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Qatar Airways and British Airways are selling “cheap” business class tickets to the Seychelles with departures from London Gatwick, and for £100 more, Heathrow too.
The flights are sold by British Airways and routed via Doha with Qatar Airways, and really, you can’t ask for a better way to get to this stunning tropical getaway, where social distancing and outdoor enjoyment come standard.
Qatar Airways To Seychelles
Booking Qatar flights via BA? You bet. There are even advantages for British Airways Executive Club members to book Qatar Airways flights via BA, such as extra Avios for elite Bronze, Silver or Gold Executive Club members. If you want, you’ll also earn 560 British Airways tier points from these flights, which is nearly ‘instant’ silver with BA.
Now, the obvious one. For the moment there are travel restrictions in place due to Covid-19, like quarantine and an approved health travel authorization, but these deals for the second half of 2021 are for a promising time. Here’s a handy resource to stay up on the latest changes.
As of the time of booking, unless you pay up for LHR flights (link), these Gatwick flights don’t feature Qatar Airways Qsuites, but could indeed feature Qatar Airways new business class on the 787, or even Qsuites. All Heathrow departures will feature the Qsuite, and you can check out a review here.
Travel Dates
These absolutely incredible business class flight deals are available from August until the end of the year in 2021, which gives you some time to hope vaccine distribution goes well, and travel eases.
If you need to re-qualify for BA or Qatar Airways status, this is a pretty enjoyable way to do so, with one of the best business class experiences in the sky, en route.
How to Book These Flight Deals
The cheapest fares can be found via Online Travel Agencies, but are also available via BA and links with prices can be found below. Even though bookings are ticketed by British Airways, all flights are operated by Qatar Airways.
These are simply codeshares, which allow BA Gold, Silver or Bronze members to earn more points than they would if it was a Qatar Airways booking, while also benefiting from lounge access, which Qatar took away from its own lowest fares recently.
You’ll earn 140 tier points between London and Doha and also between Doha and the Seychelles, for a total of 580 tier points round trip. That’s nearly instant Silver.
- £1227 London Gatwick to the Seychelles Business Class Round Trip (OTA)
- £1400 London Heathrow to Seychelles Business Class Round Trip (BA)
Want more detail? Here’s the boring computer print out of these fabulous deals below…
Fare Rules
Sales restrictions
RESERVATIONS MUST BE MADE ON/BEFORE 02FEB 21.
Minimum stay requirements
TRAVEL FROM LAST INTERNATIONAL STOPOVER MUST COMMENCE NO EARLIER THAN THE FIRST SUN AFTER DEPARTURE OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SECTOR.
Maximum stay requirements
TRAVEL FROM LAST STOPOVER MUST COMMENCE NO LATER THAN 12 MONTHS AFTER DEPARTURE FROM FARE ORIGIN.
If the Seychelles is on the list, this is about as cheap as you ever see business class, and that’s a lot of comfort for a long journey. Particularly, on Qatar Airways. These deals allow plenty of time for covid-19 to become a more stable and controlled situation, and really, it’s great to have plans to look forward to.
Would these include lounge access considering the recent ‘unbundling’ of fares by Qatar?
Hopefully someone who’s paid a bit more attention than I have lately can answer. I believe BA issued tickets still count for lounge access, to the best of my knowledge. Would be great if someone confirmed since it’s my bedtime!
The booking class on the BA website shows them as “I” class not the deep discounted “R” class used by Qatar for unbundled fares. That being said, the fare bucket coding may differ between QR and BA
Yes that was my question, too. I was about to press the button on these dates last night.
One assumes that as these fares are sold by BA on a code share, the lounge access would be à la the BA offering? To the best of my knowledge, BA don’t offer any non-lounge biz fares?
That’s why I believe that to be correct. That was noted when the changes were made. Why Qatar would want to discourage booking directly with them, is beyond me. But hey, that’s the world we live in, right?
It’d be interesting to know if anyone who’s booked this fare has since been able to go onto the QR website and pre-select their seating – I see that’s another thing you can’t do on the deeply discounted QR fares, and obviously can’t do on BA biz unless you have the relevant status? Anyone?
I used a BA voucher to book these and I could choose the seats on QR website. I’m a BA gold card holder, not sure if that makes a difference or not
Oh well, I took the plunge and ‘Manage my Booking’ says I can select the QR seats 48 hours after booking, although bizarrely it’s allowed me to select seats on our domestic flights from INV (for the £400 tax break) and returning to GLA, normally not available for free selection (as I’m back to Blue status only). That will of course change after this trip!
***** Sincerest thanks to Gilbert for highlighting this excellent deal *****
Thrilled you were able to make use!
If purchasing flights only through BA, would the Qatar Travel with Confidence apply? The BA one currently ends August 31st, but it seems as though Qatar ends Dec 2021 and also allows for full refunds rather than a voucher, or is it going to be according to the BA policy as it’s a BA fare?
Any policy would be from the ticketing carrier, rather than operating.
Did anyone find out if lounge access would be allowed if booked through BA?
Definitely included, as BA does not sell a fare without lounge access.
Thanks Gilbert. Def one to consider 🤔🤔🤔
What are the ramifications if you need to cancel or change the flight?
That would be defined by BA’s current flexibility policies, which you can look up on their website.
I have just booked the amazing fare to the Seychelles in September. The booking shows as a Qatar R fare which means seats cannot be reserved even when the flight has been booked with BA. I am not sure if lounge access is unavailable as well. I booked a hotel at the same time which was also deeply discounted with BA.
Hi Nick. Being nosey what hotel did you opt for as I’m thinking of pairing with a BA hotel too?
Hi there. I have booked the Hilton Labriz which worked out really well when booked at the same time as the flight. The only issue with my booking is that I cannot select seats on either the BA or Qatar Airways site. Bit of a shame. I would imagine that there is no lounge access either.
There’s definitely lounge access. BA don’t sell non-lounge access fares, so it’s as per ticketing airlines rules.
Just did the same for November. On the QR app it shows as I class and lists the lounges at each point so assume lounge access allowed.
I’ve just managed to book this deal ex LHR for mid-November after mulling over it for a few days. The ticket is issued in I class and thankfully therefore, is not classed the same as the unbundled Qatar R fare. So it will include lounge access as others have mentioned, in line with BA’s fare rules. Regarding seat selection, the BA app states there’s a 48 hour window before you can select your seats and oddly on the QR app seat selection is not available via manage my booking despite me being ba silver exec/oneworld sapphire. I’ll wait and see if the option changes in the next 2 days, before contacting BA.
Many thanks Gilbert for flagging this cracking deal. Thanks to you, I’ve managed to scoop these QR bargains to Tokyo, Maldives, Hong Kong and now Seychelles.
What a wonderful thing to see. Thanks for the kind words, Sunny!
Hi Sunny, I’ve had exactly the same issue and have since contacted BA by Twitter DM. They’ve replied stating there are often problems reserving seats on “foreign airlines” (the fact they’re part of OW seems to count for nothing!) and that I may need to contact QR. Already did that and they told me to contact BA!
I’ve sent BA all the details as requested and I’ll wait to see what they come back with.
Keep us posted if you get any more information please, as will I … good luck!
Hi Stu, sorry to hear you have been sent round the houses. After 48 hours passed, I was still unable to select my seats neither on the BA app nor the QR website/app. So I called the dedicated BA executive club phone number, they were able to pre-book and confirm seats for me on all 4 sectors of the booking eventually. When I now go in to my booking on BA and QR, it is showing that my seat choices are confirmed. So I would suggest giving them a call. To be honest though, I was fed the same script as you were by the Exec club team and they insisted I contact QR. However after not budging and being put on hold for some 15 minutes, they eventually were able to fulfil the request. Good luck and I hope you enjoy your trip to the Seychelles.
Hi again Sunny and thanks so much for your feedback. I’m not sure if you’ll see this but can I ask what your status is please? My BA status dropped back to Blue last year because all my bookings were cancelled so I wasn’t able to reactivate my status. Otherwise I’d have nearly hit gold! Phoned BA this morning, read them the gist of your post, they looked at my booking and basically told me there was nothing they could do. They allege that all seats on the flights are ‘blocked’, not sure if perhaps this is because my booking is for December? Depending on what you come back with, I may give it one more go but failing that, looks like I’m in the lap of the gods so to speak.
As a further data point, my booking is for November, whilst I cannot change our seats on BA or QR websites/apps, have been allocated windows seats together on all legs, so happy with that. BA silver if that’s relevant. Thanks.
Hi Stu, I’m also BA silver as James mentioned he is, and I suspect that’s why the exec club team were able to pre-book my seats on QR, despite the flight being a codeshare and operated by another airline. When they initially said they could not reserve seats on QR and referred me to contact the airline directly, I pointed out that my status entitled me to reserve seats at the time of booking; I made the booking with BA directly and the flights also have their respective flight numbers. So I assume that their booking systems are integrated to allow both carriers to reserve seats with one another. I’m afraid that BA may not allow you to reserve your seats in advance though due to the status rules and with their seating policy only allowing seat selection at check-in. On the other hand however, if I’m not wrong on Qatar, preferred seating selection is available on all fares in business class with the exception of the R fare. So it may be worth giving it another try with QR directly. Also this trip should help bump you up to Silver at least! All the best.
Sunny, thanks so much for getting back to me. I’ll give QR one more go in a couple of weeks, but failing that it looks like we’ll just have to put up with whatever seats we can bag at check in. I suppose given the flights are in December, most of the legs will be during the hours of darkness so there’ll not be much to see out of the window anyway!
We will hit instant silver with this trip thanks to our internal flights from Inverness, returning to Glasgow (Inverness saves £400 in tax for two of us) – both legs being booked on J so attracting 40 tier points each way.
Keeping silver won’t be an issue from then on given I’ve just retired and we plan to travel much more (pandemics permitting!).
All the best and thanks for assistance and suggestions. Have good year and a great trip!
Booked these from LHR to SEZ in Sept. Qsuites the whole way. So excited.
As others have said, no joy sorting seats out, but you can’t get a bad1. More hoping I can sit somewhere near my partner.