Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

How to buy Avios points for 0.83p via Iberia Plus

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A very interesting opportunity has popped up on the Iberia Plus website which allows you to (effectively) buy Avios for 0.83p each.

First, let me say that you can ONLY take part in this if you have an Avios balance in Iberia Plus already or you have an Iberia Plus account which is over 90 days old.

(If you don’t have an Iberia Plus account which is 90 days, then you can’t take part.  I have mentioned on a number of occasions on Head for Points that you should have an Iberia Plus account for occasions such as this.  If you don’t have a 90-day old Iberia Plus account, the only thing you can do is to open one now so you can benefit from similar deals in the future.)

Iberia new 2

Anyway, assuming you do have an Iberia Plus account which is over 90 days old, this is the deal:

Iberia Plus is offering a 50% bonus if you transfer your Avios points from one Iberia Plus account to another. 

This bonus runs until January 5th.

Most airlines allow you to transfer your points from one person to another.  However, they always charge a fat fee for this, and the fee usually makes the transaction pointless – especially as you can always redeem for another person from your own account anyway.

This offer is different though.  Here are Iberia’s transfer fees:

1 – 6,000 Avios – €30

7,000 – 12,000 Avios – €75

13,000 – 18,000 Avios – €115

19,000 – 24,000 Avios – €160

These prices are crazy, but that is Iberia for you.  What is point of charging you more per Avios for a larger transaction?!

But remember – until 5th January, you receive a 50% bonus on the Avios you transfer!

Transferring 6,000 Avios from one Iberia Plus account to another will generate a 3,000 Avios bonus.  The transfer will cost €30.  This means you are paying €30 for 3,000 Avios, so 1 cent per Avios (0.83p).

Assuming that your Iberia Plus account is empty, you will need to transfer Avios across from British Airways or avios.com to do this.  However, only Iberia Plus accounts which are over 90 days old can use ‘Combine My Avios’.  This is why you cannot take part in this promotion unless you have a old Iberia Plus account.

You will, of course, need another Iberia Plus account in the name of someone else.  This is so you can transfer your Avios to that person to generate the bonus.  That person can then either send the Avios points back to you, or move them back into their own BA or avios.com account.  (They would have to wait 90 days to do this if it was a new Iberia Plus account.)

To find this offer, you need to:

a) go to iberia.com and log in to Iberia Plus

b) under the Iberia Plus menu, select ‘My Iberia Plus’

c) in the left hand menu, you will see ‘Buying or transferring Avios’ at the bottom

There is obviously a bit of faffing around to do here, but – fundamentally – it should be very straightforward.  As long as you are transferring in chunks of 6,000 Avios each time, you will be paying just 0.83p per ‘new’ Avios generated.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (55)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Ryan says:

    The bands above only specify avios to the thousand. Can you only transfer avios in units of 1000 or is there an opportunity to squeeze a little more value out by transferring, say, 6999 avios at a time?

  • Frank says:

    i have an iberia plus account which i have registered 12/08/2013 but no sight of the ‘combine my avios’ function?! where do i find that. i was told it should appear on the movements and balances page, but no.

    • thesaver79 says:

      Not sure where it is in the Iberia site, but you don’t need it. You can do it from your BAEC account.

    • Trevor says:

      Have you earned any avios in IBPlus? Your account needs to be active.

  • Frank says:

    nope, never earned any avios on that IBPlus account. i am taking part in the current ‘get into shape promo’ (15 avios per day), but none of them have been credited.

    any other ideas how to quickly activate my IB account?

  • littlefish says:

    On the face of it, this is just about a worthwhile offer for someone like me with a household account in BAEC. But I will tread with caution:
    I will need to open an IB+ account for my wife, to transfer in to.
    I will need to factor in this is IB plus and things are not often very straight-forward .
    I will probably do two lots of 6,000 (if the first one works).
    In other words, 2 x 3000 avios bonus is a worthwhile load for me given the current household total avios balance.
    Now .. all I need to hear is reports of this actually working 🙂

  • thesaver79 says:

    I activated a new account under someone else’s name to transfer back and forth.

    When I go to the page you indicated, I get: “We are sorry to inform you that this service is not available. If you have any questions, please consult your service centre.”

    Does it take a while for an account to be fully active (not talking about the 90 days for Combine My Avios)?

  • thesaver79 says:

    Has someone actually tested this? Do the Avios get transferred immediately?

    Being Iberia, I’m just worried they may end up stuck somewhere…

  • Trevor says:

    Two things to mention regarding this offer:

    1. Raffles normally values Avios at 0.75p each, while som eothers of us at closer to 1p each (the former the value for long haul, the latter for short haul), so this offer give a purchase value somewhere in the middle. If it is simply swapped cash for Avios at face value, is this offer really worth it? I prefer to see a large ROI when I buy Avios of at least a few hundred %.

    2. Maybe, like me, there are some others out there who didn’t immediately appreciate what Raffles meant when he said: “What is [the] point of charging you more per Avios for a larger transaction?!” I didn’t read into it that the actual cost per Avios was more; I simply assumed at first that Raffles was referring to paying more for transferring more – normally the case. So I just want to explicitly state (for those who feel this is really a worthwhile deal): ONLY do this in batches of 6,000 Avios as the cost per Avios is higher for greater volumes.

    • Rob says:

      I am not a buyer at this price for the reason you state. However, depending on how you redeem, you may be. This is also an excellent price for ‘marginal’ Avios to top off your balance.

    • Richie says:

      In reference to point 1 Trevor , the value really depends on what you need. To be honest I’m now in a situation where I have enough avios for what I need this year and as I will only use for upgrades from WTp to club I will earn a similar amount of avios on each flight. Topped up with 10 or so short haul returns a year this will in turn get me enough avios for next year.. But for someone who is new to the game and trying to get a good starter balance. I would say this is a pretty good deal..

  • Manuel says:

    The points of the getintoshape posted form the past weeks.

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