Earlier this summer, Qatar Airways quietly adopted a peak and off-peak award calendar for some of its flights, a similar strategy used by Avios partner British Airways, which saw the lowest redemption rates in Economy Class and Business Class increased slightly for those travelling during certain times of the year.

Initially this was only adopted for flight itineraries to or from Doha, which didn’t affect most of our readers who simply transit through Qatar on a longer journey like Singapore – Doha – Frankfurt, but now it has been rolled out more widely across the airline’s network.

This includes the carrier’s Singapore routes, which will now set you back around 20-25% more Avios during peak dates covering around a third of the year, though thankfully the original pricing still applies during off-peak periods.

Qatar Privilege Club peak award pricing

Qatar Airways is now charging more for Economy Class and Business Class awards on peak dates compared to off-peak dates, which means forking out around 20% more Avios to redeem during popular travel periods.

The revised rates for peak date travel apply whether you redeem using Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios or British Airways Avios, so there’s no getting around the higher rates by making a free 1:1 transfer between the two.

Here are the key points:

• Awards on peak dates to and from Singapore cost 20% to 25% more Avios than they do on off-peak dates.
• It does not appear to be dynamic. Like British Airways the peak calendar is fixed, so you’ll know in advance whether you are travelling in a peak or off-peak period (though Qatar has not published a peak award calendar at this stage, like BA does).
• Flexi awards continue to be available for double the off-peak award rate (they are not affected by peak pricing on any dates).
• Awards using other frequent flyer currencies like Asia Miles and Qantas Frequent Flyer points are not affected, with the usual rates remaining in force year-round when redeeming on Qatar Airways.

What are the peak dates?

Broadly speaking, Qatar’s peak dates over the next 12 months appear to be:

• 9th December 2023 – 14th January 2024
  (36 days)
• 28th March 2024 – 15th April 2024
  (18 days)
• 13th June 2024 – 25th August 2024
  (73 days)

These three periods, covering the Christmas / New Year, Easter and peak summer holiday periods, mean that peak award pricing now applies when redeeming Avios on Qatar Airways flights for about a third of the year (127 out of 365 days).

You can see which dates are regarded as off-peak in the Qatar Privilege Club award search. If the “off-peak” label isn’t there – it’s a peak date!

Peak vs. off-peak award pricing

Here’s how the peak award pricing looks for Qatar Airways flights to and from Singapore, based on some routings popular with our readers.

We’ve also shown the Off-peak rates and Flexi rates, which thankfully are unchanged (though you’ll rarely get good value from a Flexi award).

Singapore
⇅
Doha

Class	Off-peak	Peak	Flexi
Economy	25,000	30,000 (+20%)	50,000
Business	50,000	62,500 (+25%)	100,000

Singapore
⇅
Europe 1
(e.g. Athens)

Class	Off-peak	Peak	Flexi
Economy	35,000	42,000 (+20%)	70,000
Business	70,000	84,000 (+20%)	140,000

Singapore
⇅
Europe 2
(e.g. London / Paris / Frankfurt)

Class	Off-peak	Peak	Flexi
Economy	37,500	45,000 (+20%)	75,000
Business	75,000	90,000 (+20%)	150,000

Singapore
⇅
USA
(e.g. New York / Miami)

Class	Off-peak	Peak	Flexi
Economy	47,500	57,000 (+20%)	95,000
Business	95,000	114,000 (+20%)	190,000

Avios award rates in Qatar Airways’ Airbus A380 First Class cabin, which you can redeem on selected Bangkok and London flights for example, is also affected by peak and off-peak pricing, based on our searches.

For example, it’s 75,000 Avios to redeem in First Class between Bangkok and Doha on an off-peak date, but 97,500 Avios (30% more) on a peak date.

Of course it’s not just Singapore affected by this change. For example, a Qatar Airways Business Class redemption from London to Johannesburg via Doha is 75,000 Avios during an off-peak date, but stray into the new peak period and it’s now 90,000 Avios (20% more).

Bye bye “sweet spot” Europe redemption

Unfortunately this devalues the excellent-value Qatar Airways Business Class award “sweet spot” between Singapore and Europe during these peak periods, which still cost 70,000 or 75,000 Avios + S$300 on off-peak dates, but now come in at 84,000 or 90,000 Avios + S$300 on peak dates.

That makes the benefit of redeeming Avios on Qatar Airways between Singapore and Europe quite limited compared to a non-stop KrisFlyer award at 103,500 miles.

That’s especially the case since Qatar started applying an award segment fee, which makes the one-way cash outlay around S$300 per person in Business Class for a routing like SIN-LHR, compared to S$65 with Singapore Airlines.

Instead of saving 28,500 miles for an additional S$235 cash cost, which is really quite good, on a peak date you’re now saving only 13,500 miles for an additional S$235 cash cost.

That’s a far less attractive proposition, assuming award space is available on both carriers, especially since you’ve still got the hassle of a transit in Doha to contend with when flying Qatar Airways.

Other FFP rates are unaffected

These new peak and off-peak rates for Qatar Airways redemptions do not affect those redeeming flights using other Oneworld mileage currencies, like Asia Miles, American AAdvantage and Qantas Frequent Flyer.

For example, this Qatar Airways flight from Singapore to Doha costs 25,000 American AAdvantage miles in Economy or 40,000 miles in Business on 12th June (an off-peak date).

Redeeming on one of Qatar’s peak dates – 14th June 2024 – costs exactly the same.

However, if you use Avios to book these flights either via Qatar Airways or British Airways, the cost is 25,000 Avios / 50,000 Avios on 12th June, but 30,000 Avios / 62,500 Avios on 14th June.

It’s worth remembering that even though award pricing for Qatar Airways flights via partners may now look cheaper than using Avios on peak dates, remember that most of these like Asia Miles and Qantas pass on Qatar’s enormous fuel surcharge on award tickets, often outweighing the benefit even after accounting for Qatar’s own award segment fees.

BA award calendar confusion

If you’re using the British Airways Executive Club award calendar to search for Qatar Airways awards using Avios points, which is favoured by many as an easier method, do take note that the stated peak and off peak award periods may cause some confusion.

That’s because that site is set up to reflect BA’s peak and off-peak award dates, not Qatar’s – and they are not the same.

For example, this San Francisco – Singapore Economy Class award departing on 28th March 2024 is actually on a peak date for Qatar Privilege Club, and therefore prices at 57,000 Avios, but the British Airways calendar shows this as an off-peak date.

Yes 28th March 2024 is an off-peak date for BA, but it’s not for Qatar Airways.

Qatar Airways has adopted peak and off-peak pricing levels for award tickets redeemed using Avios, whether you do so via its own Privilege Club portal or the British Airways site.

Originally this affected only those flying solely to or from Doha since earlier this year, rarely an issue for our readers, but it now appears to have been rolled out extensively across the network, including on popular routes like Singapore and London.

This is bad news for those looking to redeem one of the Avios “sweet spots” with the airline between Singapore and Europe during around a third of the year, when peak pricing kills off the value quite significantly, hiking the Avios rate by 20% to 84,000 or 90,000 points each way.

That doesn’t make it an ‘out-of-the-question’ redemption, especially if you can find award space when other carriers aren’t offering any alternatives, but it certainly erodes the excellent value still available on off-peak dates.

(Cover Photo: Qatar Airways)