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Qatar Airways awards are now searchable and bookable at ba.com and bookable by calling American Airlines. This is huge news because Qatar has an excellent route network from the US to the Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, and Maldives.
As announced on the oneworld site, Qatar Airways will join the oneworld alliance on October 30th. This is great news for those with large American Airlines AAdvantage or British Airways Avios balances. Doha-based Qatar Airways has a robust Middle Eastern route network and opens up connections to many places with presently poor oneworld coverage.

The best news of all is that Qatar award space is now bookable using the British Airways search tool. For more information on searching the British Airways website, make sure to check out Scott’s post Free First Class Next Month: Searching BA.com to Find oneworld Award Availability.
How can you search for Qatar award space? How can you book it with your American Airlines miles? How many miles do you need? What regions will Qatar help you reach?
Until very recently Qatar space was only searchable and not bookable online. You couldn’t complete an Avios award itinerary online and were forced phone the British Airways call center. This is a moot point if booking with AAdvantage miles. Qatar space doesn’t appear on AA.com, so you will need to call the AAdvantage desk at 800-882-8880 anyway and are subject to the unavoidable $25 phone fee per ticket.
What happens if I try to book a Qatar award using Avios?
Until very recently, you would receive an error message stating the itinerary was not bookable online and you should contact the British Airways call center. Now it appears that Qatar flights are in fact bookable with Avios.
As a DC-based flyer, my first searches were on Qatar’s Washington-Dulles to Doha route. I found business class space in February and proceeded to book.
Instead of receiving an error message, I was brought to the standard booking page as normal.
Does British Airways impose fuel surcharges on Qatar awards?
Unfortunately, yes. The breakdown in taxes and fees from the Washington to Doha show that $344 of the $370 in cash out of pocket are fuel surcharges.
I verified that British Airways was assessing the proper fuel surcharges on this flight by verifying with the ITA Matrix. For more information on that process, make sure to check out Scott’s post, Free First Class Next Month: Using ITA Matrix to Find Cheap Flights and Fuel Surcharge Info.
As expected, the fuel surcharge (YQ) lined up with the cost on BA.com.
Does American Airlines impose fuel surcharges on Qatar awards?
No. American Airlines only collects fuel surcharges on British Airways and Iberia flights. You will pay only taxes and fees like the $25 phone ticketing fee for booking Qatar flights as an American Airlines award.
How much does American charge for an award itinerary to the Middle East?
American charges 45k/67.5k/90k in economy/business/first class for oneway travel to the Indian Subcontinent and Middle East, which are lumped together into a single zone.
Where does Qatar fly in North America?
Qatar flies nonstop to Doha from Chicago, Houston, New York-JFK, and Washington-Dulles. In Canada, they service Montreal. According to Routes Online, they will begin service to Philadelphia beginning in early April 2014. They even have business and economy award space available on the scheduled inaugural flight on April 2nd!
Why is Qatar joining oneworld such good news?
American’s frustrating routing rules only allow transatlantic travel when flying from North America to the “Indian Subcontinent/Middle East” region on an AAdvantage award. Read more about that in Scott’s great post The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards. Having Qatar in the oneworld alliance opens up many options for travel to India and the Maldives, two of our most heavily requested destinations at our Award Booking Service.
The oneworld alliance is also woefully weak in its African coverage. Royal Jordanian services the continent but is much smaller than Qatar. Air Berlin flies to a few North African destinations in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia and British Airways has coverage to South Africa.
On the whole, however, oneworld service to Africa can be described as “lackluster” compared to the Star Alliance and Sky Team. Qatar adds quite a few new African destinations that are bookable with Avios or AAdvantage miles.
What’s frustrating about using AAdvantage miles for travel to Africa?
Remember that under American’s arcane routing rules, you aren’t allowed to traverse the Middle East en route to Africa on a single award ticket. You will need to break the trip into two separate tickets (North America->Middle East and Middle East->Africa) which is quite a bit more expensive in miles than a standard roundtrip award between North America and Africa.
Recap
Qatar Airways is slated to officially join the oneworld alliance on October 30th. That’s great news for frequent flyers. Qatar opens up a great route network in the Middle East and to highly sought after destinations in the Indian Subcontinent, including the Maldives.
Up until very recently, you could only view award space on BA.com but had to call in to book. That’s changed and you can now book Qatar awards with Avios online. As with most other oneworld carriers, British Airways imposes hefty fuel surcharges on awards.
Even though American recently had a scare regarding fuel surcharges, they don’t impose them on AAdvantage awards. Use BA.com to search for space and call the AAdvantage desk to book. You will have to pay a mandatory $25 charge per ticket, but that’s far better than having to pay fuel surcharges with British Airways.
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Should be noted that Iberia also has service to a few African destinations. BA actually has a lot of destinations in Africa, but the problem is their hefty fuel surcharges and having to connect through LHR. QR is great for OW, but in terms of travel to Africa, it’s only great if planning to use it on an Explorer award.
All good points.
Do you know whether you can go from US to China through Doha on Qatar using AA miles? If yes, how much miles? Thank you!
Yes, but it would price as two awards, US to Middle East and Middle East to Asia 2, so it would be very expensive.
It looks like IAD-DOH would let you go through. I tried DOH-MLE, found avilability but after selecting the flight I was greeted with an error message stating that the ticket couldn’t be processed….
+1 on the Explorer Award!! JFK-DOH-MLE-HKG-JFK (QR + CX) comes right under 20,000 so it should be 130k in J or 180k in F!!
What a sweet deal biz Explorer Awards are.
Angel – Is the point of going to HKG to have a stopover? Looks like QR/QR/CX/CX/CX right?
farbster: Not really, since you can have unlimited stopovers on an Explorer award (well, 16 segments technically). I was trying to maximize the mileage while visiting the Middle East and Asia. Also, when booking an Explorer award you have to fly 2 OW carriers other than AA.
I forgot, they’re all stopovers!
That’s a nice trip!
I’m seeing what Angel saw. I can book ARN-DOH but not DOH-MLE
Hmm. I’ll try to look into that.
We need JL and CX to be bookable on AA. Why won’t that happen?
I am seeing a similar issue that some are experiencing above. I am able to see to Doha, but I am not see any availability from Doha to the Indian Subcontinent. I was looking for travel in the months of April – July 2014.
The frustration about AA rules going to Africa via Doha should be covered by Explorer Award, right?
Yes, that’s a great use for this route.
[…] ← Qatar Award Space Now Bookable with British Airways Avios Online and American Airlines Miles My Take on the Chicago Seminars […]
you write “Nearly all oneworld partners are searchable online”. i have a ton of avios and wanted to spend them on BA’s partners (not on BA itself because of their absurd fuel surcharges).
i have tried several ‘easy’ routes like MIA TLV MIA or MIA BCN MIA or MIA HKG MIA and either get a ‘Sorry there is a problem with booking this journey online’ or “Sorry, there are no flights available on…” basically any day where both AA and Iberia show easy availability…
am i doing something wrong?
in the rare instance of BA.com showing availability, even specifically choosing ONLY non BA flights ends up with a “+ 618.70$” fees (mostly obviously fuel surcharges) result, to make it useless (plus on a route like MIA BCN MIA where AA.com wants 40K miles roundtrip, BA wants 70K avios)…
same question: am i doing something wrong?
You’re a little confused on when surcharges apply –> https://milevalu.wpengine.com/when-does-british-airways-add-fuel-surcharges-to-avios-awards/
If you want those routes surcharge free, try to find space on airberlin flights on ba.com. There should be good availability in economy. BA.com is not great at finding connecting routes.
[…] the Middle East using AAdvantage miles is in general very easy with Qatar as a new oneworld member and Etihad as an American Airlines […]
I am using the BA tool to search for award availability from IAD to Male on Qatar Airways. I searched from Jan-Apr, 2015 and was able to find several flights outbound with award availability in coach (not one in business). The problem is, I couldnt find a single inbound flight on that route for the 3 months I searched. This whole search was 8-11 months out and I couldnt find a single seat available inbound. Any tips/advice? I really want to fly business class but that doesnt look good.
FYI, routing US->Africa via Doha works as a single award if QR publishes a fare on the route. And they do for a whole bunch of US destinations.
Nice way to save on YQ flying on AAdvantage points.
Yes, I saw that post today. That’s great news. Thanks for sharing.
On an Asia Awrd on Qatar with American can one stop over in Doha?
[…] Nearly all oneworld partners are searchable online. BA.com displays Cathay Pacific, JAL, Royal Jordanian, and S7 award space, all airlines that AA.com lack. British Airways also recently added new oneworld member Qatar’s award space to its engine which I detailed in this post. […]
how can i search oneworld air line availability with avios and AA milage.
Ba showes only ba flights, I like to travel from DFW to HKG and DFW to MNL in january 2010
Sorry meant January 2020