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Update: As of 24 October 2024, this ‘glitch’ still appears to be in effect.
Oman Air is set to join the oneworld alliance towards the end of the year at which point all of the airline’s Business Class and Economy Class awards should become bookable with oneworld currencies like AAdvantage miles and Avios, but not before. So why are some long-haul Oman Air awards now seemingly bookable with Avios?
This is interesting.
Of all the oneworld airlines, Qatar Airways is the only one that has an existing partnership with Oman Air, but if you head over to the Qatar Airways partners page for Oman Air, you’ll see that this partnership is limited to flights between Doha and Muscat.
So, technically, there should be no way of redeeming Qatar Airways Avios for Oman Air bookings on any other routes … except that you now can.
A comment on HeadForPoints flagged this up, so I decide to take a look into this, and what I found is odd.
The first thing to say is that Oman Air Economy Class awards to and from London Heathrow now seem to be bookable using Qatar Airways Avios (I got as far as the payment screen when trying to book, but didn’t go any further).
They also appear to be bookable for routes like Muscat – Delhi and Muscat – Bangkok.
The second thing to say is that awards don’t seem to be available on several other routes that Oman Air serves frequently (e.g. Muscat to Istanbul and Paris), and that’s strange.
Logically, if I can find Economy Class awards on routes to London, Bangkok, and Delhi, I’d also expect them to be able to find them on all the other long-haul routes. But I can’t.
Another strange thing that I noticed is that on some routes, the Qatar Airways website seems to struggle to display the taxes & fees associated with these Economy Class awards. Instead of a number, you’re just presented with a continually rotating wheel.
While that wheel is rotating, you can’t book the award.
Continuing the strangeness …
When you search for an Oman Air award on a route where Qatar Airways is happy to offer you award space, this is what the search results look like:
But when you search for an award on a route where awards should be available but are not, this is how the results are displayed.
It’s like one set of results is being displayed on an old version of the Qatar Airways website while the other is being displayed on an updated version.
I have no idea whether this is relevant or not, but as I don’t recall having seen a set of Qatar Airways search results displayed in the second (newer looking) format, I thought I’d mention it.
Lastly, Oman Air Economy Class award availability seems to come and go somewhat randomly.
As one of the screenshots above shows, there was Oman Air award availability for Economy Class travel between Muscat and Bangkok on 14 November 2024, but when I searched again half an hour later it had disappeared.
Twenty minutes after that, it was back.
It’s worth noting that on the routes and dates that it appears to be possible to book Economy Class Oman Air awards using Qatar Airways Avios, the same flights do not appear to be bookable through British Airways (another Avios user), American Airlines, Japan Airlines, or Cathay Pacific, so whatever is going on here appears to be limited to Qatar Airways and to Economy Class awards only (I haven’t seen a single Oman Air Business Class award on any other routes I’ve searched).
I have to admit that I’ve got no idea what’s going on here so all of this is speculation.
Until Oman Air officially joins the oneworld alliance it shouldn’t be possible to book any of the airline’s long-haul awards with oneworld currencies, but that doesn’t appear to be the case right now.
Overall, the fact that these awards come and go, the fact that they’re not available on all Oman Air long-haul routes, and the fact I haven’t seen a single Business Class award, would appear to indicate that this is some kind of glitch.
I would assume that if Oman Air is going to be unveiled as a full member of oneworld by the end of the year, a lot of work will currently be going on behind the scenes to integrate the airline’s systems and flights into the systems of the other oneworld airlines, so perhaps what we’re seeing is a result of that?
Perhaps, these awards are only appearing because Qatar Airways is in the process of integrating Oman Air’s network into its booking engine and what we’re seeing is not something that’s meant to be on view?
Whatever the answer to all this is, the fact remains that it looks like it’s currently possible to book select long-haul Oman Air Economy Class awards through Qatar Airways even though that shouldn’t be possible, and that’s the kind of thing that can make the miles & points world a little more interesting on a Friday morning 🙂
