Qatar Airways hikes award redemption fees without notice

One of the selling points of Qatar Privilege Club is that it doesn’t charge members fuel surcharges on Qatar Airways redemptions. However, they do have an “award segment fee”, which is basically a non-refundable junk fee that members must pay for the privilege of redeeming their miles. 

This often becomes a quadruple whammy for those redeeming flights from Singapore, because it applies on a per sector basis, and therefore you can expect to pay it four times on a return trip journey through Doha.

Unfortunately, the award segment fee has now been further increased — and surprise surprise, it comes just after a sale on Qatar Avios —  though I don’t know whether I should count it as a blessing that the hike is not as bad as first thought.

Qatar Airways hikes award redemption fees- but by how much?

Qatar Airways has historically applied an award segment fee of US$35 for Economy Class tickets, and US$70 for Business Class tickets.

However, yesterday Head for Points spotted that the fees had increased significantly. Sure enough, when I did some searching in the afternoon, I found that a SIN-DOH-LHR Business Class itinerary now had S$583.40 of taxes and surcharges, of which S$469.90 came from the award segment fees (referred to as a generic “Redemption Fee (non-refundable)” in the breakdown). This would mean a whopping increase to US$180 per segment!

However, later in the evening reports started coming in that the fees had come down, and now the fees on the same route are S$348.60, of which S$234.80 comes from the award segment fee. This works out to US$90 per segment. 

Qatar Airways later provided this statement to Head for Points:

Qatar Airways Privilege Club sincerely apologises for any inconvenience our valued members may have faced during the rollout of our revised reward fees policy earlier today. The reward fees that were displayed for booking Qatar Airways award flights were higher than intended. The issue has since been resolved and the correct reward fees, as per the revised policy, are now being reflected and applied for all Qatar Airways award flight bookings.

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has transitioned our reward fees policy for redeeming Qatar Airways award flights from a sector-based model to a distance-based structure, effective today. Reward fees have decreased up to 15% or remained unchanged for several of our most popular short and medium-haul routes while others have increased representative of the distance travelled.

-Qatar Airways

It seems that Qatar’s IT systems were mistakenly doubling the updated award fees, and hence the S$469.60 award redemption fee for SIN-DOH-LHR spotted earlier should be for a round-trip itinerary (and indeed, is now).

Qatar has also confirmed that award redemption fees are now distance-based instead of sector-based, which means that flying from Singapore to Europe will have different fees compared to flying from Singapore to the USA.

So, tl;dr: here’s how much more you can expect to pay for a one-way Economy/Business Class ticket on Qatar Airways via Doha. 

It’s a modest-ish increase for Europe, though certainly more painful for flights to the USA. Keep in mind that these fees will be doubled for round trips, so a return Business Class ticket to Europe and the USA would have US$360 and US$500 respectively added. This is a significant chunk of money, and really, is just a fuel surcharge by a different name.

Remember: the award redemption fee is non-refundable, so you won’t get a refund even if you cancel your award booking!

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to avoid the award segment fee increase by booking through British Airways. British Airways Executive Club members will have to pay the same surcharges, and there’s no arbitrage opportunity to be had here by transferring Avios over. 

Does this negate the value of Qatar Privilege Club?

Qatar Privilege Club offers good value redemptions between Singapore and Europe and the USA, at least in terms of miles. It will cost you 70,000-75,000 miles for a one-way Business Class ticket to Europe, versus 103,500 miles for KrisFlyer, and 95,000 miles for a one-way Business Class ticket to the USA, versus 111,500 miles for KrisFlyer.

However, there are no fuel surcharges to be paid on Singapore Airlines flights, so the cash component will be very different. For example, flying from Singapore to New York non-stop on Singapore Airlines has a cash payment of just S$88.50 in fees, resulting in a difference of S$403.60 versus Qatar Privilege Club.

The question then becomes whether you value saving 16,500 miles over saving S$403.60 and a stopover, and I think most people should spend the miles in that case.

Thankfully, there’s more than just Qatar Airways awards. For example, Qatar Privilege Club partners with Bangkok Airways, which allows you to redeem tickets on the Singapore to Koh Samui route for just 6,000 miles. Commercial tickets on this route are often expensive, so there’s potential for great value here.

Here’s some other examples of sweet spots worth considering (with the operating carrier in brackets):

These awards are not affected by the new award segment fee, and you’ll pay whatever fuel surcharges the operating carriers normally charge. 

Conclusion

Qatar Airways has shown time and time again that it’s not to be trusted when it comes to its frequent flyer programme. Back in May 2018, it devalued its miles by more than 40%, and in December 2023 it introduced peak pricing – both times without notice.

This latest hike in award segment fees is simply par the course for the programme, even if it’s not as bad as initially thought, and that’s why I’ve always advised against keeping any significant balance in your account. 

For what it’s worth, you can still get good value from Qatar Privilege Club for redemptions on partner airlines, so that would be my main use case going forward.