EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.
 

Qatar Airways is offering a 50% to 70% bonus when you buy Avios points as part of a flash sale over the next few days, potentially giving you the opportunity to top up your balance in this frequent flyer programme from 1.35 US cents per mile (around 1.74 Singapore cents per mile) if you have been targeted for the top bonus level.

That’s potentially one of the most competitive buy Avios deals we’ve seen from Qatar Airways, with 60% usually the top bonus, like we saw in October 2024, November 2024, and January 2025.

Some members have been targeted at a 50% or 60% bonus level during this promotion, with the top 70% rate offered only to the lucky ones.

You can buy up to 250,000 Avios in the Qatar Privilege Club programme per calendar year, which is up to 425,000 miles including the 70% bonus if you buy during this promotion, whether for a top-up or a full redemption.

This can be a good deal, even at the lower 50% or 60% bonus rates, especially given that the programme allows you to:

• Redeem great value Cathay Pacific intra-Asia awards in long-haul J seats online, with no fuel surcharge, like Singapore – Hong Kong in Business Class for for 22,000 Avios
• Redeem Bangkok Airways Singapore – Koh Samui flights for just 6,000 Avios
• Redeem Qsuite awards from Singapore to Europe for 70,000 to 75,000 Avios
• Transfer Avios into the British Airways programme for excellent-value Finnair Business Class awards to Europe (now only 62,500 Avios, with minimal taxes)
• Transfer Avios into the Loganair programme (via BA) for a wide range of UK domestic flights on the regional carrier, often priced at over GBP200 (~S$350) one-way, for only 6,500 Avios, with minimal taxes and fees to pay

One downside about this promotion is that the lowest cost per mile kicks in only at 50,000+ Avios purchased (75,000 Avios including the 50% bonus), so if you just need a small top-up – it’s going to be more expensive.

Here’s how the cost of Avios looks under this 50% bonus offer, for my Singapore-based account, priced in USD:

Miles purchase	Bonus	Cost per mile
1,000 – 4,000	None	2.80 US ¢ (3.61 SG ¢)
5,000 – 10,000	30%	1.85 US ¢ (2.39 SG ¢)
11,000 – 25,000		2.15 US ¢ (2.77 SG ¢)
26,000 – 44,000	40%	1.64 US ¢ (2.12 SG ¢)
46,000 – 250,000	70%	1.35 US ¢ (1.74 SG ¢)

The bonus reflects instantly at the buy Avios portal when you make your purchase.

Do note that your account may have been targeted for a buy Avios bonus that is structured slightly differently to mine, as well as a different top bonus rate, so do check how your specific offer looks before committing.

Deadline: 5th June 2025

This bonus offer ends at 11.59pm on Wednesday 4th June 2025 in Qatar, which is 4.59am on Thursday 5th June 2025 Singapore Time.

  Buy Qatar Airways Avios

Unless you’re a very early riser, it’s no doubt more sensible to make any purchase you need during this promotion by the end of the day on Wednesday 4th June 2025.

Other things to know

• You must have earned at least 1 Avios since you first joined the Qatar Privilege Club in order to buy Avios. However, your current balance can be zero.
• The single Avios point you must have earned can be accrued through a paid flight, a credit card points transfer, a partner accrual or a free instant 1:1 transfer from British Airways Avios.

This is also a way to buy BA Avios (and others)

Since Qatar Airways shifted its frequent flyer currency into Avios, the loyalty points of the IAG Group in which the airline has a 25% stake, these frequent flyer points aren’t only good for redeeming with Qatar Airways itself.

You can now easily link your British Airways Avios and Qatar Airways Avios accounts together (see this guide) and make unlimited instant transfers back and forth between the two.

This allows you to tap good value short-haul redemptions on other Oneworld carriers at the BA Avios rates, which can be far better than the Qatar Avios rates when used to redeem Oneworld flights directly.

BA Avios also transfer 1:1 and instantly to Finnair, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Loganair, opening up more opportunities for your Qatar Airways Avios, provided you transfer them via the BA programme (which is the ‘hub’ scheme).

Citi PayAll is an alternative

Another way to “buy” miles, if you have sufficient upcoming expenses, is to use Citi’s PayAll service in Singapore.

The year-round earn rate for some Citi credit cards, coupled with the service’s 2.6% fee, usually means potentially being able to generate miles the following rates:

• Citi Prestige: 1.3 mpd @ 2.6% fee = 2.00 cents per mile
• Citi PremierMiles: 1.2 mpd @ 2.6% fee = 2.17 cents per mile

These miles, credited as Citi ThankYou Points or Citi Miles, are are transferable into either Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios or British Airways Avios, provided you have enough total spend to reach one of the points transfer thresholds (10,000 Citi Miles or 25,000 ThankYou points, with identically-sized ‘blocks’ thereafter).

Pro Tip: Since Avios transfer instantly and fee-free between BA Executive Club and Qatar Privilege Club, provided you have an account with each programme and have linked them, it’s better to always transfer from Citi to BA Avios, even if you will then use them in the Qatar programme, because the conversion from Citi is much faster (24-48h to BA, vs. 4 days to Qatar).

However, Citi is currently running a promotion offering 1.8 mpd on tax payments and 1.6 mpd on non-tax payments, with a few hoops to jump through, though this does bring the cost per mile down to 1.44 – 1.63 cents each, cheaper than buying directly during this buy Avios deal.

One benefit here is that you can also retain the points at the Citi side for as long as possible and keep a lookout for a transfer bonus from Citi into Qatar Avios. The current one (which sadly ends tomorrow) sees the airline offering a 30% boost on all transfers, with no upper cap.

Unlock valuable redemptions

For our readers based in Singapore, one of the best value redemptions on Qatar Airways is to Europe or the USA and back in Business Class.

Here’s an example of how you can use this buy Avios promotion to fly from Singapore to Athens and some other cities in Business Class on Qatar Airways for just 70,000 Avios + S$350 in taxes during off-peak dates.

QRPC Cathay Pacific
Business Class redemptions from Singapore
(one-way)

Route
	QR Avios	Effective Cost (buy Avios 70% bonus)	KF Miles
Singapore Athens	70,000 +S$350	S$1,222 +S$350	n/a
Singapore London	75,000 +S$350	S$1,309 +S$350	103,500 +S$65
Singapore New York	95,000 +S$494	S$1,658 +S$494	111,500 +S$89*

* S$125 if routing via FRA

As you can see, a purchase of 75,000 Avios in the programme for S$1,309 is enough to get you from Singapore to London via Doha in the Qatar Airways Qsuite Business Class, with around S$350 in additional taxes and fees to pay.

That’s a good deal compared to parting with 103,500 miles + S$65 with KrisFlyer, if you don’t mind a stop in Doha.

While a transit in Doha is potentially inconvenient, do remember that Qatar Airways is serving many cities in Europe and the USA which require a transit anyway when you fly with SIA – like Mykonos, Sofia, Madrid, Boston or Washington.

Do ensure that it’s regular award space you’re booking on Qatar Airways flights, not one of the airline’s ‘Flexi award’ options, which offer additional space at double the usual rate (not dissimilar to Singapore Airlines Advantage awards).

Flexi awards have a “Flexi” label, so beware of that – it’s really bad value!

Qatar Airways also now applies ‘peak’ Avios award pricing on more popular dates over busier periods, with around 20% more Avios needed, which obviously come in at poorer value and should also be avoided.

Other great QR Avios award options

You can also now book Cathay Pacific awards via Qatar Privilege Club online at attractive rates, with no fuel surcharge added, as we first reported in 2024.

QRPC
Business Class redemptions from Singapore
(one-way)

Route
	QR Avios	Effective Cost (buy Avios 70% bonus)	KF Miles
Singapore Hong Kong	22,000 +S$65	S$384 +S$65	34,000 +S$65
Hong Kong Tokyo	22,000 +S$57	S$384 +S$57	n/a

These awards represent significant savings on the KrisFlyer Saver award rate with Singapore Airlines, and allow Oneworld lounge access, arguably a superior pre-flight experience in Cathay Pacific lounges and those of their partners like Qantas.

There’s also the option to redeem flights between Singapore and Koh Samui on Bangkok Airways, a Qatar Airways partner, for just 6,000 Avios + S$126 in Economy Class.

This can be a great way to circumvent high fares on this route (and yes, even Scoot’s fares can be eye-watering!).

As we mentioned before, 1 Qatar Avios point = 1 BA Avios point, so there’s also a range of (mainly short- to medium-haul) redemptions you can unlock with this programme, by buying Qatar Avios with a 60% bonus, then transferring them free 1:1 into your British Airways Avios account.

Here are some examples.

BA Avios via QRPC
Business Class redemptions from Singapore
(one-way)

Route			Using KrisFlyer orAsia Miles
	BA Avios	Effective Cost (buy Avios bonus)
Singapore Kuala Lumpur (MH)	12,500 +S$79	S$218 +S$79	21,000 +S$65
Singapore Colombo (UL)	22,000 +S$194	S$384 +S$194	43,000 +S$65
Singapore Perth (QF)	38,750 +S$108	S$676 +S$108	40,500 +S$96
Singapore Helsinki (AY)	62,500 +S$87	S$1,091 +S$87	89,000 +S$87
Singapore Sydney (QF)	62,000 +S$113	S$1,082 +S$113	68,500 +S$104
Singapore Tokyo (JL)	62,000 +S$283	S$1,082 +S$283	52,000 +S$65
Singapore London (QF)	108,250 +S$69	S$1,890 +S$69	103,500 +S$65

As you can see you can unlock some attractive “fares” with this buy Avios deal.

A standout option here is the Singapore to Helsinki option with Finnair, at just 62,500 Avios + S$87 in taxes, which you can effectively unlock with a S$1,091 Avios purchase during this sale.

Remember that even relatively basic awards like Malaysia Airlines Business Class from Singapore to KL are also your ticket to Qatar Airways’ superb Premium Lounge at Changi Airport, for some pre-flight champagne and à la carte dining.

Buying Avios resets the expiry clock

Qatar Avios expire after 36 months of account inactivity, but any purchase during this promotion will reset the clock for your entire balance. Note that transfers between Qatar and British Airways accounts don’t count as activity for expiry purposes.

Is Privilege Club trustworthy?

Here’s perhaps the biggest concern with this deal.

Qatar Airways has previously devalued its Qmiles overnight, without notice, by a whopping 40% (and on some routes by 80%).

There was also the carrier’s disastrously-botched hike in award surcharges in September last year – initially more than doubling the cost, before then relenting to a more sensible increase later the same day.

That has always led us to recommend that QRPC is not a frequent flyer programme to trust with a large miles balance in your account for too long.

We would only recommend buying Avios if you have a specific redemption in mind to book in the near future, even with this bonus rate on offer.

The ability to combine your Avios 1:1 with your British Airways account does hopefully provide some partial insurance here, since even if Qatar Airways devalues its own awards you should still be able to tap good value Avios redemptions via that programme, or its spinoffs like Finnair and Loganair.

Which card to use

If you are going to buy miles in this promotion, and assuming like most of our readers you are based in Singapore, you’ll want to achieve the maximum number of credit card miles for the purchase itself when buying Avios.

The transaction happens in US dollars. Payment is processed by points.com, under MCC 7399.

You can earn the most extra miles for the purchase transaction by using one of the following Singapore issued credit cards if you can:

Card	Mpd	Notes
Citi Rewards (see our review)	4.0	4 mpd on all online spend per statement month, capped at S$1,000 per card.
UOB VS (see our review)	4.0	4 mpd on all overseas spend of at least S$1,000 in a statement period, capped at S$2,000 spend.
SCVI (see our review)	3.0	3 mpd on all non-SGD spend, provided total card spend (any currency) is S$2,000+ in the same statement month.
Maybank HVS (see our review)	2.8	All non-SGD spend, subject to $800 minimum card spend in the same calendar month.
HSBC T1	2.4	All non-SGD spend.
UOB PRVI Miles (see our review)	2.4	All non-SGD spend.
OCBC Voyage (see our review)	2.2	All non-SGD spend.
DBS Vantage	2.2	All non-SGD spend.

Note that the DBS WWMC card now specifically excludes MCC 7399 from points earning, so while this card previously had ‘hit-and-miss’ success with Points.com transactions, which could usually be rectified later via customer service, it’s now well and truly on the ineligible list.

At 1.74 Singapore cents per mile with the 70% bonus, this is one of Qatar’s most competitive ‘Buy Avios’ sales – but only if you’re buying 46,000+ miles and have been targeted for the top bonus tier.

The sweet spots are clear: Cathay Pacific Business to Hong Kong for 22,000 Avios (no fuel surcharges), Qatar’s Qsuite to Europe from 70,000 Avios, or transfer to BA for that incredible 62,500 Avios Singapore – Helsinki deal on Finnair.

Given Qatar’s history of sudden devaluations, only buy if you have a specific redemption ready to book. This isn’t a program for stockpiling miles long-term.

  Buy Qatar Airways Avios

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(Cover Photo: Philip Pilosian)