Qatar Airways Restricts Who You Can Redeem Avios For

As of June 16, Qatar Airways Privilege Club has introduced new rules regarding who you can redeem your Avios for. You now have to spend on a Qatar Airways co-branded credit card or earn Avios by flying in order to redeem for anyone else, so let’s take a look at all the restrictions and how we can manage around them.

You Must Unlock the Ability to Redeem for Others

With the new rules, you can only redeem for two groups: “Family & Friends” and “My List” (more on the differences between them later). All members added to either list must remain for at least six months.

Manage “Family & Friends” and “My List” through your profile

However, the real restriction comes from the need to unlock the ability to even add anyone to any list to begin with. Before you can add anyone to either list, you must have been a Privilege Club member for 30 days and collected Avios either through a Qatar co-branded credit card or by flying.

“By flying” refers specifically to miles earned by flying on Qatar or a partner airline and earning miles by crediting that flight to Qatar. If you’ve done this in the past, you’re set — you can add to either list and redeem Avios for them.

Limited Search Results

There’s a second implicit restriction Qatar has added: you can only search for award seats that are equal to or fewer than the total number of people in both your lists combined plus yourself. If you have two people in Family & Friends and one person in My List, you can search for up to 4 seats.

That means if you have not unlocked the ability to add anyone to either group, you can only run award searches for one seat. Even if you and your partner plan to book out of your own Qatar accounts, there’s no way to tell if two award seats are available on any flight.

You can only search for as many passengers as you’re eligible to redeem for

My List

This is the more useful of the two groups, and adding people to My List lets you redeem your Avios for them. This is the only list to which other people can be added if they have an existing Qatar Airways Privilege Club account (with or without Avios).

You can add up to four people to My List. While not a lot, the idea is to add children to the Family & Friends group.

Add up to 4 members to “My List”

Family & Friends

This is the list that Qatar uses for family points pooling, but in an extremely strange way. Think of the person setting up the Family & Friends as the “head” of the family and everyone else as dependents. While the dependents can earn Avios to pool into the family group, only the “head” of the family can redeem Avios (for themselves or anyone else on Family & Friends or My List). The “head” of the family is also the only person eligible to earn Qpoints (status qualifying metric).

The main goal of adding someone to the Family & Friends is to pool Avios, but you can only add them if they do not already have a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account. Because of this restriction, my assumption is that the “Family & Friends” list is primarily for children; they can add their earned Avios to the family pool, while only you can redeem them.

You can add up to six people to your Family & Friends group.

Add up to 6 passengers to “Family & Friends”

Practical Solutions

First off, you can still book awards for anyone you had added to your Family & Friends list before the changes went live. Back in 2022, I added my parents in order to pool our Avios. Qatar asked for documentation, denied my birth certificate (for no English translation), and we did not successfully pool Avios, but Qatar still added them to my Family & Friends list.

You can redeem for existing members on your lists

For Canadians, the only practical way to unlock the ability to add members is to credit a paid flight to Qatar Airways Privilege Club. There’s no Qatar Airways co-branded credit card in Canada, and even if there was, it’s probably easier to just credit one paid flight.

Qatar has many partners, including all of Oneworld, as well as others like JetBlue and LATAM. You can find the full list on Qatar Airways’ website.

When crediting a flight, be sure to pay attention to your booking class and confirm that you’ll actually earn Avios. For example, American Airlines basic economy does not qualify for Avios accrual.

AA basic economy do not earn Qatar Avios

However, basic economy on JetBlue do earn Avios.

JetBlue basic economy do earn Qatar Avios

Book with British Airways Instead

Between now and whenever you credit a paid flight to Qatar, one workaround is to book your flight with British Airways Avios instead. British Airways does not have the restrictions Qatar does and also offers a very user-friendly family pool for sharing Avios.

Direct flights between North America and Doha on Qatar Qsuites cost the same 70,000 Avios and the same taxes when booked with British Airways.

YYZ-DOH is the same price on British Airways as on Qatar

Admittedly, it’s not a perfect solution because British Airways opens the booking calendar 355 days ahead, while Qatar opens it 361 days ahead, so flights could be booked before reaching British Airways. Qatar also undercuts British Airways on pricing if you need a connecting Qsuites itinerary, such as going onwards to Bangkok or Johannesburg.

For what it’s worth, I book all my Avios trips with British Airways when the pricing is the same, because of family Avios pooling and superior customer service compared to Qatar and Iberia.

Transfer Avios with Finnair

If you need multiple seats on the same flight, each person can still book through their own account.

You can check award space with British Airways Avios, and the best thing to do is ask a friend who has unlocked the ability to redeem for others to check availability. Alternatively, or in addition, use the Live Chat function on the Qatar website, and agents can search for award space. Note that booking a ticket through Live Chat does not get around the booking restrictions.

Use Live Chat to check for award space

If all your Avios are in one person’s account, you can transfer Avios to the person via Finnair for a flat €10 fee. The only rule is that the Finnair Plus account must be at least 90 days old.

Transfer Avios to another member for €10

This could be a multi-step process if your Avios are with Qatar or British Airways, as you’d first need to transfer them to Finnair. After receiving Avios in your Finnair account, you can move them to Qatar, and each person can complete the booking from their own account.

Again, this isn’t a perfect solution because it won’t work for children, and there’s a risk that one award seat can disappear if the other is booked, even if both were initially available.

My Take

Qatar’s new restrictions are unquestionably a negative change for members, especially families and anyone who regularly books award travel for a partner or friend. While the airline has likely implemented these rules to combat fraud, I prefer the system used by many Asian airlines: redeem only for immediate family, with proof of relationship.

This barrier of needing to earn miles through a co-branded credit card or credit a paid flight is onerous, while you can still redeem for anyone (up to 10 people) in the end. My biggest issue is the time gap between now and whenever you can credit a paid flight — during this time, you can’t redeem your Avios for your spouse or children, which is very negative side effect of trying to combat points brokers. Surely an exception can be made if the account holder is also travelling on the same booking.

In any case, my recommendation is to credit a paid flight as soon as possible. My partner has a JetBlue flight in August and I have a few LATAM flights in July, which happens to work out well. If we need to book flights with Qatar Avios between now and then, it’ll have to come out of our respective Qatar accounts, and I’ll either transfer more points or use Finnair’s Avios transfer feature.

The small silver lining is that we should see award space improve over the next little while, and those who had already unlocked the ability to add to My List before these changes were implemented have a leg up on booking awards.

Takeaway

Qatar’s new redemption restrictions add significant friction for anyone booking award travel for family and friends, particularly since Canadians don’t have access to a Qatar-co-branded credit card. If you regularly use Qatar Privilege Club, it’s worth crediting a paid flight to Qatar Airways sooner rather than later so you can unlock the ability to add members to your lists and avoid future booking headaches.

In the meantime, British Airways Avios remains a useful workaround, while Finnair’s Avios transfer feature can help distribute Avios between accounts, so each person can book out of their own Qatar account to grab multiple seats on the same flight.