Qatar Airways’ Privilege Club members can now use their Qmiles to pay for their duty free shopping at Qatar Duty Free within Doha International Airport.

Privilege Club members can select from an extensive collection of fragrances, cosmetics and skincare, fashion accessories and jewellery, luxury gifts, electronics and gadgets, souvenirs at the award-winning Qatar Duty Free.

Passengers can make their purchases at Qatar Duty Free locations within the Departures, Arrivals and Premium Terminals at Doha International Airport.

Members can also purchase raffle tickets for the popular luxury car draws or the One Million Dollar draw with their Qmiles.

In addition, as an exclusive benefit, Privilege Club Gold members will enjoy a special discount on the Qmiles required for redemption on duty free purchases.

Qatar Airways Privilege Club members departing from Doha, travelling to Doha as their final destination or transferring at Doha International Airport to an onward connecting flight can make use of Qmiles redemption on duty free products of their choice.

Redeeming Qmiles while shopping is extremely easy as members are just required to present their Privilege Club membership card to the cashier at the checkout counter at Doha International Airport and their membership account will be debited automatically.

This option of redeeming Qmiles at Qatar Duty Free is an easy and alternative to flights with Qatar Airways or ‘buying’ products with their Privilege Club cards at the newly-opened Oryx Galleria retail showroom in Doha.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker explains: “It’s all about giving passengers greater choice and value for money and here is an example of how Qatar Airways is widening its service levels as the only airline to offer frequent flyers an option of instant redemption on duty free purchases,” said Al Baker.

“Over 80 per cent of our passengers are in transit through Doha and the shopping experience at Qatar Duty Free is exceptional. With the Qmiles redemption programme, Privilege Club members anywhere around the world have even more flexibility on purchases.”

Since launching 12 years ago, Qatar Airways’ Privilege Club has firmly established itself as one of the leading frequent flyer reward programmes in the industry. Qatar Duty Free is one of the fastest growing duty free operators in the world and is gearing up for further expansion when it moves to a new and bigger location at the New Doha International Airport, which is due to open by the end of 2012.

Qatar Airways operates a modern fleet of 107 aircraft to 113 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America.

As part of its 2012 expansion programme, Qatar Airways is launching flights to a further 11 destinations - Zagreb (Croatia) from May 9; Perth (Australia) from July 3 and other cities during the year, including Mombasa (Kenya), Zanzibar (Tanzania), Helsinki (Finland), Gassim (Saudi Arabia), Belgrade (Serbia), Erbil (Iraq), Baghdad (Iraq), Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) and Yangon (Myanmar).

In February, the carrier launched services to the Azerbaijan capital Baku and Georgia’s capital city of Tbilisi, and last month began flights to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda in East Africa.