Qatar Airways Restarts Philadelphia–Doha With Wide-Open Business Class Awards From 70,000 Points

Qatar Airways is re-starting Philadelphia service in August, and business class award availability on that flight is wide open for at least two passengers. The new daily flight begins August 1:

• Philadelphia – Doha, 9:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.+1, QR728
  
• Doha – Philadelphia, 8:00 a.m. – 3:05 p.m., QR727

In fall 2023 American moved its New York JFK – Doha flight to Philadelphia and Qatar Airways cut the route. Supposedly American and Qatar do not have an antitrust-immunized joint venture, where they’d divvy up markets and coordinate schedules. And yet. Now American dropped the Philadelphia – Doha route and Qatar immediately added it back. That’s not a surprise, since Qatar was already hiring in Philadelphia. They clearly knew American’s decision was coming before it was public.

• In a joint venture, it makes sense for the airline to fly out of its own hubs. American operates from its hubs to London Heathrow, and British Airways generally flies London Heathrow to cities in the U.S. that aren’t American hubs (though, for putting the right plane on the right route reasons, they also fly to American hubs).
  
• You want to fly long haul from the cities where planes are crew are based, or else you need to move them around your system inefficiently.
• But this isn’t a joint venture, and indeed – as with Alaska – American does have a closer partnership with Qatar than most other oneworld carriers, but they will no longer fly to Doha at all.

Qatar will use an Airbus A350-900 on the route. They have a great business class product, from the seats to the service to food and amenities. They offer caviar in business class.

However, not all Qatar Airways A350 have QSuites on them. On some planes it’s still lie flat direct aisle access without doors, using a Super Diamond seat (for instance what American has on its older Boeing 787-9s).

If the seat map shows four abreast – 1 seat at each window, two in the middle – it’s not QSuites. QSuites is a more staggered layout. If the business class seat map shows rows 1–9, seats A/E/F/K, that’s the Super Diamond seat. And just because the seat map for your flight shows one version, you can still see an aircraft swap. So this route is not guaranteed QSuites. But all Qatar A350s have Starlink internet.

Award pricing starts at:

• Philadelphia – Doha is 70,000 points in business class
  
• Other destinations in the Mideast price at 75,000 points
  
• Maldives will run 85,000 points
  
• South Africa is 100,000 and so is North Asia via Doha (e.g. Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai)

You can transfer points from American Express, Citibank, Capital One and Bilt directly to Qatar Airways. There’s currently a 30% bonus transferring from Citi to Qatar Airways, but that bonus does not post instantly. You can transfer from Chase to British Airways and from British Airways to Qatar if the seats aren’t directly available through BA.

Bear in mind that short haul premium cabin flights from Doha are marketed as ‘first class’ even though there’s no true first class cabin (like there is on Qatar’s Airbus A380).

Airbus A380 First Class

Regional Business Class

You’ll want to select mixed cabin to search for business class to Doha and first class beyond. Having that ‘first class’ connecting flight even short haul in the Mideast gets you access to the incredible al Safwa lounge. Design-wise it’s actually my favorite lounge aesthetic in the world.

For what it’s worth, if you’re flying to Doha I’d suggest turning it into a 48 hour stopover – just enough for a visit to the Museum of Islamic Art.

This is a perfect use case for points from Citi Strata Elite^SM Card (See rates and fees.) and Citi Strata Premier® Card (See rates and fees.), as well as Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card (See rates and fees), and Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (See rates and fees).

Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card has an offer to earn 100k bonus points after you spend $8,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening and isn’t going to last.

(HT: Dan’s Deals who says this was actually found by premium fare service Thrifty Traveler)