For the home stretch I had a couple of flights on Qatar, and a long layover in Doha. 75,000 AA miles + $67, using the AAdvantage routing exception allowing North America – Africa via Doha if both legs are on Qatar. Otherwise your only option is through Europe.
The first flight was an easy daytime flight on their 787-8. It may not have had all the polish and privacy of SQ F earlier, but it was a very comfortable and I daresay fun flight. If you’re at all a fan of soccer, you’d appreciate
their safety video. The funky lighting and lower cabin altitude was appreciated. The plane:
The seats:
My layover in Doha was over nine hours- normally I’d try to see something, but this was from 11pm-8am so there wouldn’t have been anything open. I did have to take the obligatory photo of the teddy bear with a lamp stuck in its head:
Instead I opted to book an 8 hour rate at the hotel in the terminal, The Airport Hotel. It was pretty expensive at $200 for just that partial day (a few bucks less once I declined DCC and convinced them to charge in Riyal). You can get an 8 hour rate by booking a full day on the website and then emailing the hotel to change it. I heard people being quoted $400 at walk up. Yikes.
The room was nice, quiet and very peaceful, though. You can’t tell at all that you’re in an airport unless you open the shutters for an overview of the terminal. As it turns out, I was a bit ill at this stage so having the ability to lie down and rest during the layover was a huge plus. Otherwise, I’m not sure if I would’ve thought it was worth it. I used Arrival points to cover the booking.
The last flight from DOH-IAD was on Qatar’s 777-300ER, with a generic standard 2-2-2 layout. Service was good but ultra-long-haul of that distance is a slog no matter what. I’ll certainly be flying Qatar again in the future, especially with their helpful routing exceptions with AA. If I had thought ahead perhaps I would’ve tried to get on the A350 to PHL, but there’s always next time…
Thanks for reading the TR! I’m off on an Etihad adventure imminently. I’ll be sure to write that up too when I get a chance