How I saved more than 50% on a Qatar Qsuites business-class ticket
Travel is ramping up again, and TPG staff members are already taking to the skies and flexing our expert flight-booking muscles to score significant savings.
As part of a wider business trip, I needed to book a business-class flight on Qatar Airways in the Qsuite product from Doha (DOH) back to London Heathrow (LHR).
With no Avios availability on the specific dates required, I was left with the prospect of purchasing an expensive cash ticket. On most days, the cheapest one-way, business-class seats on Qatar for this route came in at £2,275 (about $3,082).
Because there are many short connecting flights around the Gulf and I knew we'd likely be in other countries before Qatar anyway, I set about searching various departure points to see if this dropped the price. I included departure points in Dubai (DXB) and Abu Dhabi (AUH) since these short hops have resumed.
I was delighted to find significant savings this way.
The best option that fit neatly into our schedule was a departure from Abu Dhabi (in our case with a forced overnight connection in Doha) continuing to London the following day on the same flight we needed to take anyway.
That £2,275 ($3,082) price tag dropped dramatically. By flying from Abu Dhabi to Doha to London (instead of just Doha to London) we reduced the price to £1,091 (about $1,478) — an impressive 52% discount.
One less obvious benefit comes in the form of additional Avios and Tier Points by crediting the flights to the British Airways Executive Club.
The Doha to London leg booked into R class and earns 4066 Avios and 140 Tier Points. By adding the connecting flight, the Abu Dhabi to Doha leg (which booked into A class; a first-class fare bucket) increases the haul by a further 450 Avios and 60 Tier Points.
This is very helpful for travelers chasing status with BA's reduced Tier Point thresholds.
This example demonstrates why it's important to think a little outside the box when it comes to routings. In this case, the routing actually made even more sense because of where we were coming from — but even if it wasn't perfectly convenient, the price drop was so significant I may have gone out of my way to take advantage of this flight.
We have often lauded the benefits of searching various departure points to save big on business-class tickets and the ease of which you can search using tools such as Google Flights. Hopefully, this example inspires you to use the same principle to potentially snag yourself a bargain, too.
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