Qatar Privilege Club now restricts who you can redeem Avios for

Last month, Qatar Airways announced that it would be making changes to Privilege Club redemptions by adding a new feature called My List, which would restrict award bookings to a list of pre-approved individuals.

While framed as an anti-fraud measure, My List also removes the flexibility of members to redeem their Avios at will. Up until now, Qatar Privilege Club members could book awards for anyone they liked — all you needed was their name, passport number and date of birth.

My List went live about a week ago, and unfortunately, it looks like the rules governing it are much stricter than initially suggested.

Not only are you now restricted in terms of who you can redeem awards for, but you cannot add redemption nominees — or even search for more than one award seat — until you’ve credited at least one commercial flight to Qatar Privilege Club.

Qatar Privilege Club adds new redemption restrictions

As of 16 June 2026, Qatar Airways is restricting the list of people that a Privilege Club member can redeem miles for through two mechanisms: My List, and Family & Friends. 

My List and Family & Friends have a maximum capacity of four and six individuals respectively, which means that each Privilege Club member can now redeem miles for a maximum of 10 people.

Frankly, that should be more than enough for most members, but the problem isn’t so much the quantity — it’s the restrictions on being able to add people to these lists in the first place!

Before you can add anyone to My List or Family & Friends, your Qatar Privilege Club account must satisfy two conditions:

• It must be at least 30 days old, and
• You must have credited at least one flight on Qatar Airways or any partner airline, or made one co-brand credit card transaction

Therefore, if you recently made a lump sum transfer to Qatar Privilege Club (perhaps with the ongoing 30% transfer bonus) intending to use those Avios for a family or group redemption, you might find that it’s no longer possible.

That’s the situation I find myself in. While I’ve transferred tons of credit card points to Avios over the years, I’ve never actually credited a flight to my Privilege Club account (those usually go to Asia Miles or Alaska Atmos Rewards).

As a result, I’m effectively locked out of the My List and Family & Friends feature. 

Fortunately, this won’t be for long, since I have an upcoming Qantas flight in August that I will now credit to Qatar Privilege Club. However, it does throw a spanner into the works for upcoming trip planning — and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Searching is also restricted

There’s another annoying restriction that arises from this change: if you have not unlocked the ability to add anyone to My List or Family & Friends, you cannot search for more than one award seat.

The rule seems to be that you can only search for award seats that are less than or equal to the total number of people in both the My List and Family & Friends combined, plus yourself. For example, if you have three people in My List and one in Family & Friends, you can search for up to five seats.

In terms of workarounds, you could search for award space for multiple passengers through a British Airways Club account (though I’m not sure if Qatar releases the same number of award seats to BA as it does its own members), or alternatively, call up Qatar Airways or use the Live Chat function to ask an agent for help.

Do note that while agents can search for award space, they won’t be able to get around the new booking restrictions for My List and Family & Friends.

Crediting a flight to Qatar Privilege Club

Given that Qatar’s co-brand cards are not available in Singapore and many parts of the world, most members will need to credit at least one flight to Privilege Club instead.

In addition to oneworld carriers like Cathay Pacific and Qantas, you can also credit certain non-oneworld carrier flights to Qatar Privilege Club, such as Bangkok Airways, Garuda and Philippine Airlines. The full list of partners can be found on Qatar’s website.

For those in Singapore, the simplest option would be to credit a cheap SIN-KUL flight on Malaysia Airlines.

Regardless of how you’re satisfying this requirement, make sure that the ticket you’re booking is in a fare class that accrues mileage with Qatar Privilege Club. Certain discounted commercial fares will not earn miles, and therefore will not meet the flight crediting requirement.

You can use the QCalculator to check accrual rates from partners, or else refer to the respective tables here.

How do My List and Family & Friends work?

My List

My List is a newly-launched feature that allows you to nominate up to four individuals to redeem Avios for. 

• Everyone on My List must be a Privilege Club member
• Once added, a member cannot be removed for six months
• You can be on a maximum of one other Privilege Club member’s My List

Once you invite a member to join, they must accept the invitation through their own Privilege Club account.

Do note that you cannot access the Avios of other My List members — this is not a tool to pool Avios. Think of this as conceptually similar to KrisFlyer’s Redemption Nominee list. 

Family & Friends

Family & Friends is the list that Qatar uses for points pooling.

• Everyone on the Family & Friends list must not be a Privilege Club member
• Once added, a person cannot be removed for six months
• Each person can only be on a single Family & Friends list

The person setting up the Family & Friends list becomes the head of the group, and everyone else is a dependent. When dependents earn Avios, those Avios are pooled into the family group. Only the head of the group has the ability to redeem Avios, whether for themselves or anyone else on Family & Friends/My List.

This is the list you should be adding children to, so that the Avios they earn don’t go to waste.

What are the workarounds?

For what it’s worth, you can still book awards for anyone you added to your Family & Friends list before the changes went live.

Otherwise, if you really need to book a Qatar Airways award for more than one person, then you can consider one of the paths below.

Transfer to British Airways Club

Avios can be freely moved between Qatar Airways and British Airways at a 1:1 ratio, so a potential workaround would be to transfer your Avios over and book multiple Qatar Airways award seats through British Airways instead.

Qatar Airways awards cost the same when booking through British Airways Club as they would through Qatar Privilege Club. I can’t remember offhand, but I believe the taxes and surcharges should be similar (do fact check me if your experiences show otherwise though).

However, it’s worth noting that British Airways opens the booking calendar 355 days in advance, versus 361 days for Qatar Airways. Therefore, on some popular routes, award space could be fully redeemed before it even appears for booking through British Airways.

Splitting Avios via Finnair

If all your Avios are in a single Qatar Privilege Club account and you want to travel with a companion, you could split your Avios through Finnair.

Here’s how this works:

1. Transfer the required number of Avios from your Qatar Privilege Club account to your Finnair Plus account
2. Use Finnair’s internal transfer feature to give the Avios to your companion’s Finnair Plus account
3. Your companion then transfers those Avios into their own Qatar Privilege Club account, and you each make separate bookings.

A €10 fee applies for such transfers, and the Finnair Plus account sending the Avios must be at least 90 days old. Also, if you’re going down this route, make sure to confirm there are two award seats available on the flight you want!

Do note that Avios cannot be transferred to a Finnair Plus Junior account, which is required for children aged 2-17. Therefore, this workaround won’t be viable if you’re travelling with a child.

Why is Qatar making these changes?

Qatar’s new rules are no doubt intended to combat award fraud, which has become a growing problem in recent years due to the increased proliferation of so-called miles brokers.

Some miles brokers engage in account theft, where they steal access to frequent flyer accounts and empty out the balances by redeeming miles for their clients — who may be unaware their ticket has been redeemed with stolen miles.

Other miles brokers may use “legitimate” miles  — either their own stash or purchased from willing sellers — but this is still a terms-of-service violation, as airline miles do not constitute personal property, and cannot be bought or sold. 

Either way, My List adds friction to the process, because even if an account is compromised, the broker cannot simply redeem the miles for a third party who isn’t already on your list. Nor can they add a new member, if your list is already full, and if your existing nominees are not yet six months old. It doesn’t make fraud impossible, but it certainly adds friction to the process.

I have no love for miles brokers, believe me, though this policy will unfortunately create a fair bit of collateral damage by penalising genuine members who have been crediting their flight activity elsewhere.

If it’s any consolation, we’re likely to see a short-term improvement in award space, not just because miles brokers are locked out, but also genuine members who have yet to unlock the My List and Family & Friends feature. Moreover, those who have already unlocked that feature will now have a temporary advantage when booking awards — make it count!

Conclusion

Qatar Privilege Club now limits who members can book award tickets for, following the introduction of My List and a new requirement to credit at least one flight before adding nominees to either My List, or the existing Family & Friends list.

Crediting one flight isn’t the most onerous of requirements, though it’s still a requirement nonetheless. Until you do so, your Avios cannot be used for anyone but yourself (unless you had the foresight to create a Family & Friends list before the change).

While I applaud any move that makes it harder for miles brokers to operate, I do wonder if Qatar could have taken a broader approach in defining what qualifies as an activity to unlock these nominee lists.