I’m on my way back to Canada today after my trip to Asia, and I wanted to share some context about 2 topics that many are interested in. First is my points redemption for the world’s best business class again (25 hours for 73,000 RBC Avion points instead of $3208). Second is my transit in the Gulf region next to Iran (but spoiler alert: that’s over on the aviation side).
Business class flights are the epitome of luxury, and booking these expensive experiences with airline points is the best deal in all of travel. And a situation being legitimately “scary” certainly doesn’t make it dangerous, as all experienced travelers really should know.
It’s worth repeating both with my concrete example. Flytrippers helps you travel for less with our 3 types of content, namely flight deals, travel rewards, and tips/inspiration/news.
Here’s a lot of info about the context of my business class flights and my Qatar transit today (I’ll do separate posts about the experiences themselves after).
My business class flights today
In the Summer of 2023, I told you about my redemption of Avios points for the Qatar Airways Qsuite.
It was amazing; it’s been voted the world’s best business class since many years in a row, so that’s nothing surprising. The great lie-flat pod seat with a sliding door, the amazing service, the food… it’s one of the best points redemptions, for sure.
(By the way, you can learn a lot more if you join me at the Toronto Points Travel Festival where I’m speaking this weekend, or at the Flytrippers conference in Montreal in May if you speak French!)
None of my 9 business class flights in 2025 could quite compete with the Qsuite (I even kind of regret doing the Qsuite so early in my business class journey haha; first-world problems).
I had redeemed 70,000 Avios points, the guaranteed fixed price for that Montreal-Doha route (and the other North American routes, like Toronto).
But the guaranteed fixed price to add another long flight to East Asia or Southeast Asia is 95,000 points, just 25,000 more. An even better deal in terms of cost per hour of flight (CPH). A great sweet spot.
Keep in mind that RBC Avion points are transferable to British Airways Avios points at a 1-to-1 rate, but there’s even a 30% transfer bonus every year!!!
So those prices are actually 54,000 RBC Avion points and 73,000 RBC Avion points with that amazing 30% bonus.
It’s so sad that so many travelers redeem their precious RBC Avion points at 1¢/pt by not transferring them.
My flights today give me 3.7¢/pt!
Yes, almost 4 times more value for the same number of points.
The RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card’s current record-high welcome bonus is often available, giving you 60,000 points. And RBC has very generous welcome bonus eligibility rules: you can even get it when you already have the card!
All card issuers in Canada let you get the welcome bonus on the same card and unlimited amount of time (except Amex), but normally you need to wait 1 year before getting it again (or at least to close the card).
Not with RBC! So it’s sooooo easy to get $2700+ in value with a single welcome bonus 😉
In other words, it’s easy to get 73,000 RBC Avion points. Most people get just $730 in free travel with that. I got $2735 (more on the math in a second).
A tiny $2000 more. That’s it.
That’s why business class flights booked with airline points are the absolute best deal that exists, at least in terms of savings. To be clear, even in economy class, transferring bank points to airline programs can give you so much more value.
I normally use my concrete business class flight examples like these ones to illustrate the best tips. But I won’t repeat these reminders that I just explained with my concrete example on the way to Asia; you can read it if you haven’t.
But I can remind you the price in points for Asia you should know (we spot these seats in our new deals section):
- 75,000 Aeroplan points if you position on the West Coast (more seats)
- 87,500 Aeroplan points from elsewhere in North America (fewer seats)
- 95,000 Avios points via Doha (fewer seats)
(Remember that Amex points are transferrable 1-to-1 to both Aeroplan and Avios; 2 of the best current deals give you many Amex points, like 72,000 with the Amex Gold Rewards Card for a net fee of $150!)
My Hong Kong-Doha flight is 9h45 and my Doha-Montreal flight is 15h45. Almost 25 hours! That’s a lotttttt of time in business class with just 1 welcome bonus!
I’m a few days behind in my “real-time” trip stories on my personal Instagram, so you can see the whole Qsuite experience soon if you want; you didn’t miss it.
These flights are worth $3208 if paid in cash (by taking half of the roundtrip price to be fairer; the one-way is actually sold for $9000+).
I had also missed a key part of the Qsuite experience my first time: the VIP airport lounge in Doha (I was flying in the wrong direction; their arrivals lounge was nice, but nothing like the real one). I’m getting to experience that fully this time (I’m finalizing writing this from the lounge).
The downside with the Qsuite is that taxes/fees are certainly higher than when redeeming Aeroplan points for business class.
As a reminder, my transpacific flight in March at the guaranteed fixed price of 75,000 Aeroplan points cost me $121, which is the typical amount of taxes/fees (the flight cost $3710 in cash, which gave me a value of 4.8¢/pt)!
This particular Qsuite route was $473 (Montreal-Doha is in the $300s). It’s literally the most I’ve ever paid (by far). So that’s why I get a value of “just” 3.7¢/pt.
But I think it’s worth it once in a while.
In this particular case, I was okay with this for a few reasons:
- The Qsuite is simply amazing (better than other lie-flat pod seats)
- I’ve tried many others, and I always long for the Qsuite
- I won’t have another chance to fly the Qsuite until 2027
- It’s one of the best sweet spot redemptions (of any program)
- So many hours for such a good price in points
- And cash prices to Asia are high (even in economy)
- Alternatives were to the usual North America hubs
- That would have required the usual positioning flight
- This lands in Montreal, so I save a few hundred there
- Transpacific seats are more scarce than usual due to Iran
- Many people are scared of going to Asia via the Gulf
- I would’ve probably had to choose EVA Air again, like on the outbound
- It was excellent (1 of only 10 airlines rated 5-star in the world)
- But I wanted variety 😅
- The Qsuite flight was out of Hong Kong
- The positioning flight was cheap (I was in Shanghai)
- And most importantly HK was one of my favorite cities in the world
- I hadn’t been back since the recent changes (I was there in 2017)
In closing, the one upside of the terrible conflict in the Middle East (which is obviously completely terrible; but I try to always see the positive in everything) is that it’s pretty sure that Qsuite seat availability will be much better in the coming months… given how many people will be scared of flying through there even a decade after it’ll be completely over! 😅
My Qatar transit today
I promised you a post about what your options are if you have flights through the Middle East, so this will serve as a teaser (I’ll have a better one soon).
We already covered that the actual safety risk of flying through most Middle Eastern countries (or even being there as a civilian who doesn’t visit military bases or oil refineries) is objectively incredibly low… and has been since very early in the Iran war.
I don’t want to fully relitigate this, as I’m frankly a bit tired of people not understanding and wanting to bask in their fear, instead of being rational and not emotional and looking at the facts and accepting they might be way wrong (as is the case).
You’re allowed to, but I’m also allowed to keep trying to make you better! 😊
Literally no Canadians have died in the entire Middle East and there was literally no impact on the day-to-day at all in Jordan, yet many who can’t even locate Jordan on a map insist Flytrippers co-founder Kevin was wrong to fly his retired father there to join his girlfriend and him during the war 😅! Anyway…
Being scared is a perfectly normal initial reaction. It’s scary, for sure.
Still doesn’t mean it’s actually dangerous. Some people are scared of clowns. So necessarily, being scared doesn’t automatically mean that fear is always justified.
Anyway, the real risk is not safety related.
The risk is that your trip isn’t as enjoyable, or that your transit isn’t enjoyable in the case of flights on the Gulf airlines who operate huge hubs in Qatar and the UAE especially.
As in, your flights could be disrupted, and your travel plans could be disrupted. Not the same thing as it being “dangerous.”
Even I was scared of disruptions. Usually, I love when my flights are cancelled; I once again got $1000 in free hotels and $200 in rewards for future free travel thanks to my cancellation in January.
But for once, I’m not as flexible. I really have to be in Toronto Friday as I’m speaking at the Points Travel Festival and can’t miss it.
So when I saw the Qsuite seat available, I obviously booked it right away (the Qatar Airways Privilege Club has a cancellation fee of just 25 USD so it’s risk-free), but I really wasn’t sure I’d keep it.
The reality is that flights could very well be cancelled and it could take a few days to be rebooked. It was very volatile for weeks.
But good news: it’s pretty much over now. Flight operations are now pretty stable.
Now, things could certainly change again. Of course.
(But I’d honestly be more worried about flying Lufthansa, one of Europe’s largest airlines, which will have canceled almost all its flights for 5 days out of 7 since Friday due to strikes; at least in the short-term!)
During our latest monthly live Q&A video, one of our Flytrippers superfans that has her own Qsuite flights booked in June said her husband and her disagreed on what to do and asked me who was right (without saying who was thinking what).
I answered “whoever wants to just relax and wait it out.”
Her flight is in June, which is sooooo far away. As I told her, it can be good to book a backup flight at least (depending on how in a rush you are to get to your destination).
But more likely than not it’ll be fine, as it seems to be for me today.
Now that a ceasefire has been reached, many routes are operating normally already.
There still could be disruptions. The US announced a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz Sunday and some fear this could spell an end to the ceasefire.
And Qatar Airways was by far the most affected when there was no ceasefire, as you saw when we shared the graph with the recovery (the percentage of flights operated versus the normal prewar schedule).
Now, since a lot of people often confuse different things when it comes to many travel topics, I want to take 10 seconds to explain this well. Qatar Airways is operating less than 50% of its regular routes. People think that means it’s not reliable yet. That’s not true.
The routes that they’ve restarted are operating reliably. They just haven’t restarted all their routes. The least popular ones that are not operating are obviously problematic. The Montreal and Toronto routes are among those that have been restarted. The full list is on the Qatar Airways website, to see your destination (I assume it’s not Doha).
I still mitigated that disruption risk.
I left a day earlier than I would’ve (a 2-day buffer rather than the 1-day buffer, which is the bare minimum any travel pro should always have when they can’t miss an event).
It’s not a huge buffer, but I’m also objectively extremely good at dealing with IRROPS (irregular operations; the technical term for flight disruptions). I know my rights and am confident I can fix it if something happens.
I needed to be in Toronto Friday morning way before the conference, as there’s a bank VP I’ve been wanting to meet with for a while and our schedules finally lined up.
This also works out better since Flair Airlines, Canada’s only ULCC, invited me to their media event for their inaugural flight to Montreal Thursday, and now I’ll be able to attend that… if everything goes right with my 2nd Qsuite flight tonight.
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Summary
To get to the Toronto Points Travel Festival where I’m speaking this weekend after my trip to Asia, I decided to fly through the Middle East (despite the disruption risk) to be able to take advantage of one of the best points redemptions that exists: Qatar Airways’ famous Qsuite (2 times rather than just 1).
What would you like to know about my flights and my transit today? Tell us in the comments below.
See the flight deals we spot: Cheap flights
Discover free travel with rewards: Travel rewards
Explore awesome destinations: Travel inspiration
Learn pro tricks: Travel tips
Featured image: My seat and my 3 windows (photo credit: Andrew D’Amours/Flytrippers)
