Qatar Airways has partnerships with several airlines that are not part of the Oneworld Alliance, such as LATAM, Rwanda Air, and Garuda Indonesia.
This opens up opportunities to use your Avios from various programs (IB/BA/AY/EI) for these partner flights that are not available from their native programs. Privilege Club award requirements are often much better than those of i.e. BA or Finnair’s (always check).
You can access Qatar’s page for Garuda Indonesia here.
You must link your various Avios accounts with BA first and then launder them through them. These transfers should all be instantaneous.
Qatar Privilege Club Garuda Indonesia Award Examples:
Jakarta (CGK) – Hong Kong (HKG)
Jakarta (CGK) – Amsterdam (AMS)
Jakarta (CGK) – Sydney (SYD)
Jakarta (DPS) – Bali/Denpasar (DPS)
Flying Blue Examples:
You can redeem these flights from various SkyTeam programs, including Flying Blue.
I have generally found Flying Blue miles very bad value for partner awards, but it seems that they might have a special deal with Garuda Indonesia (a former KLM colony—so there’s a link).
Conclusion
I have really come to like redeeming Avios through Qatar Airways. If you link your Privilege Club account with BA, you can “withdraw” the Avios during the redemption process.
You should link your various Avios accounts with BA NOW so that you are set up when you need to move them around.
If you have miles/points with several programs or can convert them from the banks, you should check which program is the best for your specific award. I was surprised how well Flying Blue would work with these Garuda Indonesia flights.
