I wanted to visit some friends in the Middle East in June 2025, and it was a good opportunity to have a few meetings for future work. Once I mentioned to a client that I was going to be in the area they offered me some work, so now I had a number of reasons for a trip. But this trip was going to be quite special, with a few surprises thrown in. I booked a few treats for myself to make this trip interesting, and a mini-war kicked off halfway through the trip, meaning my flight home was changed, for the better. As there’s quite a lot to this, I’ve broken this trip report into 4 parts, plus a bonus article comparing the 3 major airlines in the middle east that I used to get around. Read on to learn all about it.
Why take 3 flights when you can take 6?
My best friend lives with his wife and kids in Abu Dhabi, and I have other friends there and in Dubai. He and I had agreed we’d do a trip to Dubai, without the family, at some point, so Dubai was the first starting point for my trip. I’d then get a lift with my friend to Abu Dhabi, after which I’d need to fly to Muscat for the job and then I could go home.
I decided this was going to be the trip to use up my BA Avios points and vouchers, making it very cost efficient and making sure I didn’t lose out on those perks. Since my last trip, the annual reset has happened, and I didn’t make it to Gold on the old system, so I’ve now got BA Silver status, equivalent to One World Sapphire.
To do this trip in the simplest way possible, I could fly direct to Dubai, then fly from Abu Dhabi to Muscat and finally direct from Muscat back home again. If I did this, it would have to be a British Airways open jaw ticket from London to Dubai and Muscat to London. Then I’d buy a local ticket in between. But this was not to be.
Booking
The first thing I learned was that whilst you can buy open jaw tickets with vouchers, you have to phone up to do that. I was determined to find a way I could do it without having to make a long and boring phone call, so I started looking at other options.
The voucher I was intending to use was a Barclaycard cabin upgrade voucher. This is valid for one person to upgrade an Avios booking in both directions. My intention was to book a business class trip using the voucher, which means I would be paying the cost of premium economy, and the voucher would upgrade me to business.
The problem I came across very quickly was the lack of available avios seats, given this was about a month before flying, which is not always the best way to do this. Still, I was determined, and I managed to find an option that would work.
My first solution
Book a return flight from London to Dubai using the voucher, then it would be 2 short additional flights from Abu Dhabi to Muscat and Muscat back to Dubai. Not a problem as the short haul routes are very well covered with both major and budget airlines, I would find something affordable easily enough.
However, the client took a lot of time to confirm the booking, and I wasn’t going to book all my flights until I knew exactly what I was doing, unfortunately the flights I wanted sold out, so this solution was not no longer viable.
My second solution
There were seats available later in the week, so next solution was exactly the same but to come home three or four days after I intended to. However, this would result in an extended stay in Dubai for no reason and would cost me in hotels, so again I decided not to do this.
I did look at the option of flying to Muscat first instead and then hopping up to Dubai for a few days and hopping back down again, but there were no seats there either.
I even looked at flying somewhere like Riyadh and seeing if there was an option there, again nothing really worked. So, in the end I looked at Doha.
My final solution
As Doha is the main hub for Qatar airlines, it’s an extremely well serviced route from London with plenty of Qatar flights and of course a couple of BA flights as well. My voucher could only be used on BA flights, so I couldn’t take a Qatar flight with the voucher, but it turned out the British Airways route had plenty of seats available and I was able to book my ticket with my voucher.
With the long-haul part booked, (flights number 1 and 6) I then needed to get from Doha to Dubai, then to my other destinations and back to Doha again to get home.
The short legs
Doha to Dubai
Qatar was the obvious airline choice for this, and they operate a number of flights to both Dubai, DXB, and Sharjah, SHJ, which is only 20mins away from DXB.
One of the great things about the partnership with Qatar and British Airways is you can spend your BA Avios points on Qatar directly without even doing a transfer of points. You need to create your own Qatar account, then link it with your British Airways account and the points can then be exchanged in either account.
My British Airways flight was landing in Doha early in the morning, so many of the flights to Dubai would work. However, they left quite early in the morning not leaving me a lot of time between flights, which would be a problem if I was delayed. As these flights would not be connected, it was wise to leave some breathing room between flights.
There were no flights to DXB around lunch time, but there was a flight to Sharjah. I looked at this option and it would add 20mins to my taxi ride, but that’s ok for the safety of getting a flight later in the day.
When it came to booking, I was going to use my Avios to get myself a low-cost flight. It turned out that booking in first class was quite affordable, remember that they don’t have business class on short haul, they only have economy and first, I’ll explain more about that later. It wasn’t going to be in an A350 with a Q-suite like it would be if I was going to DXB, it was only going to be an A320. But they still have nice proper seats on them, not like European business class which is just economy seats with space around them.
Plus, the added bonus that travelling in first class should grant me access to the first-class lounge, something I’ve not yet done at Doha. With a 7 hour turn around I should have plenty of lounge time a good opportunity to explore.
Abu Dhabi to Muscat
The logical option here is the main airline at Abu Dhabi, Etihad. I’ve never flown with Etihad before, so I was quite excited to try them. The price of an economy ticket to Muscat, given it’s only a one-hour flight, was very reasonable so I went ahead and booked. They did offer business class option, but the price was ludicrous, almost 10 times the amount of the economy ticket.
However, Etihad do offer some interesting perks. For a slight increase of price, I could buy the deluxe ticket, which came with things like priority access for checking in and I believe a faster process through the airport, (I never got to find out).
I wouldn’t get lounge access with this ticket, but I did have my priority pass lounge tickets to use up, which is resetting in a few months anyway, so I needed to use them. I discovered that the main Etihad lounge was also the one Priority Pass use, so I should have got my lounge access there.
They did offer the option to upgrade, and they had a bid to upgrade system. I decided to go for the bid and try the trick I’ve done many times before, which is to take the bid setting to the lowest possible amount and then go one step above. Meaning I should get it above anyone who bids the lowest amount but again I’ve not put huge amounts of money in, only about £100, which I think is reasonable for an upgrade on a short haul flight.
Muscat to Dubai
For this leg there were a number of budget options, but if you have read the rest of my articles, you will know I don’t like flying budget, so the mainstream airlines here are Emirates or Oman Air. The Emirates flights were not at great times or very expensive, so I went with Oman Air.
The booking system was very similar to Etihad’s, and it gave me the option for a priority booking, where I could use the business class check in area to speed up my process through the airport. And again, they offered upgrades via a bidding system. I decided not to use the bidding system initially on this flight, (I did later on in my trip) and again the main lounge would be accessible with my priority pass so I shouldn’t have a problem.
This trip would be back to the main Dubai airport, DXB, and it was on the evening of my last day of work in Oman, so I put myself back in a hotel in Dubai for a night to give myself breathing room before my next flight.
Dubai to Doha
I allowed myself some down time in Dubai to get some work done, so I booked the flight back to Doha as the exact return of my outbound flight earlier from Sharjah. Again, simply because the timing was rather good. This would give me the best part of the day in Dubai and then get me into Doha in the evening. Again, I wanted to give myself breathing room in case something goes wrong, so another night stop was needed, this time at the Doha airport hotel.
My BA flight home was early the next morning getting in around lunchtime the next day, (or so I thought, read on to find out what actually happened).
Why did I not fly from Oman to Doha direct?
Honestly, my BA flight was always going to be almost 48 hours after I finished work, due to avios seat availability, so I needed to kill time somewhere. I like Dubai and staying in the Marina is very nice, plus the hotels in June are very affordable as it’s not peak season for tourists, given how hot it is. Short answer is I wanted to kill more time in Dubai than in Doha, even though I’m still having a one-night stop in Doha as well.
Booking summary
Day 1 – Depart London for Doha, BA Club Suite (business class) overnight.
Day 2 – Arrive in Doha early. Qatar flight in first to Dubai. (lots of lounge time hopefully)
Days 3-5 – With friends, ending up in Abu Dhabi, flight on Etihad to Oman in economy.
Day 6-7 – Working, flight on Oman Air, in economy back to Dubai.
Day 8 – Stay the day in Dubai, flight on Qatar back to Doha, again in first.
Day 9 – Early BA flight back to London, again in a Club Suite.
A total of 6 flights; 2 in Business class long haul, 2 in short haul first and 2 in economy.
It should also be 6 lounges to report on, plus a few bonus extras I’ve booked for myself.
And, my last flight would end up being cancelled, read on to learn what happened.
