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Qatar Airways Privilege Club is out with a 30% transfer bonus from various partners, but the one relevant for US customers is Citi Thank You Rewards. Through June 30, 2023, you’ll get a 30% transfer bonus when you transfer Citi ThankYou points to Qatar Airways Privilege Club. Keep in mind that you can move Avios from Qatar to British Airways Executive Club and on to Iberia Plus or Aer Lingus, so this could be useful even if you don’t initially have interest in using Qatar’s program. Note that you won’t see this bonus advertised on the Citi side and the 30% bonus may take up to 45 days to post.
The Deal
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club is offering a 30% transfer bonus when you transfer points from select partners to Avios. The only qualifying major US program is Citi ThankYou Rewards.
- Direct link to this deal
Key Terms
- Valid June 1, 2023 to June 30, 2023
- 30% bonus is being offered by Qatar and may take up to 45 days to post (but I believe that in practice the bonus posts much more quickly)
- See promo page for full terms
Quick Thoughts
This can be a great deal for the right sweet spots. For instance, Qatar Airways Privileges Club sometimes charges just 70K Avios each way between Doha and New York (plus around $150 in taxes). If you can find availability for that, this bonus turns that into around 54,000 Citi ThankYou points, which is a great deal for that flight.
But the thing that makes this more widely applicable is that there are many Avios sweet spots — and ever since Qatar joined the Avios ecosystem last year, members have been able to transfer Avios between Qatar Airways Privilege Club and British Airways Executive Club and onward to Iberia Plus and Aer Lingus. There are quite a few sweet spots between those programs where the 30% bonus would be a fantastic deal. For instance, I have flown Iberia business class between New York and Madrid for 34,000 Avios and about $100-$150 one-way during off-peak dates (which are quite generous through Iberia). With this bonus, you’d need to transfer just 27,000 Citi ThankYou points to fly flat-bed business class to/from Europe.
The potential trouble here is that you would ideally want to find availability before transferring, but the 30% transfer bonus may not be instant (terms indicate that the bonus Avios could take up to 45 days to transfer).
There is one other element to the story: Qatar is intending to give a bonus 100,000 Avios to the 10 members who earn the greatest number of base Avios through this promotion (i.e. the number of points transferred before the 30% bonus). You’ll need to transfer at least 500,000 points to Avios to be eligible for the bonus and then you’ll have to be lucky enough to end up in the top 10. Personally, I don’t find that to be too much incentive since the chances of winning it are small and the number of points you would likely need to convert are so high that it would only make sense if you had a near-term use in mind.
Still, if you do find a use during the month of June, it might make sense to take a swing at this promotion.
H/T: One Mile at a Time
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Been waiting to add a data point here with hopefully good news, but…transferred June 30 (last day of promotion) and still don’t have the bonus added today. Waiting until the 45 days passes and then will follow up with Privilege Club.
Yikes, sorry to hear that!
I know Greg was looking for datapoints in the Facebook group but I can’t find that thread. My experience was in line with other resources that say you have to wait for promo to end.
Transfer — 6/18
Bonus received — 7/10
Thanks Larry!
When you click on the link, American Express is also listed as a bank that earns the bonus. Am I reading it right?
Disregard, just the Amex logo but it’s for the France & India versions of the bank…
Transferred on 6/24. I’ll try to remember to write back once the bonus posts
Thanks that would be great info. If you subscribe to AwardWallet you can set up an alert to be notified when the point bonus happens.
My account balance increased by the bonus amount but the account activity doesn’t note when it posted. I haven’t checked my account daily, but it was a maximum of 4 days until the bonus 30% posted.
Great to hear! Thanks for reporting back. A few years ago someone had said that a similar Qatar-side bonus took months to show up for them. Sounds like that is fixed (which I suspected but didn’t have proof)
Planning to transfer the full 68k for booking a RT ticket on Iberia off-peak Biz. Then Qatar should post 20.4k at some point in the future for a later trip!