Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get an excellent Qatar Airways business class flight deal from Oslo (eg Tokyo £1,377)

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Qatar Airways moves in mysterious ways.  No sooner does the short January sale end then a number of great offers appear for anyone willing to head out to Oslo.

The star deal is probably Tokyo.  This will cost you around £1300 return, plus of course the cost of a return flight to Oslo.  In return, you’ll get a great holiday plus 560 British Airways tier points plus a big pile of Avios.

British Airways gives you 140 tier points per flight over 2,000 miles on a partner airline.  This means that Oslo to Asia earns 4 x 140 tier points, factoring in the aircraft change in Doha.

Qatar Airways qsuite

If you read my recent series of Qatar Airways flight reviews (the series starts here with the Heathrow lounge) then you will be keen to give them a try.

Here are the key routes and the prices to look for, although you may also find good fares to other cities:

Oslo to Singapore – NOK 14,391 (£1,238)

Oslo to Bangkok – NOK 14,200 (£1,222)

Oslo to Beijing – NOK 15,230 (£1,311)

Oslo to Cape Town – NOK 15,773 (£1,357)

Oslo to Tokyo – NOK 16,001 (£1,377)

You can search via the Norwegian (in English) Qatar Airways site here.

The best availability is from May onwards, but you might get lucky with earlier dates.  In theory Qatar Airways is starting to impose a 90-day minimum purchase restriction on its cheapest fares.

To learn more about Qsuite business class seat, take a look at this special page of the website.  To learn more about the herringbone seat on the A380 and Boeing 787, take a look at this special page of the website.  The A350-900 out of Oslo could have either seat, whilst the A350-1000 – which you get from Doha to Tokyo – is definitely Qsuite.

To learn more about the Al Mourjan business class lounge in Doha, take a look at this page of the Qatar Airways website and read my Al Mourjan lounge review here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (89)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Marco says:
    18 Jan18 January 05:44

    Erm… West Coast Virgin?!

    • The Original David says:
      18 Jan18 January 07:02

      From the headline I thought this was something about trains…

      • Andrew says:
        18 Jan18 January 07:07

        Although Virgin no longer run the West Coast line.

        • Andrew says:
          18 Jan18 January 08:39

          True. They don’t. Avanti have continued the 20% discount via Employer partnerships though which is handy. They also have kept on Seat Frog – my initial bid has “won” every time on West Coast.

          But back to VS, but keeping with employer schemes. 10% on Virgin at the moment for me, obviously it is on base fare, excluding taxes.
          My boss has, once again, had to go out to LAX Upper Class last minute. So there’s a tidy amount pending for me. 🙂

    • Rhys says:
      18 Jan18 January 08:35

      Fixed!

  • Rodeobear says:
    18 Jan18 January 06:28

    Normally big fan of Qatar sales but not so sure now since they fly through iranian air space?! Many other airlines like BA have re-routed flights in that area.

  • Andrew says:
    18 Jan18 January 07:06

    These prices on Qatar are pretty standard now – from Oslo or Stockholm to Asia in the region of £1200 – £1400. This doesn’t warrant even a bits story – that’s just the price of them.

  • Michael says:
    18 Jan18 January 07:58

    O/T as Bits: If I use Curve linked to IHG would I still get double IHG points for foreign spend or does it only apply when using IHG directly?

    • Liz says:
      18 Jan18 January 08:08

      No only 2pts for the premium card instead of 4

    • TGLoyalty says:
      18 Jan18 January 10:52

      The transaction has to take place abroad. All curve transactions take place in London regardless of where you are physically using the card.

      • Michael says:
        18 Jan18 January 11:11

        That makes sense, I’ve got a bill in Spain to pay in a few weeks (€1800 invoiced on a Saturday unfortunately). Better off using Curve rather than IHG directly me thinks.

        • Froggee says:
          18 Jan18 January 11:20

          If it’s a hotel you can ask to settle the balance on the Friday and save yourself Curve’s weekend markup!

    • Alex W says:
      18 Jan18 January 13:37

      Obviously not. You get double points due to 3% FX fee. If you’re not paying the FX fee, why would they give you double points?

  • Brighton says:
    18 Jan18 January 08:14

    Any news on a new IHG accelerate promo and a points break promo?

  • Patrycja says:
    18 Jan18 January 08:48

    I found Oslo to Sydney flying out on Boxing Day back 9th of January for £2,300. Good deal or not? What does everyone thinks?

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      18 Jan18 January 08:54

      Certainly not bad at all, although sub £2k Scandi->Aus fares have been floating around recently with Qatar.

      • Patrycja says:
        18 Jan18 January 09:28

        I found multi city into Sydney and out of Perth for 2,000 which I think is even a better deal. I might just go ahead a book it. Really fancy new year eve in Sydney

    • Edd M says:
      18 Jan18 January 08:58

      That’s about as low as I’ve ever seen it (without excessive connection times) on this route

  • Mathew says:
    18 Jan18 January 09:12

    OT: I applied for an HSBC Premier account on Tuesday. I’ve not heard anything back, not even an email. The webpage didn’t provide any confirmation or reference number, just that HSBC couldn’t give me confirmation there and then.

    What’s the usual timescale?

    • Djshirley says:
      18 Jan18 January 09:40

      The whole proces takes weeks, with very poor conunication through out. I think after 2 weeks I recieved a letter to take 3 months of payslips inti brranch for someone to photocopy and send to grad office (no joke) and then waited another 3 or 4 weeks for paper work and card to start trickling through.
      It is so painful compared to what we are used to with likes of Amex and Curve etc.

    • Relaxo says:
      18 Jan18 January 10:03

      It’s really variable at the moment. But you should get confirmation within 10 days or so. You then need to sign & send back a form which gets you a phone banking code, which you need to create an online account. This is what should happen. But i never received a welcome letter, code etc…so i just went into a branch and they sorted me out.

  • melonfarmer says:
    18 Jan18 January 09:30

    Just browsing my AMEX offers & saw £20 off £100 with “on the beach” that might be worth a go. I guess they’re like Expedia from the Iggy Pop (or IP style) ads on tv just now.

    • David says:
      18 Jan18 January 14:15

      Sadly limited destination choices for what their portal will accept.
      You can do flights only, but must be return and exUK. And limited flight options.

      Hotels looking increasingly the best use of it for me sadly.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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