Qatar Airways Privilege Club undercuts American Airlines and Alaska Airlines for flight redemption awards

Qatar Airways has reduced the number of Avios points on award partners including American Airlines and Alaska Airlines, as first reported today by DansDeals.

Historically, the Qatar Airways Privilege Club has been a popular, if not popular, loyalty program for US flyers thanks in part to the high rates of short-haul flights on US airline partners in Qatar. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. And what’s more, Qatar Airways made this drop without notice to its Privilege Club members. It’s just one more reason that travelers should always think about differentiating the types of points and miles they earn and use because price drops like this come around more often.

Here are the details of this latest hit, what fliers can expect, and how you might be able to get some value in Qatar Airways Avios on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines flights.

Related: 5 versions of Avios: When to use Aer Lingus, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia and Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways is reducing award prices on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines

Qatar Airways uses multiple (unpublished) award charts for flights on various airlines.

Although the airline has not announced that it is changing the chart it uses for American Airlines and Alaska Airlines awards, an airline search shows that American and Alaska short-haul redemption rates have actually increased. The cost of these flights in Avios has increased by up to 64%, with shorter routes seeing dramatic price increases. Here’s what we were able to put together.

This means that even short routes, like a 129-mile flight from Seattle to Portland, Oregon, will set you back at least 9,500 Avios each way.

The good news is that long-haul flight awards on American and Alaska, and redemption requirements on JetBlue flights appear to be unaffected … for now. Since this price drop came without warning, we do not know if Qatar Airways Privilege Club intends to make further changes to its award levels in the coming days. So if you were planning to book something using Qatar Airways Avios, do it sooner rather than later.

For now, Qatar Airways award charts for flights on other partner airlines remain unchanged.

Related: Airlines you can book with Avios: How to maximize your points

What is the best use of Avios?

Although Qatar Airways award prices for these flights have increased significantly, in a good points and miles scheme, they are still affordable.

British Airways Executive Club, which also uses Avios as its currency, recently dropped the same rate. British Airways’ award chart for Alaska and American partner airlines is structured similarly to Qatar, except that each price category costs a few thousand more Avios.

If you plan to use Avios to book award flights on American or Alaska, you’ll still get the best prices when you book with Qatar Airways. However, depending on what rewards currencies you have, there may be better options.

For example, if you wanted to fly from Miami to Chicago, a one-way ticket on American booked through Qatar would cost 14,500 Avios in economy or 34,000 in business class.

Or you can book the same flight over to American for just 8,500 AAdvantage miles in economy or 26,500 miles in business class.

However, since American uses variable rates, using AAdvantage miles may not be the cheapest option. You will need to check twice in each case.

Advantage miles are also some of the hardest frequent flyer miles to earn because the program has very few transfer partners (the same is true for Alaska Mileage Plan miles). You may find it easier to book award flights with Avios as you can transfer them from:

As mentioned, Qatar Airways has not, at press time, changed its award chart for JetBlue flights, so you can still get great value from your Avios by booking short-haul flights on JetBlue. Here is the current award chart that Qatar uses on JetBlue flights:

So, you can fly from Fort Lauderdale to New York (1,070 mile route) on JetBlue for just 8,500 Avios each way in economy.

A similar route to American or Alaska would cost 13,000 Avios with Qatar Airways or 16,000 with British Airways.

If you are looking for routes to or from cities that Qatar Airways does not serve, the city or airport may not appear in the destination drop-down menu. That’s right — just enter the airport code in the location box and click “Search,” and flight options should appear.

Related: Best credit cards for Avios: Which one is yours?

Bottom line

Despite this drop, Qatar Airways Avios are still the cheapest type of Avios to book Alaska Airlines and American Airlines award flights.

The British Airways award chart is more expensive than Qatar on these partner airlines, and it is more difficult to book partner award flights on other airlines that use Avios (Finnair, Iberia and Aer Lingus). You should also always double check awards on the American and Alaska sites if you have their miles to see if you can get a better deal that way.

In the meantime, Avios collectors should keep their eyes peeled, as there could be further declines.