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Fantastic news for Alaska Airlines frequent flyers! You can now redeem your Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles for travel on Qatar Airways. Mileage Plan members now have access to many new destinations as a result. Here's how many miles you'll need and what you'll need to do to book award travel on Qatar Airways.
Alaska Airlines, Qatar Airways, and the Oneworld Alliance
Alaska Airlines officially joined the Oneworld alliance on March 31, 2021. As a result, Alaska Airlines added several new airlines to its lists of partners. One of these airlines is Qatar Airways. While Mileage Plan members could start earning miles on Qatar flights, Mileage Plan members were unable to redeem miles for travel on Qatar Airways until just recently.
Now, Mileage Plan members can finally redeem miles for travel on Qatar Airways. There are still quite a few Oneworld partners that have yet to be added to Alaska Air's list of partners on which you can redeem miles.
Mileage Plan members can earn miles on all Oneworld alliance partners. However, members can't redeem miles for travel on the following partners quite yet:
- Iberia
- Malaysia Airlines
- Royal Air Maroc
- S7
- Sri Lankan Airlines
Related: The Ultimate Guide to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
How to Redeem Alaska Mileage Plan Miles for Travel on Qatar Airways
Ready to redeem your Alaska Airlines miles for travel on Qatar Airways? Booking award travel on Qatar Airways using your Mileage Plan miles is a very straightforward process. To book a Qatar Airways award flight, all travelers need to do is log into their Mileage Plan account and use Alaska's booking engine to find award availability.
Both economy class and business class awards can be booked using Mileage Plan miles. Economy class award availability is widespread over the next few months, but business class awards are a bit more spotty. Below are screenshots from Alaska Airlines' website showing award availability from New York City to Doha next month:
New York to Doha Economy Class Availability October 2021
New York to Doha Business Class Availability October 2021
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Award Chart for Qatar Airways
As is the case with all of Alaska Airlines' partners, the number of miles you'll need for travel on Qatar Airways varies depending on the origin and destination regions. However, there's a new wrinkle for Qatar awards. Alaska offers awards at different rates depending on demand.
Qatar Airways economy awards start at 17,500 miles one-way on Qatar Airways' intra-Middle East flights and flights between the Middle East and India. On these same flights, business class awards start at 40,000 miles one-way with first-class awards starting at 60,000 miles one-way.
For travel originating from the United States (including Alaska and Canada), economy class awards operated by Qatar Airways start at 42,500 miles one-way for flights to the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. On these routes, business class awards operated by Qatar Airways start at 85,000 miles. Qatar doesn't currently operate first class to the U.S., but first-class awards would start at 150,000 miles one-way if it did.
Below is the full award chart for travel on Qatar Airways from the United States and Canada:
| From | To | Economy | Business | First |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US & Canada | Africa | 50,000 | 120,000 | 200,000 |
| US & Canada | Asia | Not Available | Not Available | Not Available |
| US & Canada | Australia | Not Available | Not Available | Not Available |
| US & Canada | India | 42,500 | 85,000 | 150,000 |
| US & Canada | Middle East | 42,500 | 85,000 | 150,000 |
| US & Canada | South Pacific | Not Available | Not Available | Not Available |
As with other international partners, Mileage Plan members can book a stopover in Doha at no additional cost.
How To Earn Mileage Plan Miles
There are several ways to earn Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles. The first and most obvious way to earn miles is to fly on eligible Alaska Airlines and partner flights. However, you don't actually have to fly to earn Mileage Plan miles. Here are two other ways to earn Alaska Airlines miles.
Alaska Airlines Visa® credit card
The Alaska Airlines Visa® credit card is a solid travel rewards credit card. With the Mileage Plan program boasting dozens of airline partners — including American Airlines, British Airways, Icelandair, Singapore Airlines, and now Qatar Airways — the miles you'll earn when you use your Alaska Visa Card can go a long way.
The Alaska Airlines credit card comes with a low annual fee of $95. However, you'll easily earn that back after just a single trip. The Alaska Visa Card offers cardholders benefits including free checked bags and day-of-travel discounts.
- Earn 3 miles for every $1 spent on eligible Alaska Airlines purchases
- Earn 2 miles for every $1 spent on eligible gas, cable, streaming services and local transit including ride share purchases
- Earn 1 mile for every $1 spent on all other purchases
Related: Do Alaska Airlines Miles Expire?
Buy Alaska Airlines Miles
You can also buy Alaska Airlines miles. Alaska Airlines miles can be purchased in increments of 1,000 miles with 3,000 miles being the minimum number of miles that can be purchased each transaction. Purchases typically cost 2.75 cents per mile, but Alaska often runs buy miles promotions to drop the purchase rate as low as 1.85 cents per mile.
You can purchase up to 100,000 miles in a single transaction. Mileage Plan members without elite status are capped at 150,000 purchase miles per a calendar year. But there's no cap to how many miles elite members can purchase.
The Bottom Line
The Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan program continues to become more valuable to travelers. Alaska Airlines joining the Oneworld alliance is already proving to be a benefit for Mileage Plan members. Now, Mileage Plan members can redeem their miles for travel on Qatar Airways. This includes travel in Qatar Airways Qsuite. Additionally, the added option to redeem miles for travel on Qatar Airways means there are a number of new destinations across the globe that are now accessible through the Mileage Plan program.
Do you have plans to redeem your Mileage Plan miles for award travel on Qatar Airways?
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
hello,
Can i use Alaska miles to upgrade on Qatar Airways?
I can’t find any option for you to be able to do so. Based on everything I’m finding on Qatar’s website, it seems you can only upgrade using Qatar Avios (or Qcredits).
So I’m trying to book ATL -> BKK on Qatar. For my desired dates, I see business availability when searching ATL -> DOH and also DOH -> BKK. However when I search ATL -> BKK, Qatar is not coming up as on option for any dates. All that comes up Alaska and Korean flights with 2 stops. Do you have any pointers please? Thanks!
Hey Matt, I’m checking with some AW teammates to see if anyone has more info, but I wanted to publish this in case another reader can help. Have you tried calling Alaska to see if they can build the award segment-by-segment?
This sounds like a technology issue rather than intentional blocking of a specific route.
Any idea why US to Asia are not offered via Alaska miles/Qatar? They fly a bunch of routes to Vietnam, Singapore etc connecting through Doha.
The number of miles asked for Qatar redemption is reasonable. Not big surprises from this point of view.
I think Emirates is more useful as a partner than Qatar but who knows how long that relationship will last now that Alaska is in Oneworld. We have already seen the loss of being able to use Alaska miles on Emirates first class.
I used to really like Alaska Airlines on its own, but it seems very fitting for them to be part of Oneworld instead!
It’s nice Alaska joined OneWorld and we now have more options to use our precious Alaska miles, but the miles required for business and especially First class are somewhat excessive….guess I’ll be looking elsewhere to find seats in the front of the plane with my Alaska miles.
Awards to the Indian Subcontinent are the clear sweet spot, but I’m not sure how sweet it is overall. AA awards are 70k, so 15k for a stopover in Doha, if you take advantage of that benefit. Hmmm.
Yeah, not a fan of the variable award charts. It’s too much of a whack-a-mole game for how much you need to earn.
Nice tutorial on how to redeem for qatar awards. Need a pile of miles however for those coveted business/first/qsuites…..
Redeem Miles from one company into another company is never a good deal
Alaska’s reward chart is infuriating, it’s great value but not all routes are available, which from Australia is tricky. Maybe it’ll change as Oneworld incorporation continues, as this would be pretty attractive.
Maybe AS will need more time to improve the feature.
Using Alaska miles on Qatar seems like bad value compared to redeeming on Qantas or Cathay Pacific.
No me parece una propuesta alentadora.no es una aerolínea de mí consumo
It is too bad that awards to Australia are NOT available. Imagine traveling to Australia via QSuite…
It is too bad that awards to Australia are NOT available.
Will be nice when qatar is open for easy travel with less restrictions!
Alaska miles are some of the most valuable miles out there of the major carriers and there are way better sweet spots than booking on Qatar that can also be booked using american airlines miles if you have them.
Those redemption rates aren’t the best but love Alaska for having partners.
Someday I’ll fly on Alaska Airlines and maybe even Qatar Airways. Can’t seem to find time for a vacation though.