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Good Qatar Airways Australia availability for 180,000 Avios return in Business

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The cheapest way to get to Australia in Business Class with Avios, by far, is with Qatar Airways.

The cost is only 180,000 Avios return plus around £600 of taxes and charges per person.

Availability comes and goes, but currently looks surprisingly good.

Qatar Airways A350 to Auckland

A comment from Kaconym in our comments section yesterday made me take a look.

Kaconym was correct. Apart from Sydney and Auckland, Business Class Avios availability on the other Qatar Airways routes to Australasia (Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne) is looking pretty good, both short term and long term.

I did a quick survey. This is looking for:

  • 1 x Business Class seat
  • outbound from London
  • priced at standard rates, not the ‘double Avios’ Flexi rate
  • for February 2025 (an off-peak month)
  • booking on the Qatar Airways site (but ba.com availability should match)

Availability will be reduced for two people travelling together. You should still find something, or consider splitting and travelling on consecutive flights.

Here’s what I found:

Melbourne

  • 21 out of 28 days available

Perth

  • 21 out of 28 days available

Brisbane

  • 14 out of 28 days available

Adelaide

  • 27 out of 28 days available

What about taxes and charges?

Here’s a typical total cost including taxes and charges:

Qatar Airways Avios flight to Brisbane

Yes, just 180,000 Avios return for a Business Class seat.

You could reduce the taxes and charges by starting in Dublin, Amsterdam or similar to avoid long haul premium cabin UK Air Passenger Duty.

However, Qatar Airways uses ‘married segment availability’ so its possible that the onward leg to Australia might not show if you start from elsewhere. This rule also applies to departures from Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Remember that the headline British Airways cost to Sydney is 290,000 Avios + £750 off-peak return, on the very rare occasions when there is availability.

You should be able to book via ba.com using the standard Avios booking portal, but it’s worth checking the Qatar Airways site as well. This article explains how to link your British Airways Executive Club and Qatar Airways Privilege Club accounts. You don’t need to transfer your Avios to Qatar Airways – once linked, Qatar Airways is able to pull Avios directly from your BA account when you book.

Here are our latest Qatar Airways reviews

Our most recent Qatar Airways Business Class flight reviews are here, for the new Boeing 787-9, and here for the Qatar Airways A380.

If you are based in London you should also read our review of the excellent Qatar Airways Premium Lounge in Heathrow Terminal 4 and the new Qatar Airways Frequent Flyer lounge in T4, for oneworld elites travelling in Economy, here.

We also have 2023 reviews of the lounges at Doha’s Hamad International Airport if you look through our Qatar Airways articles here.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

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 (108)

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

  • Mark says:
    23 Apr23 April 04:37

    It still blows my mind the point difference between QR and BA. Long may it continue.

  • Mike says:
    23 Apr23 April 05:39

    Hi. I have gone through the process to link my BA account, but struggling to search Qatar site for reward flights. If I put in a specific date for Lon to Brisbane I can’t find anything? Is there some way to search to see which dates in say Feb have availability like BA has? Also I read Qatar release seats 360 days ahead is that correct? I can see Qatar seats Tokyo to London for 10th April, but same search on Qatar says no seats? I must be doing something wrong as finding Qatar search unusable. Maybe you could write a guide how to best search for availability? Much appreciated

    • NorthernLass says:
      23 Apr23 April 10:30

      Not sure if there’s a glitch with QR atm, but a few people have mentioned similar issues with seats showing on BA but not QR websites.

    • Terry says:
      23 Apr23 April 11:00

      I managed to book QR reward on BA.com AKL-LHR 354 days in advance. Maybe even if QR flights are available 360 days in advance, they only show on BA.com 355 days in advance.
      It’s a longwinded process of searching but I used BA.com this time instead of QR’s website. Try european departures too as I spotted a few MEL sectors from Paris.

  • Mike says:
    23 Apr23 April 05:47

    Going through the app I can see rearward flights up to 26th March then nothing. It’s like they are only displaying flights up to 11 months not the 360 days advertised. Any clarity much appreciated as planning to travel to oz next July.

  • Mike says:
    23 Apr23 April 06:03

    Can you say exactly what you are doing? I tried a load of Feb Lon to Brisbane dates on the app and not a single one is for 180,000. At best they are flexi (double) or no availability?

    Thanks

  • Andy says:
    23 Apr23 April 06:19

    Note, there is much more availability to Sydney on BA from the regions. We were able to get 4J tickets using two 241 vouchers from Edinburgh.

  • DaveP says:
    23 Apr23 April 06:25

    Booked a one-way HND-LHR via DOH with Qatar yesterday in Q-suite cabins for 80,000 Avios. Tax was £51.50 – somewhat different from one-way flight out of UK which was £407!

    • John says:
      23 Apr23 April 08:36

      That’s interesting, I paid around £160 in taxes/charges on that redemption booked September last year for February this year.

    • Jonathan says:
      23 Apr23 April 08:45

      That’s because you don’t get hit by UK APD, plus if you’ll ever look at fares going into LHR / LGW, they’re usually exactly the same (based on on flying a specific date with one carrier), whereas flying out of LHR is always a bit more expensive (same scenario as flying inbound I’ve mentioned above

  • Occasional Ranter says:
    23 Apr23 April 06:41

    SYD not as attractive as MEL or BNE anyway as a QR J redemption, as it is non-Q Suites A380 rather than Q Suites 777.

    AKL is Q Suites A350. That better cabin pressure and humidity makes a HUGE difference on such a long flight. No wonder it’s the holy grail of QR redemptions
    (looking forward to my Feb 2025 booking 😉 )

    • Qrfan says:
      23 Apr23 April 07:02

      The cabin pressure of an old school 777 is about the same height as one of the taller alpine ski resorts (2400m). If you can happily spend a week skiing, it’s not the altitude that is making you feel rough on an older jet even on a 15 hour flight. Humidity, maybe, but I imagine it’s mostly the noise. The idea that people claim they can tell between cabin pressure of 2400m and 1800m still makes me laugh. Top marketing.

      • Rhys says:
        23 Apr23 April 09:21

        Humidity on an aircraft is typically 10-20% vs 40 to 50% inside most buildings. No ‘maybe’ about it 🙂

      • John says:
        23 Apr23 April 17:17

        Isn’t it because the slightly higher pressure also allows for higher humidity? The pressure/oxygen difference is not noticeable at all if not exercising, but the humidity definitely is.

        • Occasional Ranter says:
          23 Apr23 April 20:52

          It’s a bit of both. Some people are also more sensitive to it than others. You can’t easily “tell” explicitly whether cabin pressure is 6000 or 8000 ft, but there is an incremental effect on fatigue, mood etc. The skiing analogy is off the mark, you probably are getting fatigued by the altitude change for the first 24 hours or so, then you adjust.

    • Andrew J says:
      23 Apr23 April 07:08

      The QR A380 seat is far more preferable to me than QSuite – more comfortable, and spacious, and the added bonus of the bar area to stretch your legs.

    • Rhys says:
      23 Apr23 April 09:20

      I just booked Auckland for me and my family for Feb 2025. Very much looking forward to it!

      • Rob says:
        23 Apr23 April 09:21

        (Split across 2 days, before anyone thinks availability for 4 is easy to get in Business!)

      • BBbetter says:
        23 Apr23 April 12:37

        How is everyone taking family to NZ in Feb? Isnt mid-term just a week in Feb?

        • Froggee says:
          23 Apr23 April 13:23

          Not everybody’s family are in school. Some people have brothers, sisters, parents and grown-up children.

        • Rhys says:
          23 Apr23 April 14:13

          My parents are in their sixties and my brother is 27….

          • Jonathan says:
            23 Apr23 April 14:34

            So that’d make you the youngest (by along shot) ?!?

          • Occasional Ranter says:
            23 Apr23 April 15:53

            Rhys, did you manage to get all those flights ex-LHR ? Sometimes that’s the trickiest bit, I often have to fall back on LGW or even DUB or BHX

  • SimonCH says:
    23 Apr23 April 06:45

    As mentioned yesterday, I got Auckland return in QSuites LHR-DOH-AUK for both my wife and I for 180,000 and approx £600 in taxes for Feb next year.
    When looking there were ample seats available, but as always these routes are very popular, so a good 10-11 month plan ahead is required.
    I found it so simple to just transfer points to my Qatar membership and book from on Qatar Airways app.

    Great Follow Up by HFP on this one.

    • Occasional Ranter says:
      23 Apr23 April 06:55

      When did you book ?

      • SimonCH says:
        23 Apr23 April 07:22

        Just over a month ago it was booked.

      • Reney says:
        23 Apr23 April 07:27

        I see 10th Feb has some outbounds….

        • Az says:
          23 Apr23 April 10:09

          Just want to confirm I’m not doing anything wrong.

          I have my avios linked to my Qatar ID, however I have not transferred points between the two and still hold all my points in my BA account. Would I still be able to search for and see the 180k point return reward seats to Auckland? Albeit noting I can’t book unless I transfer.

          I ask as I’ve been checking for months and only ever seen the flexi tickets!

          Thanks in advance

          • Rob says:
            23 Apr23 April 10:14

            Yes.

            You do NOT need to transfer to book. As long as the accounts are linked, Qatar will take the Avios from your BA account.

            (And don’t expect to see much to Auckland now, either. Different story for the other cities we listed.)

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

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