Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

‘50% off Avios redemptions’ sale on Iberia – Europe plus New York, Miami, Chicago included

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Iberia Plus has launched an amazing HALF-PRICE sale on Avios redemptions! This applies to both Economy and Business seats.

There are some excellent deals to be had here, even though you need to change in Madrid.

Business Class from Madrid to New York is just 40,000 Avios plus €172! This compares with 80,000 Avios and £500 for a similar British Airways flight booked on Avios!

Avios wing 6

(The taxes figure is not reduced – €172 is the standard taxes number for a long-haul Iberia redemption booked via iberia.com. It is shocking, frankly, that if you try to book exactly the same redemption on the same plane via ba.com they will charge you £500!)

Note that the Iberia website, on the promos page, still shows the December offers with different discounts. However, do a dummy booking and the deals below will show.

Let’s look at the small print:

Book by January 7th

Fly by April 8th

Valid on ALL European routes flown by Iberia and Iberia Express

Valid on the following long haul routes:
New York
Chicago
Miami
Bogota
Quito
Guayaquil

You must book via iberia.com. This means that you must have an ACTIVE Iberia Plus account, ie one that has been open for 90 days and has earned at least 1 Avios.

As long as you have an active Iberia account, you can transfer over the Avios you need from avios.com or BA using ‘Combine My Avios’.

You have one decision to make when booking. If you book from London to, say, New York on one ticket then you incur UK Air Passenger Duty at the long-haul rate – your taxes rise to €360 return in Business. If you book London to Madrid on a separate ticket to Madrid to New York, your taxes will be a lot lower. However, you then lose your legal rights to be put on another flight if your inbound flight is delayed.

To be honest, I would be happy to be on separate tickets on the basis that both flights are on Iberia, but you may think differently.

When it comes to seat, you may be lucky and get the new Iberia fully flat business class seat, which I reviewed here.

You may also be unlucky and get the old sloping seat. However, at these prices, you can’t really complain.


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 (57)

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

  • e14 says:

    Two points
    1) check if two one ways are cheaper for taxes
    2) try and book your flight from the same terminal at Madrid t4s to t4 is a schlep, the lounge in T4 is poor, and some of the UK flights leave all the way at the end of the T4 terminal

    We did this last year on the SJO to MAD flights for 25k and circa €30 per person

  • Worzel says:

    Maybe the Avios.com ‘Unmissable Sale’ on Monday will be more interesting than 1st thought??

  • Nick says:

    Could someone explain in detail?

    If I want to book Lhr to JFK, must I book 2 separate tickets?

    Lhr to mad return and the mad to JFK return?

    • Rob says:

      No, you can book it as one ticket. However, the tax will be roughly £100 higher than booking 2 separate tickets as you will have to pay long haul Air Passenger Duty in the UK.

      Booked separately, you only pay short haul Air Passenger Duty (or, if you book via ba.com for LHR to Madrid, none at all as it is rolled up in the Reward Flight Saver fee).

  • Aceman says:

    What’s the easiest way to earn 1 avios in Iberia? Or am I stuck crediting a short flight to them?

  • Chris says:

    Anyone having difficulties searching for availability? Mine keeps coming up with:

    ‘We have encountered some difficulty in dealing with this booking. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask you to please try again after a few minutes. If the error persists please contact us.’

    Any suggestions?

    • Ben says:

      Same for me… Tried a few route/date combinations yesterday and got the same response. I’ve got 15 avios in there, do you need enough to cover the flights with IB?

      • Simon says:

        You don’t need enough to cover the flights, I’ve got 240 Avios in IB and have had search results come back ok, I’ve also had the above error though. IB isn’t the best website.

      • EvilGazebo says:

        No, it’s not the lack of Avios. I’ve had this intermittently for weeks. Just did one search OK but now all failing. Same in different browsers.

        • Gill says:

          I get this all the time.
          Does availability show up on BA or AA? Can you find it there and then phone to book?

        • Chris says:

          Any way of fixing this I.T wise, as I’d quite like to check for these flights. Thanks

          • What's the Point says:

            Iberia.com is a terrible website to check/redeem Avios availability. I have tried on/off for around 5 months now, and almost constantly get the same error message as Chris.
            Plus another message about the return flight has to be after the departure date (something wrong with how they have the date selector set up I reckon)

        • Matthew says:

          I’ve finally sussed the problem with searching availability on the Iberia site. The problem occurs when you login then use the link on the Iberia plus drop down menu to search for flights using avios. The error is because it converts your dates to US format (ie 06/27/24) and then the search fails. The solution is to login, then use the standard book flights on the menu or homepage and select ‘pay with avios’ or something similar. Then the availability loads. Hope that helps!

          • Chris says:

            Great work Matthew. Thanks!!!!

          • susan says:

            Great catch Matthew. Now if you can suggest a way to make the Alitalia site work less like a constipated diplodocus…….

  • James67 says:

    At moment almost all my points sitting in tesco and MR. Were something like this slso to appear at BA would I most lijely be faster trabsferring clubcard or MR points to take advantage of it? Would you agree that unlessany BA redemption sale was better than 20% discount it might be a better to sit tight and bet on s transfer bonus to generate avios that could be used without sale restrictions? Given I have no specific travel goal in the short term that I wouldn’t be happy to pay cash for, sitting tight seems to make more sense for me personally unless I am overlooking something obvious

    • Rob says:

      Clubcard points go across faster than Amex, unless you have previously done an Amex transfer.

      First- time Amex to BA can take 4-5 days, subsequent transfers are 1-2 days.

    • CV says:

      The cynic in me thinks that after the forthcoming Avios sale with lots of avios spent we might see a Clubcard/Avios promo again. Although the Iberia offers looks great its not much use to me as i have flights booked for Feb and doing another before April doesn’t appeal.

      As a guess i expect the Avios sale will be along similar lines to this, so if there is the potential to redeem avios for a flight then it may be worthwhile to convert Clubcard/MR points now, reason being availability will drop day by day whilst waiting on points showing up in Avios/BA account.

      • Londonbus says:

        I agree. Clubcard sale for Avios in 2012 ran in Jan/ Feb and Jun 2012.

        The Clubcard quarter ends on 25 January. Its 18 months since the last promotion (50% bonus on transfer) – what are the chances of another one now?

        • James67 says:

          Thanks all, I think I will sit tight in hope of tranfer bonus. CVs comme t encasulates my dilemna of past year. However, I would hope that BA might drpfeed availability throughout any award sale so that members dont get frustrated with seats dring up on first day but probably wishful thinking on my part. Ironically BKK which I usually use as my entry point for Asia might now start showing good availability due to political unrest just at a time I don’t need a flight.

          • CV says:

            This will be the first year that i won’t be going to BKK during chinese new year (via KL), i also had the same thoughts about bargain hotels/flights! But was also surprised to see what good value IHG hotels are in BKK when redeeming points.

          • James67 says:

            I have found Hat Yai to be a very pleasant and enjoyable city to spend Chinese New Year. Can take a daytime VIP bus north through Malaysia from KL or fly with Air Asia. Beach at Songkhla is huge and white with few western tourists. Also some nice countryside around to explore.

  • Chris says:

    I have 24k in there. I am going to transfer a few more and try again……

  • EvilGazebo says:

    Gutted as I have 4 x one ways to MIA in C already booked. Could theoretically save 100K avios rebooking but no availability. Curses!

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