Qatar Airways Privilege Club Changes July 1, 2016

Qatar Airways has been emailing its Privilege Club members about changes to the program taking effect on July 1, 2016.

The change mainly effect those flying on lowest economy fares as the number of Qpoints earned is reduced and upgrading to business class from these fares is no longer allowed.

You can access Qatar’s web page for these changes here.

Here’s the new Qpoints earning chart effective July 1, 2016:

Download (PDF, 58KB)

Here are the changes:

Increase In Qmiles Earning

Higher economy and business class miles earn more Qmiles (award in Qatar speak).

Increase In Qmiles Minimums

Not huge change here.

Easier Tier Retention

The number of tier miles is reduced between 5 to 20.

Reduction In Qpoints Earned

The number of Qpoints that you earn for lowest economu fares have been reduced 10% to 20%.

Cabin Upgrades

You can no longer upgrade lowest economy fares to business using miles.

Conclusion

Bad news for economy fliers on Qatar Airways, although these changes are not drastic.

It would have been better had these changes take effect on January 1^st next year. Some people may have already planned their flights for the next 6 to 10 months and these changes may affect them adversely.