On my latest return back to Asia from Canada, I took my travel experience to another level with Qatar Airways business class. Come along for the ride!
In This Blog:
Booking It
Lift Off
Qsuite or Not Qsuite?
Ameneties
Service
Meals/Drinks
Lounge
Landing
Cost
Conclusion
Booking It
It took a fair bit of strategy to make this happen without blowing my modest travel budget out of the water. First step was to begin acquiring the points, in this case Qatar Avios points. I am usually collecting Aeroplan points, so this was a new ecosystem for me. I found the points are fairly easy to get thanks to RBC credit cards but I needed plenty of patience, especially when I didn’t really know if I would eventually cash them in for good value. I had to cycle through a couple of credit cards to acquire the minimum points I would need to make this booking. The lowest award pricing on Qatar is called the Saver price and it is about exactly half the regular points price. The Saver fares are rare and highly sought after, thus I had to book the flight as soon it became available, about one year in advance. I know, who can plan that far ahead, right? But I really wanted to fly this business class because on certain Qatar jets, their business class is called Qsuites and it is often rated as the best business class in the world! I searched around for awhile and fortunately I was able to bag a Saver fare booking on a date that could work for me.
Lift Off
Qatar only flies to Toronto and Montreal in Canada so I booked a cheap Air Canada flight ($200) to Toronto, where my Qatar journey would begin. I got there a couple days early to be good and sure to make that flight. Thanks for the couch surf James!
My Qatar itinerary was from Toronto to Doha (the big flight), then Doha to Kuala Lumpur. When I booked it, I am sure it said it was Qsuites for both flights. I later found out that there are only a few flagship Qatar routes that are guaranteed to be Qsuites. On routes like Toronto, you could have a dreaded last minute equipment change and get their older style business class which apparently is several notches below the Qsuites. This is a gamble that deters some veteran awards flyers from making this booking but at the time, I didn’t know any better.
I got to Pearson airport 3ish hours before the flight. There was a priority check in counter for business class so that didn’t take long at all. My checked bag got the priority tag on it so hopefully it would have a pleasant journey too. The agent gave me an access pass to a generic Priority Pass lounge before the flight but when I got to the lounge, there looked to be a wait to get in, so I went to the lounge next to it instead, using one of my credit card passes for access. After an hour or so I eagerly made my way to the gate to see what business class I was in for.
Qsuite or not Qsuite?
I got on board and what a lovely sight to greet me, my very own Qsuite! It looked so shiny and new. The colour, lighting and finishes were all very pleasing. The layout is similar to Air Canada’s long haul business class pod but I did notice a few important differences. The row seat layout is the same, 1-2-1. The two middle seats are nice for couples, with a divider in between them which can be lowered. The Qsuites do not all face forward, the rows seemed to alternate facing forward and back. I had a window seat, 3K, and it was back facing, which is a first for me. I didn’t really notice a difference from sitting forward, especially as this was a night flight and I barely looked out the window anyhow. I imagine this design allows them to optimize the space and I thought the foot well, which on some airlines feels constricted for me, felt spacious. As it was a night flight, I had the seat in the lie flat mode most of the time and overall it was super comfy.
Another difference and one of the most popular features of the Qsuite is that it has a freakin’ door! It’s not a floor to ceiling door but it is probably 4 and a half feet tall. I had a window seat and with the door closed, it feels like you have your own little room. a quiet and cozy space. I love the door!
Another great part of their design is the tray table. It is super sturdy and has 2 parts that folds out to a spacious table top. The meals, which I will get into later, had a lot of items but there always felt like plenty of space on this tray.
Beside the seat is a handy storage console. There were noise-cancelling headphones to use on the flight and a bottle of water in there.
My second shorter flight from Doha to Kuala Lumpur was also Qsuites, thank my lucky stars!
Amenities
I was expecting good amenities this trip and I was not disappointed. The amenity kit is by Diptyque, renowned for their skin care products and they are exclusively supplying the amenity kits for Qatar. The kit included socks/eye-mask, Diptyque skin care products, eau de toilette, etc. The contents were good but it’s the case itself that is my favourite. It is a smooth leather pouch that looks and feels great. I had been using an amenities kit I got from Thai Airways a few years ago as my daily driver for toiletries and it was definitely getting worse for wear. Now I use this case daily.
Another fun first for me was that I got a set of pyjamas, with Qatar Airways design. This includes a long sleeve shirt and pants and there were slippers as well. They were pretty comfy, I got into them right after dinner service and had them on most of the flight.
Thrown in with the bedding as an extra was this cute little pillow with a design of popular Qatar destination on the pillow case. I asked and was told I could keep the little pillow and pyjamas too. I imagine the Qsuites frequent flyers are probably competing to collect all the different Qatar destination pillows on offer.
As I had two flights I got all the amenities twice over, woohoo!
Service
The flight got off to a great start service-wise, with the crew buzzing around the cabin before takeoff, giving out welcome drinks and getting everyone settled in. My main attendant came and introduced herself and offered up bubbly/other drinks, to get the party started. She is Korean and gave kind and attentive service, it felt like she really cared. The chief flight attendant also came by and introduced herself and addressed me by name. That was a first for me and impressively she pronounced my last name fairly well. The second flight followed the same pattern, though my main flight attendant was not as much of a service superstar as on the first flight but still quite good.
One special touch the attendants did at meal service is that they would lay out a table cloth over the big table tray. Then they would put the individual food/drink items on the table tray, rather than just dumping a tray of stuff in front of you. It gave the meal a fine dining feel.
Both my flights were night flights so there was not a lot of service outside of the meals, but attendants would patrol every once in awhile and offer up drinks.
Meals/Drinks
There were two menus awaiting at the seat, one for the fine wine/spirits and one for the food and other drinks. They were proper, paper menus with several pages and were a pleasure to peruse and plan what to have. The drink selection was stellar from from premium spirits to bubbly and fine Bordeaux wines. Their signature welcome drink is lemon-mint juice, I found it refreshing.
My food experience was good, not great. My dinner and breakfast order was taken before we even left the ground in Toronto. I heard someone ordering just before me and they asked to start the dinner with the cheese tray, washing it down with the 20 year old port. This sounded like a champion move to me and I followed suit. I got the middle eastern meze for appetizer (very tasty) and steak as main. The steak choice was one of my biggest blunders of the trip. They lured me in by making it sound good, (grilled Ontario Angus ribeye) but good it was not. It was a fairly tasteless, hunk of meat, a little bit tough. It felt like it was more steamed than grilled or fried. In hindsight, I should have asked for one of the other entrees after my first couple of bites. For me, Air Canada is still the champ of the sky meals with their delicous, tender beef short ribs.
Qatar did redeem themselves on the second flight, where I selected the Qatari harmour machboos dish as my main. It was a flavourful rice dish with big chunks of fish in it. It reminded me of Indian biriyani rice but the flavour was deeper and really unique. I seldom order fish but this was a winner. Machboos is the Qatari national dish and it makes sense they would offer this one on flights leaving Doha.
Breakfast was big deal too and seemed like they had two or three courses there as well. Needless to say I was pretty stuffed after all this.
Lounge
I had around two hours between flights at the Doha airport, so once we landed I beelined over to the Qatar Business class lounge. This lounge was really something, by far the largest and most impressive lounge I have ever seen. The lounge is on the top floor of the airport and there is a birds eye view all around of this impressive airport. I quickly grabbed a drink and soaked in the view. I was still stuffed from the flight, so I was not interested in eating. Pity, because I think there was good food on offer, ala carte.
It was about 12 hours flight time from Toronto to Doha, so I thought a shower would be a great idea. I walked way over to the opposite side of the lounge where the showers were and inquired. There were a few people waiting ahead of me but I was given a beeper for when a shower room was available. In the mean time. I went and found the toilets. There were attendants in there and one called me over to a stall that was available. He said to hang on a minute outside as he went in there and gave it the once over. He was only in there a couple of minutes but he got everything spotless and even laid out a toilet paper covering for the toilet seat. Awesome!
After that, I had time for a bit of bubbly on the comfy chairs before my shower. It wasn’t long and the buzzer went off. I went in the shower room and, like the toilets, there were about 20 private stalls. The stall had a loads of fresh towels and toiletries. There was also a hair dryer, large mirror and bench. I had a great shower and felt much refreshed after this.
Landing
Just a quick note about arrival in Kuala Lumpur. I didn’t know it but at customs there is a separate priority line for arriving Business class passengers . Of course, I was pretty bedraggled after all the late-night flight time and did not think about or notice any special line and I went in the regular line, along with thousands of other people. After over an hour in line, I finally got to the agent. He noticed my Business class ticket and told me, next time take the priority line. Doh, could have saved myself quite a lineup headache!
Cost
As I mentioned, I cycled through a couple of RBC credit cards to get the bulk of the points for this booking. For card annual fees, that was $120 x 2=$240. The taxes and fees for the booking were $495. I have to admit that stung a little, as it is certainly much higher than I have ever paid on an Aeroplan points booking for fees. Qatar/British Airways are noted for their higher fees. Still, I was only out $735 CAD for the best flight experience of my life. I would take that deal again in a heartbeat.
Total points for the booking was 95,000 Avios points at the saver rate. I booked it on the Qatar Airways website. There is a bit of points wizardry required to get the RBC Avion points over to Qatar Air Avios, just ask me if you want to know more about it.
Total distance flown YYZ-DOH-KUL = 16,810 kms
Total flight time YYZ-DOH-KUL = 12.75 + 7.25 = 18 hours
Conclusion
I had this plan simmering away on the back burner for two to three years and it felt great when it finally came to fruition. As Qsuites is one of the best flight experiences available from Canada to Asia, it was at the very top of my wish list. I am so glad I put in the time and effort as it was awesome. From the service, the spectacular Doha lounge, good amenities and the real star of the show the Qsuite seats, this was an outstanding experience.
Let me know if you have flown the Qsuites or something equally good, I would love to hear about it.