Qatar Airways has a massive amount of open business class availability to destinations across the Middle East, Asia and Africa (including the Maldives) from a plethora of US airports over the next year. When lots of availability drops on these routes, it tends to sell out fast, especially to high-demand redemption destinations like the Maldives. Gary at View from the Wing first reported this award space.
Non-stops to Doha are open from pretty much every US airport that Qatar serves, and the options widen even more if you don’t mind a 2-stop trip with a positioning flight to one of the gateway cities.
There is quite a bit of 2+ passenger availability. I booked Seattle-Delhi for 2 and was able to find decent options to the Seychelles, Jordan, South Africa and elsewhere in India. It seems that much of Qatar’s route map beyond Doha is fair game.
Many of these flights have Qatar’s QSuites, considered by many folks to be one of the best business class products in the world. In order to tell whether or not the flight that you’re looking at is indeed QSuites, see this post from Greg.
The Deal
- Fly Qatar Airways business class (including QSuites) from multiple US Airports to the Middle East, India and Southern Asia (including the Maldives) through November, 2024.
- Availability from Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), Seattle, (SEA), Dallas (DFW), Houston (IAH), Miami (MIA), Atlanta (ATL), Washington DC (IAD), Boston (BOS), New York City (JFK) and Chicago (ORD).
Ways to Book
The best way to find availability is usually easiest using the calendar feature on American Airlines or Qatar’s website.
Once you find availability, you can book it one of several ways:
- AAdvantage – Business class is 70,000 miles each way (use aa.com) to the Middle East, India and Southern Asia; 75,000 to Africa.
- Avios (Qatar/BA) – Business class is 70,000 Avios from the East Coast to Doha, 85,000+ if going beyond to India, Africa or the Maldives depending on cost of additional segments (use britishairways.com or qatarairways.com). American Express, Chase and Capital One are all British Airways transfer partners, while Citi transfers to Qatar Airways. Avios can be transferred from BA to Qatar, but it can be a bit of a process to set up initially (see how here).
- Alaska Air – Business starts at 85,000 miles each way (use alaskaair.com)
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles – Business starts at 89,000 miles each way (use Asia Miles’ website)
- JetBlue – Business starts at 70,000 miles each way (use JetBlue.com)
Quick Thoughts
Qatar Qsuites are hands-down one of the best business class products in the world. They have a self-contained suite with doors that feels more like a first class cabin and some middle seats can be combined to create a double bed for couples travelling together.
While it can be easier to find availability from the US to Doha, usually we don’t see this many dates dropping all at the same time. In addition, it’s more uncommon to find Qatar business class available all the way through to connection destinations. To the Maldives, for instance, it’s almost always the DOH-MLE leg that is the first to lose business availability (same with Capetown or Johannesburg). Currently, both US-DOH AND numerous connections are plentiful.
This availability most likely won’t last long, so book if you find dates that work for you.
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