Iberia Plus is currently offering a 30% bonus on purchases of Avios points. This deal runs until 13th April, see here for further details.
Note that you need to log-in to see details of the bonus offer. Without logging in, the page just shows the standard pricing.
At the top end, you will be paying Euro 655 for 45,500 Avios (35,000 + 30%). That works out at 1.22p per Avios, based on £557. You would need to add a 3% foreign exchange fee to this price if your credit card has one.
I would not be a buyer at this price, personally. This is cheaper than buying Avios via BAEC or avios.com – which are not currently on sale – where you will pay £447 for 27,000 (1.66p). However, you must have been an Iberia Plus member for 90 days before you can transfer Avios across to BA. It is also a lot more expensive than picking up Avios points via a Tesco promotion or a credit card sign-up.
The other aspect of interest is the bonus on transferring Avios to someone else (ie your partner!). This is also a poor deal, though. Transferring the maximum 24,000 Avios to someone else incurs a fee of €160. Assuming that you receive (30% x 24,000) 7,200 Avios as a bonus, you will have effectively paid €160 for them. That works out at 1.86p per Avios – very poor indeed.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to see our latest articles on earning and spending your points and click here to see our list of current Avios promotions.)
About Head for Points
Raffles,
What about looking at this a different way. Pay €54 for 2,600 (rather than 2,000) to activate your Iberia account with a valid transaction (which in theory must actually come with a guarantee of turning up) – does this make the easiest way of crediting a valid transaction?
A free way to activate an Iberia account is to transfer some ereward points takes about 5/6days, Dont forget an ereward account can be changed to any name good for topping up FF accounts
Certainly the easiest, unless you have some hotel points to transfer.
Don’t forget also that you cannot move Avios from IB Plus to a household BA Exec Club account, as I found out to my chagrin this week.
Move them via avios.com: iberia-avios-BA
Have never had any problems this way and have held BAEC family for years.
Tried that too – won’t allow me to move any way other than into IB from either BA or Avios :-/
Luckily on 599 stuck there.
As usual, loving the blog! Looking for some advice from other points lovers.
I have been diligently saving up my points for the last 12 months and now 160,000 avios and a companion voucher, which I plan to redeem on 2 x BA First flights to Tokyo in April 2015.
I am currently trying to hit the £2,000 spend for 20,000 membership rewards on my Amex gold charge card, which will give me the 180,000 I need – but if I don’t hit the spending in the required time, what would be the best way to purchase the remaining 20K Avios that I need?
I have a suspicion that buying directly from BA will not be the most cost-effective option, but happy to be proved wrong.
Could you simply buy gift vouchers for websites/stores you would normally shop in anyway on your AMEX to take you to the £2000? eg: Amazon/Sainsbury
Or, not sure how ethical this is, book very expensive rooms on a fully refundable rate in a hotel quite far in advance, get your sign-up bonus then cancel the booking so you’re refunded after your MR points have credited & been transferred to Avios.
I would personally buy a few hundred quid of vouchers for your usual supermarket chain. Easy and no risk of not using them.
You could very quickly up the avios numbers with the extra 150 cc points in tesco for every £50 worth of gift cards. Buy john Lewis gift cards on line with the 3v cards, waitrose can give change from vouchers too, useful if you need milk etc. As every £1 spent gives you roughly 9 avios via the tesco route, using your amex to pay for them and scanning your tesco master card or even club card. Definitely as raffles says, get supermarket cards etc. shouldn’t take you too long. One other thing is to buy UK sterling traveller cheques via amex forex website, then pay them back into your bank account later on, as a last resort, that is. Useful short cut.
Or buy Japanese yen !
Does buying Euros in cash on the BAPP card via the travel money service (as opposed to Moneycorp) still count as a purchase (rather than a cash advance) thus earning Avios AND counting towards the spending threshold to activate a bonus (2-4-1 or signup) ?
Yes