Qatar Airways Adds “Airline Fuel Fee” on Velocity Redemptions

Update: As of the evening of 9 January 2026, Qatar Airways has removed the fuel surcharges from affected redemptions. The article below reflects the changes seen on 8 January 2026.

Redeeming your Velocity points for Qatar Airways may be even pricier, as Qatar Airways has added an “Airline fuel fee” on some redemptions. This is in addition to Velocity’s Reward Seat carrier charge on some reward seats.

For some redemptions, this raises the airline taxes, fees and carrier charges component to over $2,000 for one-way Business Class rewards.

Australian Frequent Flyer understands that Virgin Australia is actively investigating the issue, and the causes behind it.

The increase in costs is massive

Previously, charges on Qatar Airways flights from Australia to Europe (and vice versa) were already quite high.

For example, the co-payment was $803.82 for a one-way Perth-London ticket in Qatar Airways Business Class in May 2024.

Since Seats.aero uses cached data, we can also see that on 5 January 2026, you would pay $1,001 in taxes, fees and carrier charges for a Business Class ticket on Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia from Paris to Brisbane.

But now, when finding the exact same Business Class seat on the Velocity website, the taxes, fees and carrier charges component has jumped to an eye-watering $2,341:

Economy Class has not escaped the increase either, with a co-payment similar to the previous Business Class level.

So, why is this the case? It seems Velocity are passing on an “Airline fuel fee”, increasing the cost of some redemptions by over 100%:

Adding a fuel surcharge (or carrier charge) is ostensibly to help them to recoup the cost of providing reward seats. However, these often have little to do with the actual cost of fuel.

It’s worth noting that this does not affect some of the Virgin Australia-operated wet-leased flights from Australia to Doha.

Why did this happen?

At the time of writing, it appears that redemptions through British Airways and Qatar Airways Avios are currently unaffected. Other partners, such as American Airlines AAdvantage, traditionally don’t pass on surcharges and are also not affected by this recent change.

So, it’s unclear whether this is a temporary glitch, or a deliberate move by Qatar Airways to recoup more costs of providing reward seats to Velocity members. It’s worth noting that these fees rival the taxes, fees and carrier charges levied by Emirates on reward tickets, which are some of the highest in the industry.

What do you think about the fuel fees added to some Velocity redemptions? Let us know on the AFF forum!