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Qatar Airways Avios expire if the member doesn't have an accrual or redemption activity on your account for 36 months. There are plenty of ways to generate activity in your account, even without flying — which we will cover below.
According to Qatar Airways, the Privilege Club expiration policy is:
Avios will not expire as long as member does Avios accrual / redemption activity with Qatar Airways or partners (Air, Non-air ,) [sic]. By default, if members have no activity for 36 consecutive months, then all of their balance Avios will expire. Expiry will be three years from their last accrual or redemption activity.
This expiration policy was changed in late July 2020 with immediate effect. Qatar Privilege Club emailed members to share the changes (note that at the time Qatar used Qmiles as its currency, not Avios):
We begin our journey together by extending the life of Qmiles. Starting today, Qmiles will last longer than ever before. Every time you spend or earn a Qmile, your balance will be valid for a further 36 months.
Simply login to keep up to date with your latest Qmiles balance. Start earning or spending today to keep your Qmiles balance active for even longer.
Before this change, Qatar miles had a fixed expiry date of three years. No matter your account activity, miles would expire at the end of the half-year three years after they were earned. That means miles earned between January and June 2018 would have expired on June 30, 2021, and miles earned between July and December 2018 would've expired on December 31, 2021.
Now, as long as you have qualifying activity in your account, your Avios won't expire. Speaking of which…
How to Prevent Your Qatar Avios from Expiring
There are plenty of ways to earn or redeem Avios in order to extend their validity:
Earning Avios
- Take a flight with Qatar Airways.
- Credit a flight on a partner airline to the Qatar Airways Privilege Club.
- Earn Avios when you rent a car with a partner. Car rental partners include Avis, Burdge, Sixt, and Europcar, and Hertz.
- Earn Avios for your next hotel stay when booking with a host of hotel programs like Hilton and Accor, or online booking sites like Booking.com.
- Transfer points to Avios from Citi ThankYou or Marriott Bonvoy.
- Earn Avios per dollar when you shop with Qatar partners.
Redeem Avios
- Redeem your Avios for flights with Qatar or a Oneworld partner.
- Use your Avios for upgrades, or excess baggage awards.
- Pay with Avios at various outlets at Hamad International Airport.
- Gift or transfer Avios to another member.
Bear in mind that Qatar has a vast amount of other partners across a range of services. However, they are mostly based in the Middle East. So it is always worth checking the Qatar partners page if you are spending some time in the Middle East.
Extending or Reinstating Qatar Avios
If you have been unable to use your Avios and they are about to expire, you do have the option of extending their validity for a further 12 months. You can perform the extension online. Extending Avios for 12 months costs US1.5¢ per Avios.
Similar to extending your Avios, you can also pay to have your miles reinstated after they have expired. Reinstating your miles will set you back US1.5¢ per Avios, and the reinstated miles are valid for 12 months from the original expiry date. This means you have to be careful when reinstating miles if it has been nearly 12 months since your miles expired.
Exceptions to the Qatar Avios Expiration Policy
According to Qatar, there is only one exception to the mileage expiration policy. Platinum members will not see their Avios expire as long as they maintain their status. Of course, to retain elite status, the member is likely generating qualifying activity.
Don't Forget
While Qatar has some of the best products in the sky, with its QSuite standing head and shoulders above competitors' business class, the same cannot be said of the Privilege Club. Which can be a little on the expensive side when it comes to redemptions. So if you are looking to fly Qatar, it is often best to credit and redeem AAdvantage miles or even British Airways Avios for your award. This is especially true if you are looking to transfer credit card or hotel points for your award.
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Just a quick question: is transferring avios from BA or Iberia to QA extends the avios expiration date in any of the programs?
Much thanks!
That’s a good question – and one that’s not clearly spelled out by any of the airlines, as far as we can tell.
Under BA’s buy/gift/share terms, BA confirms that sharing resets the expiration date: “Will sharing Avios reset the 36-month expiry rule? Yes, for both the Sender and the Recipient.” However, that’s when you pay to share. BA doesn’t address transferring points between programs.
Always very interesting information, I don’t think Qmiles is a good frequent flyer program though, far better other OneWorld programs like American Airlines or Iberia.
All,
I have currently the following challenge with Qatar:
1. I earned some Qmiles in April 2017 which based on the old mechanism would have expired on 30.6.2020
2. I transfered some AMEX MR into Qmiles in March 2019
3. I redeemed some Qmiles for a flight in March 2020 which I got refunded due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
4. As the Qmiles expire before June 2020 I booked immediately a new flight for January 2021
5. Now I need to cancel this flight again and the answer from Qatar is that I will not all Qmiles back as some expired in 30.06.2020. In my view based on the new mechanism as I have added some miles in March 2019, they should not expired before Marchh 2022.
Do I see anything wrong here?
Thanks,
Markus
All,
I think I found the answer myself, however still interesting in your views:
The miles I earned in2017 were expired in Jun 2020 before the new rules apply in August 2020. That means, if I refund my ticket now, the miles are credit back with a date in June as if they have never been spent, so they are lost.
I am in discussion now with Qatar to set my ticket “on hold” and reuse it next year. Possible for 2 years after purchase.
Best,
Markus
I don’t think the programme is very interesting.
In my opinion it’s better to book Qatar flights with some OneWorld partner.
Agree, actually booking QR with my BA Executive Club account.
Honestly I don’t agree. My spouse has a QA membership and I am with AA. She became member one year ago and me, I’m with AA for decades.
With AA the customer loyalty does not get rewarded well; I lost my amazing status already two years after changing jobs and moving abroad. And now she moves up in the status hierarchy much faster. So after a couple of business class flights she also surpassed me?! With less miles earned. And to make it worse; we travel via Doha, we get lounge access, but only because of her OneWorld status with HER QA account, not my AA.
So Gold for instance is not the same between OneWorld airline partners if you translate it to their tiers., At a certain program it could become Sapphire, at another Ruby. You can imagine one is not very happy when confronted with this.
There is something else that bothers me; the fact it’s not possible to move miles between OneWorld accounts. So once you made a choice and you collected some miles, you’re stuck. In fact the AA program makes more sense when you live and fly in the USA. But abroad it might make much more sense to select another airline partner.
36 months is pretty decent time but I think airlines will start fighting for customers with additional benefits.
Qmiles still doesn’t seem to have good value compared to other oneworld programs.
36 months expiration is decent but would like to see QMiles going with no expiration in near future.
I had a few miles expire previously in 2018 after the 3 years expiration cycle. This would have been a good option to extend the life of the miles.
Having miles expire can be thoroughly frustrating. However, with a combination of tracking expiration dates here AND knowing, for each program, how exactly to extend the expiry date with minimal activity, you can avoid them. Thankfully, I would assume AW has an article similar to this, with tips on avoiding expiration, for every program.
We sure try to! If you see one that we don’t, we will work to add it.
Too bad QMiles themselves are not very efficient in terms of redemption rates…
Miles should not expire; Unless they are frequent travelers for work reasons, it is not so common that Qatar is used (although we should, because it is a great airline)
Hopefully, AA will revert back to the 36-month mileage expiration policy if not “no mileage expiration.”
qatar is such a good airline. best i have ever flown and the 36 month expiration is really good. they have great policy
Unless you’re flying regularly to qatar, I doubt many people in the US will be heavy users of their FF program
Exactly, as the earning opportunities are not comprehensive in North America.