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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.

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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 (108)

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

  • adrian says:
    23 Apr23 April 15:18

    Can you book these fights on BAEC or only on QRPC? TIA

    • Rob says:
      23 Apr23 April 15:29

      It’s in the article – ba.com availability SHOULD match but it makes sense to check both sites.

      • Lee says:
        23 Apr23 April 15:46

        BA has more availability then QR itself for flight after 29th Mar

      • adrian says:
        23 Apr23 April 15:52

        Thanks Rob, presumably if it does ever find the availability and not just return “ERROR”, then i’d be able to use my HH account on BAEC as normal?

  • Eoc says:
    23 Apr23 April 15:38

    The QF route is cheap unless you have a BAPP Voucher,.
    QFPC 360k (for 2) +£1200 fees vs
    BA 241 290k =£1500 fees
    Assume 1p per mile.
    Save £300 on fees lose £700 on points.
    Net £400 more expensive .
    Admittedly a cheap cut for more availability and Cleary excellent for solo flyer or non BAPP card holder.
    Or am I missing something?

    • Rob says:
      23 Apr23 April 15:54

      Yes, you’re missing the fact that a) Qatar Airways is a shed load better than BA and b) you still have your 241 to use elsewhere.

    • mkcol says:
      24 Apr24 April 16:40

      Pleased to see QANTAS are just as cheap as Qatar Airways.

  • Aliks says:
    23 Apr23 April 16:19

    Well one door closes, and courtesy of HfP another opens!!

    I had been waiting patiently to book our 241 return flight from Sydney back to Heathrow, but unfortunately we have run into the Easter 2025 holiday period. When I first checked a month ago, there was plenty of business class availability in 2025 both ways (at least when using the 241) I incorrectly assumed most people would be going outbound to Australia over Easter and therefore availability SYD-LHR would remain good in the runup to Easter on 25th April 2025.

    But this is not the case, so this article is very timely.

    Doing the numbers, it will only cost £350 more for the 2 of us to fly back on Qatar from Melbourne, also getting a few hours to relax in Doha. QR vs BA – no-brainer!

    In more detail:

    It means throwing away the return half of our 241, but the numbers are compelling:
    For 2 people: SYD-LHR would cost 145,000 Avios (which cost me approx .9p each): which gives £1305 plus £665 cash, totalling £1970 – and that is only possible if I make an expensive phone call to the US at 1am tomorrow, and somehow get lucky enough to be first in the queue.

    Alternatively fly with Qatar from Melbourne for 216,000 Avios (more avios due to QR peak period) plus £384 fees, totalling £2328

    Would anyone choose differently?

    • Occasional Ranter says:
      23 Apr23 April 16:31

      If MEL is a convenient starting point then I’d do it. Shame the date is not visible on AA yet, else you could put a hold on the QR flights for a few days while you try grabbing the BA flights

    • Molly says:
      23 Apr23 April 17:39

      What are the dates for QR Peak over Easter 2025? I notices the points increased from 90,000 to 108000 after 10th April.

  • Occasional Ranter says:
    23 Apr23 April 16:35

    27th March seems to be some sort of cut-off date glitch affecting routes where QR is an option. If you search e.g. BNE-DOH on ba.com, you get an error message if you search 27th March or later. If you search for e.g. AKL-TYO, you can happily search up to 355 days out.

  • Occasional Ranter says:
    23 Apr23 April 17:04

    For anyone going to NZ and struggling to book return legs on points, it may be helpful to know that you can currently book AKL-SIN-LHR for about £2.2k with Singapore Airlines. You maybe wouldn’t want to end up actually using that flight, but it’s only NZD250 = £120 to cancel it, if booked via the Air New Zealand website. I’ve booked this as a “longstop”.

  • Earthman says:
    24 Apr24 April 16:46

    Can you use a BA GUF2 ex DUB for this,ie would it be posdible to travel in F to Australia starting in Dublin ? What are tge taxes and fee’s with that if you know off hand,me being Dublin based ?

    • Rob says:
      24 Apr24 April 16:52

      No GUF2 on Qatar, no. No First on Qatar ex-Dublin either – only the handful of A380 aircraft have F.

  • Az says:
    25 Apr25 April 10:12

    QA website in tatters, can’t seem to search for any one ways back from AKL to LHR next March.. keep getting error message

  • Christian says:
    28 Apr28 April 14:51

    I have tried to book flights to BNE but I get quoted 90k per leg so 4x 90k = 360k pp rather than the 180k in your example. Am I doing something wrong?

    • Rob says:
      28 Apr28 April 15:41

      Those flights are marked as ‘Flexi’ double Avios flights.

    • Saltrams says:
      29 Apr29 April 07:47

      That could also be because of a stopover in Doha of 24hrs+. Are you trying to do that? If not, as Rob says, it’s because of the peak-time double Avios cost.

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

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