Qatar Airways Points - How to spend them

[JCKST1]

I have about 140,000 Qatar points on my account at the moment, which I believe are transferrable to BA, Iberia and a few more?

Having never used points before and have no idea how to maximise them for a holiday, what are my best options?
Should we just use them towards flights which seems to knock a few hundred off or are we better putting them towards a package or even hotel only?

Any advice appreciated as I would rather not just waste them!

We were thinking of either a few days away in the UAE or putting it towards a family holiday next year (possibly Mexico).

[peter tdci]

JCKST1 said:

I have about 140,000 Qatar points on my account at the moment, which I believe are transferrable to BA, Iberia and a few more?

Having never used points before and have no idea how to maximise them for a holiday, what are my best options?
Should we just use them towards flights which seems to knock a few hundred off or are we better putting them towards a package or even hotel only?

Any advice appreciated as I would rather not just waste them!

We were thinking of either a few days away in the UAE or putting it towards a family holiday next year (possibly Mexico).

I'm assuming that you mean Avios. QPoints are a thing - and earning them is how you get status with Qatar, but the number would be much smaller than 140k.

You can use Avios with Qatar by simply going to their booking page and ticking the 'book with Avios' box. This will take you through a normal booking process using Avios instead of cash. BA's system also lets you make a cash booking, but then reduce the cash you pay by redeeming some Avios. I don't know if Qatar do this as well. Generally you get better value by taking the first option.

If you have frequent flyer accounts with Qatar, BA, Iberia and Finnair, you can transfer Avios between schemes easily and book with those airlines directly. Going to the UAE, you are probably best looking at BA, but for Central or South America, I'd look at Iberia (which can be booked through BA). The trick is finding the seat availbility for Avios redemption bookings. There are some websites that help you do this. SeatSpy and Reward Flight FInder are good for BA, but I used FlightTimeCalendar recently to find some Iberia seats to South America (which I then booked through BA).

[Puggit]

To further answer the question - premium class long haul flights tend to be the best 'bang for buck' in regard to points. The worst bang for buck is hotels, sundry items that might get flogged (like wine) and even short haul flights tend not to be as good value (but much easier to find redemption availability).

Useful links:
Qatar: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qatar-airways-priv...
BA: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-br...

[The G Kid]

peter tdci said:

Going to the UAE, you are probably best looking at BA, but for Central or South America, I.

I'd suggest Qatar over BA for the UAE. Lots of flights each day between Doha and Dubai and Doha and Abu Dhabi. And plenty of flights between UK and Doha on Qatar. And Qatar is miles nicer than BA!