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Qatar Airways has quite a bit of open Business Class availability to destinations across the Middle East, Asia and Africa (including the Maldives) from a plethora of US airports between May-June 2023. When availability drops on these routes (usually towards the end of the booking window), it tends to sell out fast, especially to high-demand redemption destinations like the Maldives.
Most of the non-stops to Doha that I found are from East-Coast cities (IAD, BOS, PHL, JFK) with quite a few flights from Chicago – DOH as well. These options widen dramatically across the US if you don’t mind a 2-stop trip with a positioning flight to one of the aforementioned East Coast gateways. For once, AA seems to have quite a bit of domestic first class availability on those connecting flights as well.
I also was able to find 2-stop itineraries from many smaller, regional airports (again, connnecting through the East Coast).
There is quite a bit of 2-4 passenger availability and it’s bookable for 70,000 AAdvantage Miles. I was able to find decent options to the Seychelles, Jordan, South Africa and India. It seems that much of Qatar’s route map beyond Doha is fair game.
The Deal
- Fly Qatar Airways Qsuites from the multiple US Airports to the Middle East, India and Southern Asia (including the Maldives) for 70,000 AAdvantage Miles one-way from May to the end of the booking window in June (May has the most dates). Fly to Africa for 75,000 AAdvantage Miles.
- Best one-stop availability is from IAD, BOS, PHL, JFK and ORD.
- Spotty one-stop and decent two-stop availability from ORD, ATL, MIA, IAH, DFW, SEA, LAX and SFO as well as many regional airports.
Ways to Book
The AA and Alaska monthly calendars are the easiest way to find dates
- AAdvantage – Business class is 70,000 miles each way (use portal+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 (use portal+britishairways.com or qatarairways.com). American Express, Chase and Capital One are all British Airways, while Citi transfers to Qatar Airways. Through end of this month there’s actually a 30% transfer bonus from Chase to British 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 is 85,000 miles each way (use portal+alaskaair.com) – NOTE: Unusually, Alaska seemed to not have quite the availability that AA had on the dates that I compared.
Quick Thoughts
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. While it can be easier to find availability from the US to Doha, it’s much more uncommon to find Qatar business class all the way through to Qatar connection destinations. To the Maldives, for instance, it’s almost always the DOH-MLE leg that is the first lose availability (same with Capetown). This availability most likely won’t last long, so book if you find dates that work for you.
(h/t: VFTW)
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Booked one recently DOH-ICN and they product-changed us last minute. Beware.
Yikes! That’s a bummer of a switch.
Still a good flight but specifically booked it for Q-suites. Europe to Asia was 75K a pop.
Looking on AA from multiple suggested cities to MLE, it doesn’t show that Business exists as an option at all. It’s only 80k in Main. Calendar view indicates no flights with Business seats as even searchable.
I’m assuming that you’re using the AA calendar? If so, you’re searching round trip and getting the RT economy price (80K). Search any day one way (For instance IAD-MLE). When you get the results choose “calendar view.” Once in calendar view, the default is showing the cheapest price across all classes (in this case economy). Choose Business Class from the drop down menu and it will just show business, you can then drill down on specific dates from there. As of 16:00 Eastern on 7/23, there were a bunch of outbound flights from IAD-MLE in Business, most with business on the DOH-MLE leg as well.
Booked QSuites from Houston to Bali RT for May 2023 for Me and my wife. Used a combo of points from Citi and Chase to avios when they were running Xfer bonuses.
Well done!
found availability from DFW to DOH if you don’t mind a stop/airport change EWR/JFK (8hr stop)
First to EWR and Biz to DOH (first flight listed on search is similar but with economy instead of first to EWR)
DFW
8:30 AM
DOH
5:30 PM
25h 0m
1 stop
Opens 1 stop details for DFW to DOH, departing at 8:30 AM
DFW – EWR AA 558 738-Boeing 737Onboard amenities
Operated by Qatar Airways
Overnight flight or connection, Connecting airports are different
Details
for DFW to DOH, departing at 8:30 AM 1 stop
Seats
for DFW to DOH, departing at 8:30 AM 1 stop
Thanks for the DP!
Thanks! I grabbed 2 seats SEA-DOH-JNB and the 1 seat remaining for the return. To my surprise, the return flight will only cost $2328 in Qsuites, one-way, so I’m just paying cash for the second seat.
Nice!
Following up: I extended our trip by a couple of days as the schedule opened up, and was able to nab two award seats for our return. Fortunately I had not actually paid for the second seat yet, so I was able to book it with miles. Total award fees for the roundtrip are $255.14. What a deal.
Best of all, this finally cleaned out our AA accounts. It’s a little sad — I’m a million miler/lifetime Gold with AA, but they’re so terrible now that I won’t fly them anymore. Not that they have much service to SEA anyway.
That’s even better! Thanks for the follow-up!
Thanks for the alert! Can you give some tips for West Coast (SFO) to take advantage, like from SFO to MLE? How many miles would it be?
Which currency are you using? For AA, there’s no difference between East Coast/West Coast pricing, all US pricing (for saver awards), is standardized.
Can anyone search on the qatar website? For some reasons, none of my search results in anything on their website. Like BOS – DOH, I could see it on the AA site, but couldnt search on the qatar site
What dates are you seeing availability for 3-4 people. I’ve checked since yesterday but can’t find any dates with more than 2 seats.
Sorry, which route are you looking at?
Pretty much all of them, IAD, JFK, BOS, PHL, ORD. Can’t seem to find more than 2 seats on any of them.
I’m searching using AA monthly calendar.
i’m seeing something very similar to MLE
Most everything that I see to MLE is 2 or less now
I came here to ask the same. Looking for 3 qsuites from US to Cape Town or from Johannesburg to the US. Or any combo (they could be swapped or round trip) for May or June 2023. Would reposition to any US city but can’t find anything.
I saw 3 seats on some of the day outbound from IAD earlier today. Not sure about the return, though.
Sorry, I meant destination. The overwater route to Doha had 3+ seats from several of those airports (at least, this morning it did). You may be running into availability issues between Doha and wherever your final destination is…those tend to go first.