Just like many others, I too received my shiny new Qatar Airways Platinum status thanks to their recent status match which saw may Velocity Frequent Flyers jump the queue to One World Emerald.
Having already earned British Airways Gold (One World Emerald), the benefits for me personally aren’t that significant. However, I highly doubt I will be able to retain my One World status this year thanks to Australia being locked down.
This is where my new Qatar Airways Privilege Club status may come in handy. Those who got their newly minted status will have it until June 2021, and there’s the possibility to retain status for a fraction of the regular requirements.
In this post:
- Maintaining Qatar Airways Privilege Club Status
- Qmiles, Qpoints, Qcredits What’s the difference?
- Benefits Of Privilege Club Platinum
- Benefits Of Privilege Club Gold
- Benefits Of Privilege Club Silver
- Benefits Of Privilege Club Burgundy
- Using Qatar Airways Qmiles
- Researching Flights
- Qatar Airways Easy Deals
- How to find Qatar Airways Award Space
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club In Conclusion
Maintaining Qatar Airways Privilege Club Status
To maintain Qatar Airways Privilege Club status, you will need to achieve 50% of the regular requirements by May 2021 with at least 20% of your Qpoints coming from Qatar Airways operated flights.
- Privilege Club Silver: 75 Qpoints (usually 150)
- Privilege Club Gold: 150 Qpoints (usually 300)
- Privilege Club Platinum: 300 Qpoints (usually 600)
Regardless of which tier you are, the Qpoints you earn are the same and based on the sectors you fly.
For example, Oslo to Singapore would earn you 120 Qpoints when you’re flying Business class saver return. To work out how many Qpoints and QMiles you will earn from a flight, you can use the QCalculator.
Qmiles, Qpoints, Qcredits What’s the difference?
While I’m writing this, I’m fighting a battle with my autocorrect every time I’m adding “Q” in front of a perfectly fine word. But with so many different points categories, it’s essential to know the difference.
- Qmiles – These are the points you earn from flying with Qatar Airways or any other partner airline. These points can be used to book flights rewards, upgrades and goods. Depending on your status tier, these points are multiplied when you fly on Qatar Airways.
- Qpoints – These are the tier points you earn and need to maintain your frequent flyer status and will reset each year.
- Qcredits – Qcredits are earned by Gold and Platinum Privilege Club members. When you achieve Gold, you get 40 credits; when you hit Platinum, you get 60. Those credits can be used to pay for extra baggage and things like upgrades and award fees. 10 bonus credits are award for each 100 Qpoints Platinum members earn over 600. (Example: if you earn 700 Qpoints, you will get an additional 10 Qcredits).
Benefits Of Privilege Club Platinum
The highest tier with Qatar Airways is Platinum, and it comes with a few perks which might make you consider keeping it for another year!
5% Redemption Discount – Qatar Airways Privilege Club Platinum members receive a 5% discount on award tickets!
Qcredits – we touched on this before, but I wanted to highlight the actual value you can extract from these beauties. Since a lot of us have matched Velocity Platinum to Privilege Club Platinum, we all got 60 Qcredits for free. To give you an example of their value, you only need 55 Qcredits to upgrade from Economy to Business on a flight from Sydney to Europe. The only caveat is that you will need to make sure your economy ticket is in the following class: Y,M,Q,V,S,O,N,K,H,B,T,L. And of course, it all depends on availability.
5 Lounge Passes – These passes can be used in addition to your regular guest allowance you’re entitled to. To use the passes, you have to be present, and your guest must be on Qatar Airways operated flights within 3 hours of your flight. Access to premium lounges is only granted if your guests are travelling on business class tickets. For example, you and a party of 5 guests are all flying Qatar Airways business; you could then use your passes to guest everyone into the exclusive first class lounge.
Access to Al Safwa First Class lounge – you and up to 2 guests can access the Al Safwa First Class lounge (which is AMAZING – check my Al Safwa First Class lounge review here) when travelling in business class onboard Qatar Airways.
Lounge Access – If you’re not flying business, you will only have access to the Qatar Airways Business Class lounge in Doha. That might sound confusing, but that’s because Qatar operates 3 different lounges in Doha. The lounge for status holders flying economy is called “Business Class Lounge”, the lounge for people flying in business class is called Al Mourjan Business Lounge and the lounge for those on first class tickets is called Al Safwa First Class Lounge. That said, since Privilege Club Platinum is One World Emerald, you will get access to international first class lounges such as the Qantas First Class lounge or the exceptional Cathay Pacific first class lounges in Hong Kong. (note: Al Safwa First Class is not accessible to those who hold other One World Emerald status such as Qantas Platinum, it’s a benefit unique to Privilege Club Platinum)
Al Maha Services meet-and-greet – You and up to 2 guests can take advantage of free Al Maha Services meet-and-greet, which could be handy if you were flying economy. You get to use the premium immigration lane on arrival, or when you’re departing, there’s expedited security. Here are perks based on whether you’re arriving, transmitting or departing.
Arrival
- Customer should approach the Al Maha Services processing lounge;
- Assistance with immigration formalities;
- Escort to arrival hall.
Departure
- Assistance with check-in formalities;
- Immigration clearance at Al Maha Services departure processing lounge;
- Assistance through the security-screening area upon departure.
Transit
- To be met at the aircraft;
- Assistance through security-screening;
- Escorted until the lounge.
Priority Check-in You can use priority check in lanes at Hamad International airport and other airports around the world when flying Qatar Airways or a One World partner airline.
Family Pooling – 100% mileage per family member on flights eligible for earning Qmiles.
Excess Baggage Allowance – Enjoy an additional 25-kg, or two pieces (where piece concept applies), on flights marketed and operated by Qatar Airways1.
Tier Bonus – Platinum members get a 100% bonus multiplier when flying with Qatar Airways.
Priority Boarding – regardless of the class of travel, you will be able to benefit from priority boarding with Qatar Airways and all One World partner airlines.
5% Discount On Award Bookings – the Qatar Airways Privilege Club miles aren’t exactly the most valuable (more on this later), but Platinum Members get a 5% discount on reward bookings on Qatar Airways operated flights.
Preferred Seats – When you book an economy seat 72h before departure, you get access to priority seating at the front of the cabin (with Qatar Airways)
Other benefits – there are a few more benefits, so check out the Qatar Airways page to learn more about those. Personally, I don’t consider them very valuable, so I won’t mention them here. It’s things like discounts on Qatar Airways holidays and duty-free — boring!
Benefits Of Privilege Club Gold
Qatar Airways Privilege Club Gold is the equivalent of One World Sapphire. The key perk of this is that you get to access One World international business lounges. In Australia, this means you can access either the international Qantas lounge or when flying domestically, the Qantas Club lounges.
Qcredits – Just like Platinum, Gold members get some Qcredits, 40 to be precise. These can be used for upgrades, excess luggage and award fees.
Tier Bonus – Platinum members get a 75% bonus multiplier when flying with Qatar Airways.
Family Pooling – 100% mileage per family member on flights eligible for earning Qmiles.
Priority Check-in – Check-in at Business Class counter, irrespective of cabin of travel.
Excess Luggage – Enjoy an additional 20-kg, or one piece (where piece concept applies), on flights marketed and operated by Qatar Airways
4 Guest Lounge Passes – Receive four guest passes per year to invite additional friends to join you in the lounge at Doha. Same conditions apply as described above under the Platinum section.
Al Maha Services meet-and-greet – Gold status holder get the same benefit as the Platinum members and get to enjoy complimentary Al Maha Gold service at Doha International Airport.
5% Discount On Redemptions – Gold Privilege Club members also get 5% discount on Qatar Airways redemptions.
Preferred Seats – When you book an economy seat 72h before departure, you get access to priority seating at the front of the cabin (with Qatar Airways).
Priority boarding – Enjoy priority boarding where available.
Benefits Of Privilege Club Silver
Let’s be honest, Silver Status with any airline is somewhat meaningless and definitely not worth “chasing”. However, Qatar Airways Privilege Club Silver does have a couple of perks that you might not know about.
Tier Bonus – Silver members get a 50% bonus multiplier when flying with Qatar Airways.
Family Pooling – 50% mileage per family member on flights eligible for earning Qmiles.
Priority Check-in – Check-in at Business Class counter, irrespective of cabin of travel.
Lounge access – this perk is unique to Qatar Airways, even though Silver won’t get you One World lounge access, you will get access to the Business Class lounge in Doha and selected lounges worldwide even when flying economy. In theory, when flying Qatar Airways, check-in agents will provide you with lounge passes. The only exception would be when the lounge is classified as “premium”. So while you won’t be able to show your membership card at the lounge and demand entry, you will receive invites when you fly Qatar Airways, and you’re departing from “select airports”.
2 Guest Lounge Passes – Receive four guest passes per year to invite additional friends to join you in the lounge at Doha. Same conditions apply as described above under the Gold section.
Priority boarding – Enjoy priority boarding where available.
Excess baggage allowance – Enjoy an additional 15-kg or one piece (where piece concept applies), on flights marketed and operated by Qatar Airways.
Benefits Of Privilege Club Burgundy
Qatar Airways Privilege Club Burgundy is the base level of its rewards program, and it’s what you get automatically when you sign up to Privilege Club (free). There are no real benefits to this, and unless you fly a lot with Qatar Airways, I would recommend crediting miles to a more valuable program such as British Airways Executive Club, Qantas Frequent Flyer or Cathay Pacific Marco Polo.
Family Pooling – 25% mileage per family member on flights eligible for earning Qmiles.
Using Qatar Airways Qmiles
Over the years Qatar Airways have devalued their rewards program (when it comes to redeeming points for flights) to the point where there is hardly any value left, and you will most likely be better off redeeming points with another One World program for the same flights (Asia Miles, AAdvantage, Qantas Frequent Flyer etc.). Also, for those of us in Australia, there are no credit card transfer partners which we can use to top up our Qmiles, so the only reliable way to earn them is by “bum in seat” airtime, actually flying with Qatar or one of its partners.
The only way to get credit card points to Qatar is to send them to Bonvoy first and then onto Qatar; this is is a terrible value proposition.
However, there are a few options that could still provide value, so we’ll take a quick look at those.
Researching Flights
If you’re looking to redeem points with Qatar Airways, the best tool to research the required points is the Qcalculator. This tool will tell you the number of miles required for outright redemptions and upgrades. It can also show you the “Qcredits” required if you want to use these for an upgrade.
Since Qatar Airways is a One World airlines, you can also use your Qmiles to redeem flights with other airlines in the network. For those, you will need to consult the Partner Airline Award Chart because the pricing is different to Qatar Airways operated flights. This also means you need to figure out the mileage requirements since the partner award chart is distance-based.
To give you an example of how weak the value proposition for Qmiles is, take Perth to Sydney with Qantas in business class.
- One way miles required with Qmiles: 70,000 (yikes!)
- One way miles required with Aadvantage: 20,000
- One way miles required with Qantas: 41,500
Of course, one of the key benefits of redeeming Qmiles for Qatar Airways flights is that you will have much more award space availability compared to using another One World program.
Qatar Airways Easy Deals
One unique Qatar Airways Privilege Club feature is the Qatar Airways Easy Deals page. This is similar to Singapore Airlines Spontaneous Escapes and offers a discount on selected flights every month. You can access the dedicated page here and browse the deals on offer. Easy Deals are available for both Business and Economy reward tickets.
Qatar Airways Easy Deals are split into 3 discount categories, these are:
- Up to 20% off
- 21-40% off
- 41-50% off
How to find Qatar Airways Award Space
Researching available flights with Qatar Airways can be somewhat painful since they require you to have Qmiles to run a search. Instead, use other One World programs such as Asia Miles, British Airways Executive Club, Aadvantage or Qantas to find award space. Alternatively, you also call Qatar Airways to check availability for you, their best contact number depending on your location can be found here: [Office Locator | Qatar Airways](https://www.qatarairways.com/en-au/worldwide-offices.html)
Qatar Airways Privilege Club In Conclusion
I usually wouldn’t go out of my way to collect Qmiles, simply because Qatar Airways has devalued those significantly over the years.
That said, as you can see, there are a few perks unique to Privilege Club which could make it worth renewing.
Especially when you consider most miles aren’t earned from flying anyway (thanks to frequent flyer credit cards), Privilege Club is worth it for those that can at least complete 4 Qatar Airways sectors each year.
