As I predicted, Qatar Airways annual January Global sale has just started. Overall it is a bit of a disappointing sale despite them promising 55% off business class and savings of up to 40% off Business Class fares when you book for two, four, six or eight people. The UK sale is particularly bad.
Unsurprisingly the real bargains are Ex Eu. If you haven’t considered this before you can read my beginner’s guide here. Remember you can earn tier points and Avios with Qatar too. As flights are indirect to everywhere other than Qatar, you will get more tier points and Avios than flying direct with BA in most cases. A flight with Qatar to the Far East will get you 560 tier points in most cases depending on your starting point. Add in a one way Club Europe positioning flight (and come back economy) and you have enough for BA Silver status which gets you lounge access even in economy.
If you decide to go ex EU you should consider the following:
- time and price to get to the starting point,
- aircraft type from starting point and tier points. Some of the Eastern Europe destinations use smaller regional aircraft and give fewer tier points.
- With Oslo and Stockholm it can often be cheaper to do an open jaw i.e. fly out of one airport and back to the other
- From Helsinki, it is worth comparing against Finnair as this may be cheaper
- Make sure you search for the number of people travelling as this can lower the price
- Don’t forget to try the discount code below as well
You can see reviews of several of Qatar’s business class seats here.
You won’t get to experience the new business class seats, the QSuite, on the ex EU routes below but it is worth looking at coming back to Paris or London. Paris has the Qsuites on one flight a day and sometimes this only adds around £100 to the price.
In this post:
Details
Tickets must be booked by 16 January 2018 for travel until 10 December 2018. 9 June until 10 September is the black out period for this sale.
If you book your Business Class ticket by 16 January 2018 you will also get a USD 30 voucher to use at Qatar Duty Free outlets at Hamad International Airport.
The UK Qatar sale page is here.
Extra offers
There are 2 discount codes worth trying:
FLYMOREQR From UK only- use by 15 January 2018 for travel 15 January 2017 – 31 March 2017
PCGTBGIFT for 5% discount which can be used anywhere – HT: Flyertalk
Discount on Black Lane transfers
You can also get a special 20% discount on Black Lane Chauffeur transfers from your when you book by 16 January using the promo code QRdoor2door. You must you the link from the Black Lane section on this page.
Ex EU sale prices
The prices start from those listed in the table below excluding additional discounts. Bear in mind that there will only be a few seats at this price on limited dates. If there is a destination you are interested in then it is worth searching all the departure points below plus perhaps Italy and France which all tend to give low prices. Google flights is the easiest way to search initially to narrow down dates and departure points.
| Destination | Price | From | Other cheap options |
| Auckland (AKL) | £ 1,566.00 | Oslo | |
| Bangkok (BKK) | £ 1,044.00 | Helsinki | Prague |
| Bali (DPS) | £ 1,418.00 | Oslo | Brussels, Helsinki |
| Beijing (PEK) | £ 1,164.00 | Sofia | Copenhagen |
| Colombo (CMB) | £ 969.00 | Bucharest | |
| Cape Town (CPT) | £ 1,357.00 | Stockholm | Frankfurt |
| Johannesburg (JNB) | £ 1,212.00 | Sarajevo | Amsterdam, Sofia |
| Hong Kong (HKG) | £ 1,343.00 | Stockholm | |
| Kuala Lumpur (KUL) | £ 1,295.00 | Sarajevo | |
| Krabi (KVB) | £ 1,097.00 | Helsinki | |
| Penang (PEN) | £. 1,159.00 | Oslo, Copenhagen | |
| Maldives (MLE) | £ 1,305.00 | Sarajevo | Stockholm |
| Shanghai (PVG) | £ 1,038.00 | Sofia | Copenhagen, Prague |
| Sydney (SYD),Melbourne (MEL) | £ 1,426.00 | Oslo | |
| Singapore (SIN) | £ 1,037.00 | Sofia | Stockholm (£1156) |
| Tokyo (NRT) | £ 1,320.00 | Helsinki |
The Qatar Global sale page is here. You can book flights from any departure point on this page.
