Dramatically cut your taxes with long-haul Iberia redemptions

When an Avios collector in the UK looks for a long-haul redemption, British Airways is the obvious choice of airline.  There are, of course, also BA’s partner airlines in the OneWorld alliance to choose from.  Often overlooked, though, is BA’s sister company Iberia.

Now, there are good reasons why Iberia may not be top of your list.

Reason No 1 is route network.  IB has recently cut flights to a lot of places you might want to go (Montreal, Toronto, Washington, Johnannesburg) to add extra flights to places that are probably not top of your list (Mauritania was the latest long-haul launch!).

Here are Iberia’s non-European destinations, as best as I can make out (please post in the Comments with any changes).  Note that not all of these will be on a long-haul aircraft, especially the routes into northern Africa.

• Africa – Accra, Algiers, Casablanca, Dakar, Luanda, Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), Oran
• North America – Chicago, Miami, New York, Boston, Los Angeles
• South America – Bogota, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Guatemala City, Guayaquil (Ecuador), Havana, Lagos, Lima, Mexico City, Montevideo, Mauritania, Panama City, Quito, Rio do Janeiro, San Jose (Costa Rica), San Juan (Puerto Rico), San Salvador, Santiago, Santo Domingo, Sao Paulo
• Asia – none
• Middle East – Cairo, Tel Aviv

All are ex-Madrid.  (Barcelona to Miami is actually an AA codeshare.)

Reason No 2 to avoid IB is reputation.  You should bear this in mind, ex Wikipedia:

Suffering from more customer complaints than any other full-service carrier in Europe, Iberia has developed a negative overall brand image from the general public and a reputation for poor customer service. In 2011, reflecting very low customer satisfaction ratings, Iberia was ranked #10 in a Business Insider poll for “The 10 Worst Airlines in the World.” Also, passengers rated Iberia a mere 3.3 out of 10 on Skytrax’s website, depicting its services as poor. It is also not a Skytrax Quality Approved airline, especially given that between 2007 and 2012, Skytrax’s rating for Iberia’s cabin crews has fluctuated between two and three stars, well below the ratings of other European airlines’ cabin crews

Reason No 3 is a lack of First Class and a slightly ropey business class seat.  60 inch pitch, 26 inch width and 170 degrees of recline compares poorly to BA’s 73 inch pitch, 20 inch width (worse) and fully-flat 180 degree recline.  IB’s long haul fleet is primarily Airbus A340’s, which have four engines and are fuel inefficient, although some A330’s are on order I believe.

However, let’s put all that aside and get down to a good reason why you SHOULD fly Iberia – money.

IB does not charge the full range of airport taxes and fuel surcharges imposed by BA.

Let’s look at Madrid to New York in Business Class, return.  IB (via iberia.com on an IB plane) will charge 80,000 Avios plus £89.  A BA redemption (via ba.com on a BA plane) on the same route costs 80,000 Avios plus £520!  That is, by any stretch, a big difference.

Now, of course all is not plain sailing:

• From the UK, you need to fly to Madrid.  Howevever, if you are not based in London you will be taking a connecting flight anyway.  And the saving probably justifies not flying direct from London.
• The London to Madrid flight cannot be booked on the same itinerary as the Madrid to New York flight or you will be obliged to pay UK Air Passenger Duty at the long-haul rate.  Since you will have separate tickets, IB is not obliged to look after you if you miss your long-haul flight – although if you fly IB from London, it is very unlikely they would abandon you if the delay was down to them.
• A flight from London to Madrid, return, costs 15,000 Avios and £27 in Economy – but that is hardly making a great dent in your £431 saving.
• For comparison, booking London-Madrid-New York and back via Iberia Avios on one ticket costs £273 in taxes, flying economy short-haul and business long-haul.  This is still £250 cheaper than using BA, but £157 more than if you book LHR-MAD and MAD-NYC as separate tickets.
• Iberia reward availability is not great as they fly far fewer seats to New York than BA

Note that, to get the £89 of taxes, you must book on the Iberia website and use Iberia Avios.  If you try to book this itinerary on the BA website, BA will add fuel surcharges.  This means that you need to open an Iberia Plus Avios account.  Most importantly, you need to open it 90 days before you want to book, since you cannot transfer BA Avios or avios.com points into Iberia Plus Avios if the IB account is under 90 days old.  (And this little wheeze is probably why.)  Your IB account may also need to have had an Avios earning transaction put through it (credit a flight segment or a car hire or hotel) to class it as ‘active’ and thus qualifying to receive incoming transfers – the relevant rule in ‘Combine My Avios’ is not totally clear.

(Intriguingly, booking a BA redemption via the Iberia website also brings up a modest taxes saving.  A New York redemption drops from £520 in taxes to £499.  However – and very importantly – Iberia does not allow cancellations to OneWorld partner bookings, and I assume BA is treated as such.  I also tried to replicate it on Bangkok and Cairo, but in those cases the taxes were idential to BA’s.)

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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 Mastercard

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

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.