Qantas partner Qatar Airways is back with great business class fares from Asia to Europe as part of its ‘Travel Festival’. This is a great opportunity for travellers who can position themselves in cities like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok or Phuket and want to arrive in Europe in style.

Qatar Airways is one of the world’s best airlines and has a highly regarded business class product. As it’s a Qantas partner, Qantas Frequent Flyers will earn a stack status credits and Qantas points for these flights (use the calculator here to find out how many).

I did a search for various routes and here are the best deals I found:

Qantas partner Qatar Airways has a fantastic business class fare from Bangkok to Los Angeles for around $2000 return. This is an incredible price and a great opportunity for travellers who can position themselves in Bangkok and don’t mind flying the “long way round” to LA.

One of the most attractive parts of this deal is that Qantas Frequent Flyers will earn 520 status credits for these flights – which could qualify them for gold or higher status. Passengers will also earn 27,000 Qantas Points.

Seats are available throughout 2017 but are filling up fast – so you need to be quick to book. I doubt this fare will be available for longer than a day or two.

To book, use Google Flights to search for availability and then click through to the Qatar Airways website to complete the booking.

You can stay in LA for up to 30 days, and not less than 7 days to get the cheapest fare (if you stay less than 7 days the fare is just over $3000).

To position yourself in Bangkok, you’ll require a separate booking from Australia – use points or pay for a ticket (even if it’s in economy!). Bangkok is a great city to stop over if you have time.

Qatar Airways’ business class products are among the best in the world. On the Bangkok-Doha route, you can fly in its flagship A380s – so try to snag one of these flights if you can.

Qatar A380 Business Class Cabin

The Boeing 777s that also fly between Bangkok and Doha and Doha and LA are also very good. While the layout is 2-2-2 (unlike the 1-2-1 on the A380s) the seats are very comfortable and the dining is superb.

Qatar B777 business class seat

This is yet another illustration of the hack I’ve previously posted regarding using Asia as a stopover to enjoy cheap premium fares to North America and Europe.

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Singapore Airlines is increasing capacity on its Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane routes in 2017. With this change, extra award seats have been released in both business and first class. This is a great opportunity for travellers with Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles or Virgin Australia Velocity points.

I recently posted how to use Virgin Velocity points to secure business and first class seats with Singapore Airlines, which are among the best in the world. Click here to read the guide.

The new flights are as follows:

• Melbourne – new SQ247/248 flights on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays from 17 July 2017. This is on top of the announcement a few weeks ago that SQ217/218 is now going to be a year-round A380 service.
• Brisbane – the current SQ265/266 flights are moving to a daily service from 22 August 2017 (up from four times a week)
• Sydney – the current SQ251/252 flights are moving from three times weekly to five times weekly from 4 June 2017.

Get in quick to secure the new award seats, especially if you want to fly to Europe during the peak northern summer period.

Right now, there’s an excellent opportunity to secure first class award seats with Qantas partner Qatar Airways – one of the world’s premier airlines – on its Melbourne to Doha route.

Earlier this week, Qatar Airways announced an upgrade of this flight to an Airbus A380 from 30 June 2017. With this change, new award seats have been released – mainly for first class – which Qantas Frequent Flyers can access.

Qatar’s A380s feature its flagship first class product – one of the best in the air. Passengers travel in luxurious suites with an award-winning food and dining service.

The A380s also feature a fantastic on-board bar and lounge area for cocktails and socialising.

There are quite a few dates from September 2017 onwards when two first class award seats are available. I took screenshots for September and October to illustrate. There are some (but not many) business class seats available as well.

From Doha you can connect to flights to Europe and elsewhere.

Qantas Frequent Flyers can book these seats quite easily through the Qantas website. It’s not cheap – you’ll need 152,000 points plus $373 in fees per person each way – but given a return fare would cost around $12,000, it’s excellent value!

Make sure you get in quick as these seats could be snapped up fast.

I’m pretty excited: for the first time in my life I’ve purchased a first class plane ticket – and it only cost a fraction of the usual price.

Next August I’ll be travelling to New York City in style in Japan Airlines’ highly-regarded first class product.

This amazing fare is actually being marketed by American Airlines on its Korean website. It’s a roundtrip between Seoul and New York, transiting in Tokyo. Because American Airlines codeshares with Japan Airlines on this route, you can choose to fly Japan Airlines’ superior product the whole way.

I paid $3,800 for the return trip – which I admit is a lot of money – but Japan Airlines is charging more than $12,000 on its own website, and just flying from Tokyo to New York roundtrip with Japan Airlines can cost up to $20,000 – so I’m really happy with the price!

As these airlines are members of the oneworld alliance with Qantas, I’ll earn almost 40,000 Qantas Points and 660 Qantas Status Credits, plus 5,700 points for paying for the fare with my AMEX card.

The fare is fully refundable, which is a bonus if something comes up.

There’s lots of availability throughout 2017.

I’m positioning myself in Seoul using Qantas Points, flying in business class  with Cathay Pacific and Qantas.

This hack illustrates my recent post about how you can save thousands of dollars by stopping over in Asia and then paying for a business or first class fare to your final destination.

However, it also illustrates another important point – that you need to be careful when booking tickets and always make sure you pay attention to the details.

For example, I was presented with flight options operated by both American Airlines (the first two rows below) and Japan Airlines (the bottom four rows).

In addition, some of the Japan Airlines flights were operated by a Boeing 787, which doesn’t have first class. Once you click on a flight, this becomes visible (see below where it states the fare and “cabin” type). It’s important to always check these details so you get exactly what you want.

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Qantas is again running a Christmas promotion offering 5 Qantas Points per $1 for gift vouchers purchased in December. You can buy these for yourself and redeem them for flights over the next 12 months – substantially boosting the number of points you earn in the process.

Using this trick, you’ll still earn points and status credit for the flights themselves. It’s a great deal!

Here’s what you need to know.

• vouchers are available in $50 increments from $50 to $500, as well as $1000 or $2000
• vouchers are valid for 12 months
• you can change the name on the voucher when you redeem it (i.e. anyone can use it to fly – no one person is locked in)
• you need to nominate the number of people the voucher is for when you buy it and you can’t change the number of people when you redeem it
• there are no credit card fees for buying the voucher, and when you redeem it you won’t be charged a fee on paying any cost difference with your credit card – this means you actually save money, as Qantas normally charges a fee for credit card bookings
• gift vouchers are redeemable for one-way or return domestic or international Qantas flights, but not Jetstar flights
• only one voucher can be redeemed per booking
• the promotion ends on 31 December 2016.

This offer has only come around once a year in recent years (every December). I’ve used it to buy vouchers to cover my known flights for the year ahead.

Click here to go to the Qantas website to buy a voucher or find out more.