Qatar Airways and Philippine Airlines are expanding their codeshare partnership from 1st June 2026, and buried within the announcement is something genuinely useful for British Airways Executive Club members: a functional, if indirect, pathway to spend Avios on Philippine Airlines flights, including domestic island routes within the Philippines. That is worth paying attention to.

The headline expansion is straightforward enough. Philippine Airlines will place its PR code on Qatar Airways flights departing Manila, Cebu, Clark, and Davao to Doha, connecting onward to more than 20 European cities, Paris, Rome, and Frankfurt among them, via Hamad International Airport. In the other direction, Qatar Airways places its QR code on Philippine Airlines domestic services, meaning passengers landing in Manila or Cebu can connect through to leisure destinations including Caticlan, the gateway to Boracay, and Puerto Princesa in Palawan. Operationally, that tidies up what was previously a self-connect mess for anyone routing through Doha to the outer islands.

What does this mean for British Airways Avios members?

Here is where it gets interesting, and also where I want to temper expectations. Avios is a shared currency across six airline loyalty programmes: Aer Lingus AerClub, British Airways Executive Club, Finnair Plus, Iberia Plus, Loganair, and Qatar Airways Privilege Club. Transfers between these schemes operate at a 1:1 ratio. Crucially, transfers to and from Qatar Airways Privilege Club must be routed via British Airways Executive Club. So if you are sitting on a pile of BA Avios, you can move them to Qatar’s Privilege Club, and from 1st June 2026, those points should be spendable on Philippine Airlines flights. In theory, that means Boracay or Palawan on Avios, which, for travellers of Filipino heritage based in the UK especially, is genuinely new.

The precedent here is solid. When British Airways and Iberia formalised cross-programme Avios transfers following the formation of International Airlines Group, it established the template for exactly this kind of cascading loyalty network. Qatar Airways joining the Avios ecosystem extended that template further east, and this Philippine Airlines tie-up is a logical continuation of that same logic.

Privilege Club’s partnership with Philippine Airlines Mabuhay Miles is, according to the press release, the 26th airline partnership for the Qatari programme. Mabuhay Miles members gain access to Qatar’s full network, including destinations across Africa and Europe, while Privilege Club members can earn and spend Avios across Philippine Airlines routes in Australasia, Southeast Asia, and the United States.

Should BA members actually get excited?

Cautiously, yes. But I want to be direct about the gaps in the information released so far. The announcement contains no published earn or redemption rates for Avios on Philippine Airlines flights. That matters enormously. Previous Avios partner launches, Finnair being the well-documented example, have produced earn rates on economy fares so restrictive that they largely negated the benefit for most travellers. Without an award chart or at least a published redemption rate, it is impossible to say whether spending Avios on a Cebu-to-Caticlan hop represents good value or a quietly expensive redemption dressed up as a perk.

Qatar Airways described this as its 26th airline loyalty partnership, framing the Privilege Club’s growing footprint in South East Asia as an expansion of the options available to members to earn and spend Avios across a wider range of destinations.

Who benefits most from the new Qatar Airways Philippine Airlines route expansion?

The codeshare expansion is probably of most practical use to travellers based in Europe routing to the Philippines via Doha. Having PR and QR codes aligned on through-itineraries from cities like Paris or Frankfurt to Manila, and then onward to Boracay or Palawan under a single booking, removes a lot of the friction that comes with self-connecting across separately ticketed legs. That is a genuine improvement, not a marketing invention.

For the British traveller specifically, London to Doha is already well-served by Qatar Airways, and Hamad International Airport remains one of the more functional transit hubs for long-haul connections. The addition of coordinated domestic segments within the Philippines, under the Qatar code, means fewer separate bookings and, if the airlines deliver on alignment, a simpler claims process if something goes wrong.

The loyalty piece is the more exciting development, though its real-world value remains unproven until earn and spend rates are published and live bookings can be tested after 1st June 2026. For BA members with significant Avios balances and a trip to the Philippines in mind, this is worth monitoring closely over the coming weeks.

From 1st June 2026, Qatar Airways and Philippine Airlines are expanding their codeshare to cover more than 40 destinations and linking their loyalty programmes, Privilege Club and Mabuhay Miles, for reciprocal earn and spend. For British Airways Executive Club members, the practical implication is an indirect but real ability to spend Avios on Philippine Airlines flights, including domestic routes to Boracay and Palawan, via a transfer to Qatar’s Privilege Club.