Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get a 500 Avios points sign-up bonus from Iberia Plus

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Iberia Plus is currently offering 500 bonus Avios points when you sign up and have some account activity within 45 days.  This could be as simple as transferring 1,000 Amex points or some hotel points.

If you’re not a member, now is the time to join.

I continually stress on Head for Points that every reader should have an Iberia Plus account and should try to earn 1 Avios point in it.  Once you have earned 1 point and your account is 90 days old, you are allowed to transfer Avios points to and from British Airways and avios.com.

Iberia A330 350

The benefit of this is that, when Iberia runs a good promotion, you are in a position to take part.  They run occasional Avios redemption sales like this one which can be excellent value.

Iberia Plus redemptions are also the ONLY way to book yourself onto Vueling using Avios points.  There are also other exclusive Iberia partners such as Royal Air Maroc.

In any event, taxes on Iberia long-haul redemptions are 75% lower than taxes on British Airways long-haul redemptions – as long as you book them via iberia.com and not ba.com.  You can learn more about that here.

After the Avios devaluation, there will be another reason to book Iberia flights via Iberia Plus.  All Iberia redemptions via BA will be priced at ‘peak’ rates after April 28th.  Iberia redemptions will have peak and off-peak pricing – leading to large savings on off-peak dates – when booked via iberia.com.

If you’ve never opened an Iberia Plus account, this 500 Avios points bonus seems as good a reason as any.  Head over to iberia.com here.

You can generate some activity by transferring 1,000 Amex Membership Rewards points, crediting a BA or oneworld flight or crediting a car rental or hotel stay.  Unfortunately the e-rewards sign-up link, which was any easy way of banking 750 Avios points in Iberia, no longer works.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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.

Category

Iberia and Club Iberia Plus

Comments (40)

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

  • Justin says:
    12 Mar12 March 11:24

    Off topic: Can anyone remind if I earn Avios based on marketing carrier or operating carrier? E.g. Should I use AA or Finnair Avios table, if I fly on a AA-operated flight sold under AY code?

    • Rob says:
      12 Mar12 March 11:45

      oneworld is based on marketing carrier, Star Alliance by operating carrier.

      Leads to the odd position that if fly a Finnair flight with a Lufthansa codeshare on it, you can’t get miles in either programme! Fly a Lufthansa flight under a Finnair codeshare and you can claim miles in both!

  • Umberto says:
    12 Mar12 March 16:54

    I opened my account a couple of months ago to take advantage of the Economist 9000 avios offer. When the miles posted I also received 500 additional miles.

  • ADS says:
    12 Mar12 March 17:46

    This made me wonder what other frequent flyer accounts I should open ?

    A few weeks ago I was trying to move some points around for an upcoming reward flight, and one of the frequent flyer accounts (possibly US Airways) required it to be open for about a week before it would allow transfers. This rule meant I couldn’t get the reward flight I wanted – which again made me think that I should open lots of frequent flyer accounts!

    Any ideas ?

    • Rob says:
      12 Mar12 March 17:48

      Yes, the US airlines generally have a deadline before you can buy or transfer points, as does Avianca. That said, it is rare that you would need points quickly from scratch.

  • Tim says:
    12 Mar12 March 20:31

    It looks like I will get 800 Avios plusvthe 500 opening offer for downloading the Hailo app and entering my IB Plus number.
    Havent tried it yet but IB website suggests it wilk work

    • Liz says:
      12 Mar12 March 21:01

      Where did you enter your IB Plus number

      • Tim says:
        12 Mar12 March 21:06

        I am still figuring it out. I think it is the Spanish Hailo for Madrid and Barca that you need. I have only got as far as the London App. I will try again tomorrow, but google “Hailo Iberia plus” if yoh want to try yourself

        • Liz says:
          12 Mar12 March 21:28

          I’m trying that now – downloaded the link for iphone but it has put the app into iTunes – and I don’t know how to get it onto my phone from iTunes – I tried it before just downloading the app but it didn’t give any option to enter your IB number. duh! not great with iTunes technology!

          • Tim says:
            12 Mar12 March 22:23

            Ill let you know if andriod works

          • Tim says:
            12 Mar12 March 22:54

            An update to my investigations.
            Unfortunately Hailo only gives you an option to enter an IB Plus number if it thinks you are in Madrid.
            You have two possibilities here. The first is to go to Madrid. Not worth a special trip but if you are passing though anyway in the next 45 days that might be an option.
            The second is to trick the Hailo app into thinking you are in Madrid. If you are using andriod, you can do this using the ” fake GPS ” free app. You also need to turn off Wifi based location from settings and use settings/devloper optoons to enable “use mock location”.
            It took me 2 minutes to do this on my Andriod tablet. On launching the Hailo App the Add Iberia Account option appeared.

            Apparently the points take a week or two to arrive, so now I am waiting.

          • Tim says:
            12 Mar12 March 22:57

            I should add that I dont think faking a GPS locatoon on iOS is quite so easy. Not unless you have friends in the US military 🙂 Sorry Liz that this answer might not be useful to you.

          • Liz says:
            12 Mar12 March 23:41

            I could use my husbands android phone – what fake gps app did u download?

          • AndyGWP says:
            13 Mar13 March 09:10

            You could also use something called “Andy” which is an android emulator for the PC…

            just google: android emulator andy

            it’s the first result 🙂

          • Liz says:
            13 Mar13 March 09:26

            Thanks Tim – I’ll try it over the weekend!

          • Colin JE says:
            13 Mar13 March 14:53

            There isn’t a way to fake your gps location on iOS unless it’s jailbroken (not recommended for something like this!) but with Android I used the ‘Fake GPS’ app on Google Market. Found a position in Barcelona, then clicked ‘Start’, then went to my Hailo app and under my account the option to add an Iberia Plus was there. It took just over a week for the points to appear. This’ll work on the oldest Android too, so long as Hailo works on it.

          • Rob says:
            13 Mar13 March 15:46

            Amazing!

          • Tim says:
            13 Mar13 March 19:32

            I was certainly amazed at how easy it was. Btw keep up the good work

  • gs says:
    13 Mar13 March 09:40

    I assume that moving across avios from BA to IB does not reset the mileage expiration date on either side?

    • Colin JE says:
      13 Mar13 March 14:54

      I thought it did, or at least is away of protecting points about to expire. Or am I wrong folks?

  • AndyGWP says:
    14 Mar14 March 08:33

    Setup Iberia Plus account on Thursday
    Setup a first-time transfer to Iberia Plus on Thursday night (immediate)
    Transferred points
    Points arrived Friday
    Bonus arrived today

    Can’t believe how quick and easy that was. As mentioned earlier, I have spent weeks going back and forth with Iberia customer service on how to get my wifes account with it’s paltry 220 points in over to her married name. This was so much easier.

    As always, thanks Raffles 🙂

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