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Qatar QSuites revealed at the Paris Airshow
The Paris airshow is currently on and Qatar have taken their newly equipped B777 to show off their latest seats, the QSuite. I wrote about the business class Qsuite in this article, after seeing the seat at the ITB show in Berlin earlier this year.
I am already a huge fan of Qatar’s business class, but these suites are at a whole new level. More details have been revealed such as the positioning of the amazing ‘double beds’ and ‘quads’ where a family or group of 4 can sit together. The seats also have a variety of high tech equipment such as a universal power outlet, two USB ports, a headphone jack, HDMI port and a handheld touchscreen controller. The video below has a great tour around the suites.
If you are reading this by email you can view the video tour here.
The suites are due to debut this weekend on the 24th June and will be on 1 flight per day initially to/from London, followed by service to Paris and New York, with the airline’s fleet retrofitted at the rate of one plane per month.
Ex Dublin fares to the USA
If you are still to finalise your plans for a summer holiday and are considering the USA, read on. As I often advise, there are usually good deals to be had by flying via Dublin for the US. Often these involve flying back to the UK before then getting on your US flight. Another option is to fly from Dublin with American Airlines, as this offers the advantage of pre-clearing US customs and immigration in Dublin. If you decide to take this option chose your route and aircraft carefully. The best option would be the AA B787 via Chicago, as the seats are the most up to date flat bed.
You can, of course, earn Avios and tier points by flying American Airlines and a lot of their seats are far superior to BA, in my opinion. There are currently 2 sales to the US that end shortly. If you don’t manage to catch it in time, there is another offer with AA for advance purchase that is only slightly more expensive. With both sales, the cheapest fares will tend to be over the summer holiday period.
One crucial detail to bear in mind is that Mixed Fleet cabin crew operate the BA flights to Dublin. Whilst BA are guaranteeing you will get to your destination during the strike, they are not guaranteeing when. I would build in extra time in Dublin and not book positioning flights with BA unless you have to. The strike is due to start on 1st July which you can read about here.
Sale 1 book until 22th June
With both these sales you can go via Heathrow on BA or AA if you prefer. However, this usually works out more expensive than flying direct from Dublin. You could even try the BA1 service to New York that I reviewed here.
You must book at least 28 days in advance and stay a Saturday night. The dates for travel are as follows:
25 JUN 17 to 22 AUG 17 OR
23 NOV 17 to 30 NOV 17 OR
18 DEC 17 to 04 JAN 18 OR
19 MAR 18 to 12 APR 18
Example fares for BA or AA via Heathrow
DUB-NYC – €1,407
DUB-ORD – €1,575
DUB-MIA – €1,464
DUB-LAX – €1,697
DUB-LAS – €1,604
DUB-HNL – €1,972
Sale 2 book until 20 June 2017
These fares are only available for mid week travel and the minimum stay is 7 days. They must be booked at least 7 days prior to departure.
You can travel :
From Europe – tue/wed/thu on each transatlantic sector.
To Europe – mon/tue/wed on each transatlantic sector
Example fares:
DUB-NYC – €1,359
DUB-ORD – €1,516
DUB-MIA – €1,343
DUB-LAS – €1,422
For both sales you will need to book on the AA Irish website, not the UK one to get the price. I would recommend searching using Google flights first before going through to AA. If you have a complex itinerary, you could use Propeller travel to help book it.
Thanks to Flyertalk for the details and God save the points for the heads up.
