While I definitely am no closer to learning how to properly pronounce “Qatar”, I am learning lots of other nerdy things by watching Greg’s how-to videos. This time, he walks through how to find Qatar QSuite award flights. (For all of you newbies like me, getting to fly QSuites is like the travel equivalent of scoring a ticket to the Taylor Swift Eras tour. Am I wrong?)
Here are some of the things I learned from Greg’s most recent How-To video. (I’ll include the timestamps so you can navigate directly to each part in YouTube if you prefer, though it’s a pretty short video if you want to watch it all the way through above instead.)
What I learned from watching Greg find Qatar QSuite award flights:
- 00:00 – American Airlines’ website is the easiest place to search for Qatar Airways awards, even if you’re not going to be using American Airline Miles. This is mostly thanks to a handy calendar view available on their website.
- 00:28 – Searching in one-ways makes it much easier to find award availability. (To take it a step further, Greg starts by just searching flights to Doha, Qatar Airways’ hub.)
- 01:35 – By searching for a flight to Doha, then filtering the calendar view by “Nonstop only”, you’re mostly limiting all the flight results to just Qatar Airways.
- 02:18 – Pay attention to the taxes and fees of the flight you select on the American Airlines calendar though. Very high fees may indicate a British Airways flight instead.
- 04:19 – Once you find an acceptable flight, you can use Google Flights to see whether or not that flight will have an “individual suite”. This will likely mean it’s in QSuites, though this is not guaranteed. In part because Qatar has other individual-suite products, and in part because the aircraft can always be changed last minute.
- 06:35 – If you want to search for flights beyond Doha, you can enter the destination you have in mind, then filter the American Airlines’ calendar by “1 stop or fewer” instead. The assumption here is that Doha is the first stop, and your destination is the second.
- 07:26 – Even though American Airlines’ site is the easiest to start with for finding general availability, if you can’t find anything for destinations beyond that, it may be worth searching on Qatar Airways’ own site, (or a different partner’s site), since American Airlines may not have access to all the flights you’d find elsewhere. As an example, Greg first found availability from Chicago to Doha on American Airlines’ site for a specific date in June, but when he tried to find options for Chicago to Maldives instead, the June options disappeared. That’s when he recommended going to QatarAirways.com and BritishAirways.com to see if those June dates show up again for the Maldives destination on QatarAirways.com or AA.com.
Bonus tips from Greg, not included in the video:
- While American Airlines’ website may be the easiest to search, keep in mind that it can only see award space 11 months out while British Airways and Qatar can see (and book) award space further out.
- A super easy way to find which routes Qatar serves is to use flightconnections.com and filter to airline Qatar. (In the video Greg searched Chicago to Doha: a tool like flight connections could help him decide which route to search.)
Comment below to let us know if you learned something new by watching this how-to video! (And if there are other how-to’s you’d like to see.)
Booking Qatar Qsuite with AA Miles for Nov. 2024
I can’t locate any of these 70,000 miles for Qsuites from US to Doha on AA’s website. I’ve been checking daily for the last few weeks. Did they do away with this deal?
Greg, please do more of these videos! Video case studies are easier to follow than articles. Love this format
Put two fights on hold last week, IAD-CPT and IAD-MLE next October. With spousal permission booked the flights to Male yesterday, no problems. 70k miles and $40 each, with Q-suites to Doha and a 777-300 on the shorter flight to Male. A good deal, in my opinion. I did recheck availability over the weekend, and options are much fewer now. A reminder to strike while the iron is hot, and I LOVE that AA lets you put award flights on hold for 5 days- way better that almost every other airline. Now I have to figure out how to get back!
Every time I’ve tried to click through available Qatar flights I’ve found on AA website last few days it says some system error occured.
I have no trouble finding space but actually moving towards booking with American miles has been impossible.
I was hoping this post would have some tips on that. Anyone have anything?
I’ve found a few rewards flights on QR recently from the West coast to India. It was no problem to put the reservation on hold, but had to call/ chat to pay.
We flew Qatar J using AA miles a year ago, from ORD to MLE with a one night stopover in Doha. I’d found an under $1K deal for the Hilton SaII Lagoon during Dec of 2020: 5 nights including breakfast. The voucher was fully refundable for two years, and we redeemed for 22 months out.
The cost was crazy good, as was the service and the good night’s sleep on the long leg to Doha.
I’d recommend for anyone!
I search a BOS to BKK and noticed it was 190k one way. Is this typical price? Seems ridiculous that people are going to pay this.
IIRC, going the “long way around” to Asia is going to be 2 awards, not 1.
If your travel plan is to Asia, I’d book with Qatar directly. Qatar charges far less than AA does in this scenario. For example, I recently did a mixed cabin booking LAX-DOH-HKG with 95k avios + $202. If I booked them separately on Qatar, it would be 70k for LAX-DOH (J) and 75k for DOH-HKG (F). Also, those prices are saver level, flexi level would charge twice avios than saver.
Ah yes…Qatar. Nevermind that they shelter Hamas terrorist leadership…as long as you have a premium J/F product, take my money!
You seem to have lost your way ma’am, this is a points and miles forum. Political diatribes are down the hall on the right.
Sorry young lady, I didn’t realize being pro terrorist was now a political debate. You voting Hamas straight ticket next year?
Technically we’re preventing Qatar from making a lot of money from their premium product. So aren’t we actually taking money from them?
No, since they are only making award seats available when they wouldnt otherwise be sold…and they do get compensation for award bookings, which exceeds the variable costs.
The largest US military base in the Middle East is in Qatar. If it’s good enough for them I can live with it.
Irrelevant, as it sounds like you support those who want to boycott/divest Israel, who is a much stronger military partner.
Weird how you leftists will bend over backwards to defend terrorists, as long as their enemy is also yours. Those hamas terrorists would have murdered you without hesitation as well if you would have happened to be there. I find it reprehensible that anyone would choose to give their money to a country sympathetic to terrorist causes
Weird how the US has long allied directly with Qatar. But you do you.