Qatar Airways has been continuously expanding the number of destinations that will be receiving their Boeing 777-300ER equipped with their latest QSuites product. Within Asia,ย Seoul was the first destination to receive a QSuites flight and now Shanghai is set to be next in line to receive a QSuites flight. (Edit : Seoul will not be served by the 77W with QSuites wef 15 May 2018. Thank Alex for the tip! )
As per their press release, the QSuites equipped plane will take over operations from the current Boeing 777-300ER that features its 2-2-2 Business Class product.
- QR871 DOH-PVG
DEP : 2350
ARR : 0500 +1
Daily Service - QR870 PVG-DOH
DEP : 0225
ARR : 1620
Daily Service
The ground time of the Boeing 777-300ER is a staggering 20 hours, I’d imagine landing slots in Shanghai Pudong isn’t exactly cheap so Qatar is really paying a premium for those departure and landing times.
Redemption options
Revenue fares from Shanghai to Doha and from Doha to Shanghai aren’t exactly what I’d call palatable with fares upward of US$4,000. However, you can always redeem these QSuite flights using points from a oneworld frequent flyer program.
Right now, availability to Doha seems rather sporadic but on certain days up to 4 seats are available for redemption. A one-way redemption on British Airways Executive Club’s Avios would cost you 75,000 Avios and S$211 in taxes.
Redeeming these with Asia Miles will cost you a more palatable 45,000 Asia Miles and HKD$1,000 in taxes. The total flight distance of PVG-DOH as per gcmap.com is 4,230 miles which falls under Zone C in their award chart.
The transfer of points to Asia Miles can be done from almost all credit cards in Singapore (except OCBC). British Airways Avios can be transferred with your Citi ThankYou points/Citi Miles or with American Express Membership Reward Points.
Concluding Thoughts
While I’m secretly hoping that Qatar deploys a QSuites equipped A350-1000 or the Boeing 777-300ER to Singapore, I doubt it’s going to happen anytime soon. Regardless, it’s great to see the list of destinations that are being served with Qatar’s award winning Qsuites being continuously expanded. With Shanghai only a short hop away from Singapore, maybe this would be a better city to position yourself in to be able to experience Qatar Airways QSuites product.
PVG is actually replacing ICN as a QSuites destination. The Korean sales office wants the increased Y capacity from the hi-den 77W (which currently only comes in non-QSuites) so ICN is switching back, and the frame that was being sent to ICN is now being allocated to PVG.
oh wow yeah. just checked the seat maps. 16 May onward back to the 2-2-2. Thanks Alex! ๐
(p.s how did you know)
Galley gossip ?