Qatar Airways Redemptions Just Got Harder For Family & Friends

Qatar Airways has quietly rolled out a new feature that has a lot of members up in arms. It's called My List, and from what I can tell it's designed to stop the miles brokers from buying and selling award seats under other people's accounts. It works much like Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, where you nominate friends and family up to a set limit.

With Qatar's My List you can add a maximum of four people. They have to stay on your list for six months and can't sit on anyone else's list at the same time. Removing someone really only happens once that six months is up. Prior to this change, you could book flights for anyone.

Here's what you need to know.

How My List works

• You (the "account owner") add up to four adults and redeem your own Avios for award flights on their behalf.
• Invitees have to accept an invitation before they're added. It's sent via membership number plus last name, email, or a link.
• Only award flights can be booked. No other redemption types.
• Account maturity and activity gate: you can't create a list until your account is 30 days old and you've completed at least one qualifying activity. That's either a flown flight with Qatar or a partner airline, or an eligible co-branded credit card transaction. Note that the flight needs to earn Avios so award bookings don't count. Full T&C can be found here.

To add a new person on your My List, visit the profile page

The gotchas

• Six-month lock-in. Anyone you add is stuck on your list for at least six months. You can't remove them and they can't leave until that's up, so add carefully.
• Award flights only. No upgrades, hotels, or other Avios uses for list members. Just award seats.
• One list per person. Someone can only sit on one My List at a time. If they're already on a friend's list, they're locked out of yours.
• Family & Friends members are excluded. If a person is already in a Family & Friends group, they can't be added to a My List at all. You will have to add them via the "Family & Friends" section on your profile page. These members will be in addition to your My List group of 4.
• You can give and receive at once. Being added to someone's list doesn't stop you creating your own.
• Search for 2 or more is blocked. If you're trying to search for award space for 2 or more passengers on an account that doesn't have members added to My List, you won't be able to search for flights.

Accounts without qualifying activity will not be able to book

The big catch

The term that will catch most Aussies off guard is the qualifying flight activity with Qatar Airways or one of its partners. Plenty of people who transfer points in from Amex, for example, have never actually credited a flight to Qatar Airways Privilege Club. That means they're now locked out of redeeming for anyone but themselves until they do.

There's a cheap(ish) fix, though. We don't have a Qatar co-branded card in Australia, so the card route is out, but a paid flight with a oneworld partner does the job. Ironically, a short domestic hop with Qatar's arch nemesis Qantas, credited to Privilege Club earns Avios across most economy fare classes, which is enough to tick the qualifying-activity box. Just make sure your fare books into an earning class, since the very cheapest buckets can earn nothing. Economy fares on Qantas that earn Qatar Airways Avios are: Y, B, H, K, L, M, V. You can check all fare classes and routes here.

Redeeming for kids: the Family & Friends list

Anyone planning to redeem for their kids now needs them added to the Family & Friends list. That's where you add up to six family and friends who aren't existing Privilege Club members, including children under 18 who can't go on your My List. Infants under two can't be added to Family & Friends at all, they will need to be added manually as a lap infant by calling Qatar Airways and paying the charges which is 10% of the adult fare in economy and 15% in business.

Sounds simple enough, but I've had multiple reports from readers and friends hitting errors when they try to add a family member. One friend trying to change a booking date for a flight booked with his child got a flat "computer says no," because the child wasn't on the Family & Friends list. When he went to add them, the interface just spun on a loading screen.

Something is clearly broken here, so add your family to your list as soon as you can if you've got redemption plans or need to make a flight change.

The infant problem

Say you've got an active booking for yourself plus an infant, and you've never credited a flight to your Privilege Club account. From the reports coming in, you may now be unable to rebook the infant. For now there's no clean workaround other than taking a qualifying flight with Qatar Airways or a partner to make your account eligible.

Summing up

Qatar Airways has rushed out a security change that clearly wasn't fully thought through (or maybe it was?!). Safeguarding award inventory for active members is fair enough, but there are legitimate cases where these rules just don't stack up.

My read is that this is aimed at the people who sell accounts, or sell flights using accounts they've bought for cash. A simpler model like Singapore Airlines' would have solved most of that without the collateral damage. As it stands, Qatar is alienating a lot of members who transferred in big balances from banking partners expecting to redeem for themselves and family, and who are now locked out.

I've reached out to Qatar Airways for comment on the new system and will update this piece when I hear back.