With Qatar Airways now flying between Sydney and Doha, the Gulf airline and Oneworld member provides a new way for Sydney-based Qantas Frequent Flyer members to use their points for travel to the Middle East and beyond to destinations across Europe including London, Paris and Rome.

(From May 2016 that opportunity will extend to Adelaide when Qatar starts Adelaide-Doha flights on its new Airbus A350, and of course Qatar is already flying daily from Melbourne and Perth.)

Booking Qatar flights via Qantas

Reward flights on Qatar are easy to book and are listed on the Qantas website alongside flight options for Qantas, Emirates, Cathay Pacific and more – although on the dates we searched, rewards that included the Sydney-Doha leg could only be found in economy, not business class:

As is the custom with newly-launched routes, airlines typically assess how many premium seats they can sell for actual cash on a regular basis before later allowing travellers to book business class seats using frequent flyer points, so expect your options to expand sooner or later.

On a typical journey from Sydney to London or other major points in Europe when reward flights are available, you’d be looking at 75,000 Qantas Points for that one-way trek in economy or 139,000 Qantas Points for business class.

That’s the same number of Qantas Points as to fly with the Roo’s broader web of partners including Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and Malaysia Airlines, but is certainly more than the 128,000 Qantas Points needed to book the same trip in business class with Qantas or Emirates via Dubai.

Most travellers will find it hard to justify that 11,000-point premium over Qantas or Emirates. But if award flights are available with Qatar Airways but not with Qantas or Emirates on the dates you need to travel, those extra points can make the difference between getting in the air or not travelling at all.

Qatar’s flights also give passengers a little more flexibility with their schedule, as unlike QF1 to London which currently departs Sydney at 4:45pm, QR909 pushes back at 9:50pm and allows you to get in a full day’s work plus a leisurely dinner on the ground before beginning the journey.

Also read: AusBT review of Qatar Airways Airbus A380 business class

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