We booked our flights home using British Airways Avios. The cost was 100k Avios plus $64.50 in fees per person. I thought that was pretty good for halfway around the world in Qatar Airways business class. Our second and longest flight would be in QSuites, but this shorter overnight from Bali to Doha was on the A350-900 with reverse herringbone seats.

Boarding in Bali was a bit of a mess. They called business class after pre-boarding, but it seemed like half the plane was boarding anyway. On the bright side, we were running on time at that point.

Business class was almost full. The seat was comfortable, but there was not much storage space. Unlike QSuites, there are no doors on these seats. We had the middle two in a 1-2-1 configuration and there are no overhead bins in the center, but also no air vents.

QR961 A350-900 DPS-DOH
Scheduled: 00:10-04:55 (-5 hours)
Actual: 00:39-04:57 (-5 hours)

We were given pajamas and an amenity kit soon after boarding. I decided to go ahead and change into my pajamas as boarding was taking longer than expected. They were a bit baggy but comfortable.

The amenity kit was from Dyptique and it was in a box rather than reusable bag. Other than the usual socks, eye mask, and dental kit, there were some potions and lotions. The flights from Doha feature a proper reusable kit bag.

We were delayed a bit because a passenger decided not to fly and the airline had to find their bag. It got me a little concerned because we only had a couple of hours on our layover, but in the end we made up the time.

We took a look at the menus while we waited.

This flight featured late night dining followed by breakfast which made sense given the departure time. The flight attendants took our drink and dinner orders before takeoff. We were also offered a pre-departure beverage and I had some champagne. We finally took off and my old-fashioned showed up fairly quickly along with warm mixed nuts.

Our late night dining choices arrived next. I ordered the noodle soup and the cheesecake, but by the time they got to us, they had run out of cheesecake. We were only in row 3 so I guess they didn’t load many servings. The soup was actually tasty, but sadly a bit lukewarm.

At that point, we had the flight attendants make up our beds and we tried to get some sleep. I actually found this seat very comfortable for sleeping. Controversially, I think it is better than QSuites in that respect. It’s a much smoother surface. QSuites has a lot of lumps and bumps even with the mattress pad.

I slept solidly for about four hours as we made our way across India. When I woke up, I finished watching season 2 of Silo on my iPad. I decided on a light breakfast as we still had the lounge in Doha and the QSuites flight to come.

I got the yogurt with granola and then the chia pudding. I also enjoyed an iced latte.

As we came into land at Doha, I watched the tail camera and the nose camera.

We landed basically on time and had a fairly short taxi. Unfortunately, we landed at a bus gate, but we were offloaded onto a business class bus which was not too full. The flight was pretty good – decent food, comfortable bed, and excellent service. We were looking forward to our long QSuites flight to follow.

We made it to transfer security fairly quickly and got through in a couple of minutes. The transfer experience in Doha was much better than in Hong Kong. As our gate for the Atlanta flight was basically in the middle of the C Concourse, I decided we had time to try the Al Mourjan Garden Lounge as it had not yet opened a couple of years ago when we last passed through Doha. We took the train to the north end of the airport toward the lounge.

Up Next: Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Garden Lounge Doha Review

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