Qatar Airways has just made it more difficult to book Qsuite for companions with your transferable credit card points

If you plan on transferring your credit card points to Qatar Airways Privilege Club to book the airline's award-winning Qsuite business-class product for family and friends, the program has just introduced two new restrictions you should be aware of.

Here's what you need to know about complying with the rules, as well as some work-arounds.

New restrictions on redeeming Avios for Qatar Airways Qsuite

While the ability to book redemptions for yourself as the Privilege Club account holder remains unchanged, if you wish to redeem your Qatar Airways Avios for friends and family, the program has brought in two potentially frustrating rules, effective immediately:

Your Privilege Club account must be at least 30 days old.
You must have credited at least one flight operated by Qatar Airways or a partner airline to the program or made a transaction on a Qatar Airways cobranded credit card.

Given that all transferable currencies transfer to either Privilege Club or one of the other Avios-using programs (like British Airways Club and Finnair Plus) that then allow you to easily transfer Avios into Privilege Club, savvy points and miles collectors have been able to keep their transferable points within their credit card, Rove or Bilt accounts until a great transfer bonus or award availability alert has come up so they can then book this legandary product all at once.

The first part of this new restriction is that if you don't already have a Privilege Club account, you won't be able to transfer points to Privilege Club and redeem immediately; instead, you'll need to wait 30 days before making a redemption. For this reason, we strongly recommend you sign up for a Privilege Club account now, even if you don't have any immediate travel plans (or perhaps are working toward your first credit card welcome bonus), so you'll have satisfied the 30-day account-opening minimum when you do go to book.

Privilege Club is free to join, and you can sign up online in minutes.

The second new restriction may potentially be tougher to satisfy, especially if you don't regularly fly Oneworld airlines. You could take a short domestic flight (paid with cash) on American Airlines or Alaska Airlines, depending on which carrier serves your local airport, and credit the flight to Privilege Club. Or, consider applying for a Qatar Airways-branded credit card.

If there is a silver lining to these changes, it's that you can add up to 10 companions to book redemptions from a single account: up to four people through the new "My List" option and up to six people through the "Family and Friends" option.

Qatar Qsuite A350-900 — ZACH GRIFF/THE POINTS GUY

Are there any work-arounds to the new Privilege Club restrictions?

These new restrictions only apply when you redeem Privilege Club Avios for flights for other people. If you are only redeeming Avios (or transferring credit card or other transferable currencies) to book flights for yourself, nothing changes, and you don't need to do anything extra.

Remember that if your friends or family have their own transferable currencies, they can book Qatar Airways flights with their points and miles transferred to Avios without any restrictions.

While saver-level Qsuite flights from North America to Doha's Hamad International Airport (DOH) cost just 70,000 Privilege Club Avios, an incredible deal for flights of up to 15 hours in length, you can also book Qsuite through the following partner programs for yourself or family and friends with no 30-day or flight credit requirements:

Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards (from 70,000 points)
British Airways Club (from 70,000 Avios, though availability tends to be poor)
JetBlue TrueBlue (from 83,000 points)

In our testing, Qsuite business class from North America to Doha is not generally available through Finnair Plus or American Airlines AAdvantage, even when seats are offered to other partners.

We recommend using the handy Seats.aero "Qatar Qsuite Finder Tool" to find the best Qsuite availability in seconds, whether through Privilege Club or a partner program.

Bottom line

This is a new, less-than-ideal — though not awful — restriction from Privilege Club when it comes to booking one of the best business-class products in the world with points and miles.

Regardless of whether you have immediate travel plans, we recommend signing up for a Privilege Club account as soon as possible to start the 30-day waiting period. Also consider crediting an inexpensive, short flight to the program on a Oneworld partner airline if you don't have a Qatar Airways cobranded credit card.

If you can't or don't wish to comply with these rules, you can also consider booking through a partner program, such as Alaska Airlines or JetBlue.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

Qatar Airways has just made it more difficult to book Qsuite for companions with your transferable credit card points