Using Qatar Avios to Book Domestic US Flights

Booking domestic flights with points is a popular goal for families. Flights can be one of the most expensive parts of a trip so being able to cover that expense with points is a game changer! 

There are many ways to book flights with points. This article walks you through everything you need to know to be able to book American Airlines and Alaska Airlines flights using Qatar Airways Avios.

Background Info For Beginners

When booking with points and miles, you can often use one airline program’s miles to book a flight but actually fly on a different airline.

This is possible because airlines partner with other airlines and have reciprocal agreements. Airlines often release a limited number of seats for their partner airlines to book as award bookings. Not every flight or every route will have partner award availability, but many do.

If you’re just getting started with points and miles, I recommend downloading our Travel Points 101 guide and tuning into our podcast – Points for Normal People — starting with Season 1, Episode 1. In Season 3, we are focusing on domestic points redemptions. 

Why Book Partner Award Tickets

Even though these flights are going to be booked on American or Alaska Airlines, we’re going to book them through Qatar.

Because Qatar, American, and Alaska Airlines are all part of the Oneworld Alliance, you can use Qatar Avios to book onto American or Alaska (as well as several other airline partners).

Why would we do this? Why not just book our American flight through American? You certainly can do that! But there are two main reasons you might want to book with Qatar instead.

Cheaper prices

First, you might find that the exact same flight is cheaper when booked through Qatar. This isn’t always the case, but it does happen.

Booking partner awards is where you can often find award “sweet spots,” or high value redemptions. It may seem odd to book this way, but the point savings can be worth it. Especially if you’re booking several tickets!

Easier to earn the points

Another reason to book these flights through Qatar is that it is much easier to earn Avios than it is to earn points with Alaska Airlines or American Airlines.

It is possible to earn both American and Alaska miles through opening their respective credit cards, by using their shopping portals, and by flying on those airlines. But none of the major banks like Chase, Citi, American Express, or Capital One allow you to transfer their points to American. And right now there is only one backdoor option to transfer points to Alaska (via Hawaiian), which we expect to close soon. 

But if you earn any kind of Avios (British Airways, Finnair, Aer Lingus, and Iberia all share the Avios currency) — you can then transfer those to Qatar. And every single major bank transfers to one of the Avios partners. 

See the end of the article for screenshots on how to do this. 

Even better, the banks frequently offer transfer bonuses where instead of transferring points at a 1:1 ratio, you might earn a 15%, 20%, or even 30% bonus! That means 1,000 bank points might convert to 1,300 Avios. 

Be Aware of Change Fees

If you book a flight via Qatar and decide not to take it, you’ll have to pay a fee to change or cancel your flight. Your points will also be stuck in the Avios program until you use them. 

Changes or cancellations made at least 24 hours before your flight cost $25 per person. Cancellation or changes 3-24 hours before your flight cost $100 per person. If you cancel less than 3 hours before your departing flight, it’s still $100, and you won’t get your miles back (taxes and fees are still refunded).

Pricing for Domestic Flights Booked Through Qatar

Qatar has an unpublished award chart for booking partner awards. The price varies depending on how far you fly, so the shorter flights take fewer miles. 

For connecting flights, flights to Hawaii,  and flights over 3,000 miles — you’ll usually pay less if you use a different Avios partner, FinnAir. See our guide here on FinnAir. 

Consistent pricing makes it easy to figure out how many miles you’ll need. The hardest part is figuring out how many miles your flight is! You can use a website like Air Miles Calculator to quickly calculate the distance from your starting airport to the destination airport.

What Flights Can I Book This Way?

Flights need to be operated by American Airlines or Alaska Airlines. This typically only works for non-stop flights. To see non-stop routes that American and Alaska fly, check flightconnections.com

Remember to check FinnAir Avios, too — longer flights, flights to Hawaii, and connecting flights might be cheaper booked via FinnAir. 

Dan over at Dan’s Deals found a workaround to book regional flights on American Eagle. You can’t do this on the Qatar website, but you may be able to follow Dan’s process to book the flight you want.

How to Find Available Flights

You can start your search in a few different ways.

Search Directly on Qatar

If you have specific dates and destinations you’re looking for, you can input those directly into the Qatar website. Log into your account and go to the homepage.

Input your information in the search. Be sure to check the box that says “Book using Avios”. You can search for one way or round trip, but it’s usually easier to search for one way at a time.

Once the search populates, all of the available options will come up. For this particular date and route, there were 6 available flights to choose from. Select the flight you want, and the price in Avios will pop up. For this route (JFK to LAX), the cost is 16,000 Avios each way.

 

You can play around with different dates and airports to see more options, but you’ll have to search each option one at a time.

Use an Award Search Tool

If you’re flexible on things like dates, destination, departing airport, or arrival airport, you may want to start your search with an award tool like Pointsyeah.com or seats.aero. These tools allow you to search multiple dates and destinations at once. It saves a lot of time over putting in options one at a time.

What makes these tools a little tricky is that you can’t search for flights bookable through Qatar directly. Pointsyeah does not include Qatar Airways at all in their search tool, and seats.aero has limited data for Qatar.

But you can still use these tools to search! What you want to do is look for American Airlines or Alaska Airlines flights that are bookable through partners. And these tools do show other partners that can book these flights, such as Qantas. If the flight is bookable with Qantas, there’s a good chance it’s been released to other airline partners like Qatar.

For Pointsyeah, go to the Daydream Explorer page and enter your preferred flight information. You can choose specific airports, enter multiple destinations like California, Oregon, and Nevada, or even search the entire United States. Choose a date range and click on “airline Programs”. Select “Qantas Frequent Flyer” only to see partner awards that should also be bookable through Qatar.

When the results populate, you can click on a flight to see details, including what carrier the flight is on. The price shown will be what it costs to book the fight through Qantas, but we’re going to be booking through Qatar so ignore the pricing for now.

Once you find a flight you like, you can search for it directly on Qatar’s website to make sure the flight is available and bookable through Qatar.

If you’re looking for more tips on using these tools, we have an in depth video tutorial for Seats.Aero in our free course. We also go over how to use the Routes function which can be helpful.

Make the Booking

Once you’ve found a flight you like and confirmed availability, you can move forward with the booking. Transfer points from your bank into the Avios program and move them over to Qatar if needed (more info on how to do this is below).

Remember to check FinnAir Avios, too — longer flights, flights to Hawaii, and connecting flights might be cheaper booked via FinnAir. 

You can book online or over the phone.

How to Get Qatar Airways Avios

It’s always a good idea to find availability before transferring points, so make sure to do that step first!

Once you find availability, you can get ready to transfer your points. 

All of the major banks transfer to at least one Avios partner.

Once the points are with an Avios partner, you can move them over to Qatar for free. That means if you have points in another Avios program like British Airways, Iberia, or Finnair, you can move them over to Qatar.

Which Banks Transfer to Which Avios Partners

American Express, Bilt Rewards, Capital One, Chase, and Wells Fargo all transfer to British Airways at a 1:1 ratio.

American Express and Citi transfer to Qatar Airways at a 1:1 ratio.

Transfer bonuses are offered frequently, which can help you get even more points!

How to Connect Your British Airways Account to Qatar

Transferring points between Qatar and British Airways is really simple. To start, you’ll need an account with both British Airways Executive Club and Qatar Airways Privilege Club. Make sure your information matches in both profiles.

Log into your account on the Qatar website and go to your profile. From there, select “link account” next to where you see British Airways Executive Club.

Follow the prompts to link your accounts. You’ll be redirected to the British Airways site where you’ll need to sign in with your British Airways account.

 Once your accounts are linked, you’ll be able to move Avios to/from either program at any time, for free.

Leveraging partner airline programs like Qatar Airways Avios offers a strategic way to significantly reduce the cost of domestic flights on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. When you book American Airlines with Qatar Avios, you can make your travel budget stretch further and explore more destinations.