotiate.
At a little over two hours (in both directions) that’s a nice length of layover to have as it gives you a cushion for delays but isn’t so long as to be an issue for those traveling with children.
One negative to this fare is the aircraft that Qatar Airways uses (and I mention this a lot).
The Helsinki – Doha route is operated by narrow-body A320 aircraft so you’re not going to get the all-singing, all-dancing product that is found on the newer larger aircraft. But the product is still pretty good and offers a full lie-flat bed.
Qatar Airways A320 Business Class
I have deliberately booked myself on a Qatar Airways A320 flight next year so I can provide even more information when I publish fares like these.
One last point to note is that most of the cheaper fares to Dubai fly in an out of the Emirate’s second airport and not Dubai International (DXB) as most may be expecting.
Miles & Tier Point Earnings
Note: these earnings have been calculated from the view of a traveler with no status – American Airlines flyers with status will earn more miles than shown although EQM and EQD earning will remain the same.
There’s a small bonus here for travelers crediting to British Airways – the regional flights book into a First Class fare code (A) so that boosts the Tier Point earnings a little.
Check dates and fares at QatarAirways.com.
Finding the fares:
I used the ITA Matrix search to find these fares and these are the parameters I used:
Notice that I’ve used the command “/maxdur 600″ rather than specifying Qatar Airways as the airline of choice. This is because some of the trips that Matrix throws up have unnecessarily long layovers that most people will want to avoid – this command limits the search to trips of no more than 10 hours in length.
Qatar Airways Business Class Stockholm – Dubai
Cheapest Fare: $1,043/£800/€925 Round-Trip
Note: There are cheaper fares available than what I’m going to show below but all appear to have long (7+ hour) layovers in Doha so I have excluded them from my search.
Headline Fare Rules
- Cheapest fares available for travel between September and May
- Tickets must be issued on/before 21 August 2016 for the cheapest fares.
- Minimum stay for the cheapest fares is 3 nights
- Maximum stay is 1 month from date of departure
- 1 free stopover of no more than 7 days is available
At the time of writing these fares were readily available on Qatar Airway’s website.
Availability
September – October
There are, in fact, a few dates in August that still have the cheaper fare but as the availability really only opens up in September that’s where I’ve started.
November – December
Not exactly surprising to see the fare availability taper off in December but, as you can see, there are some reasonable fares available available around Christmas (although, due to the nature of my search, not all of those may be with Qatar Airways).
January – February
Qat ar brings the fare back again in January and, from the 12th onwards it’s available on almost every day….and even during the Ester vacations…
March – April
The availability in April is fantastic (still Easter vacation time) although it does taper off in May.
May – June
May is the last month in which the best fare is available and, although there are some good fares into June and July, they’re not all on Qatar Airways.
The Good & The Bad
The “bad” is that this fare isn’t as cheap as the fare available from Helsinki but then this fare has a lot more going for it:
- No long layovers
- The long-haul flights are operated by the brand new Qatar Airways 787 Dreamliners which come with the airline’s newest Business Class seats
- The fare is available for the next 9 months including during the spring/Easter vacations.
As with the Helsinki fare, it’s worth noting that most of the cheaper fares between Stockholm and Dubai fly in an out of the Emirate’s second airport and not Dubai International (DXB) as most may be expecting.
Miles & Tier Point Earnings
Note: these earnings have been calculated from the view of a traveler with no status – American Airlines flyers with status will earn more miles than shown although EQM and EQD earning will remain the same.
Just like with the fare out of Helsinki, the regional flights are booking into a First Class fare code (A) so Tier Point earnings are better than if it was a Business Class fare code.
Check dates and fares at QatarAirways.com.
Finding the Fares
These are the parameters I used to search for the fares using the Matrix search facility:
Once again, notice that I’ve used the command “/maxdur 600” rather than specifying Qatar Airways as the airline of choice. This is because some of the trips that Matrix throws up have unnecessarily long layovers that most people will want to avoid – this command limits the search to trips of no more than 10 hours in length.
Bottom Line
It’s hard to argue with Business Class fares on Qatar Airways that are as low as these and, despite the fact that the Helsinki flights are on the A320, there’s clearly some excellent value to be had here.
Purely from a status-earning perspective for those crediting to British Airways, Tier Points at £1.72 each (Helsinki) or £2.00 (Stockholm) is pretty good going…especially if you can combine that with escaping the winter cold and catching some sunshine on a beach in Dubai.
